Eric

TROLL may have the clue of the year so far. ICOULDEATAHORSE was the gateway to the east, and SILVERBRACELET quickly followed. The west was a much harder nut to crack for me. I liked the grid layout with the long verticals. Interestingly, the longer answers were easier to fill for me than many of the shorter ones.

I absolutely loved this puzzle. I was suspicious when SCOWL didn't fit at 14-Across, and when SIMONCOWELL didn't fit at 21-Across, I decided to just fill it in, leaving the holes empty. When I did so, the penny dropped on the theme and I was off to the races. The down "hole" entries were all good, but I especially like CHOLER. Finally, I really appreciated being able to ljust eave the holes blank.

Very enjoyable puzzle and a quick solve for me. I was glad the site connected the dots so I could see the RABBIT and the DUCK with minimal effort.

I love a puzzle with an art theme. Great fun with enough misdirection to keep me on my toes.

As I solved this puzzle, it was still June 11, which would have been my father's 94th birthday. A fun puzzle; DADAISM was great.

I haven’t finished today’s puzzle yet. Just dropping in to say the new Games app interface is terrible. Low information, less usable, and aesthetically unappealing. Please revert to the former interface.

I absolutely LOVED this puzzle!!! Even though my career path is technical, I've always loved art and have planned many trips around art exhibitions. The fill was fun, too. PETRI as clued is just one example.

A super fun puzzle today. While I appreciate the dad joke themers, EEYORE was this puzzle's crowning glory.

A fun theme that was well executed.

I'll just join the chorus of people singing the praises of this puzzle. GASSTATIONSUSHI, ANHEIRANDASPARE, DEADTREEEDITION, and THISISANOUTRAGE may be the best collection of spanners that I've seen.

Not to tread on Lewis' clues of the week, but this is my clue of the week so far, and I seriously doubt anything tomorrow will top this one: Artist who made a lot of good points I laughed and immediately filled in SEURAT.

A thoroughly enjoyable puzzle. I loved the theme, especially VICIOUSCYCLES. Even though I heard SLADE more times than I cared to as a youth, I couldn't pull the name out until I had several crossers. LEACHMAN, SATSHIVA, CAMUS, CHIANTI, TODDY all added some sparkle to the puzzle.

I thoroughly enjoyed Dana's debut puzzle, and I am very glad that he didn't HALFASS it.

An enjoyable puzzle and a solid Tuesday.

Fun theme. ELLA and ETTA on the first row, followed by the not as frequent DINAH was a mini theme. I really enjoyed the cluing on the fill, especially for NUN, OMAHA, and COIN.

The rhymes were fun and the trivia was interesting (NOVAK, for instance), which made for an enjoyable solve.

A fun bedtime snack on Christmas Eve!

Fun puzzle. Halfway between my best and my average. I blipped over the themers to start. When I got enough crossing letters to clue me into the first one, the rest rapidly fell. I really liked STRAUSS, which took me a hot minute to figure out as I kept running through jeans brands in my head. I also really appreciated BUSINESSSCHOOL with its three consecutive S's and BAREESSENTIALS as well.

I would have finished under my average but for the SE corner. I'd never heard of an OPDOC, and I was trying variations of Jean(e) until the light bulb lit. With JOANN, all became clear.

This was a fabulous puzzle. I'll even forgive AOLER. Using ONE as one of the rebuses was a nicely confusing trick. I had promptly put in WISHBONE and left the rest blank. A few crossers later, I realized it was WISHB(ONE)FORMATION, and (ONE)DGE worked great, so I promptly solved YEARO(FOUR)LORD, but couldn't figure out the across. Same with SATUR(NINE). Down nailed, but couldn't figure out the across. Then the penny (nickel???) dropped with the revealer. Or maybe in the admittedly overdue currency overhaul, the I should thank the revealer for the dime?

The magic of eight hours of sleep! I hit a wall about two-thirds of the way through last night, and then steadily knocked out the remainder while enjoying my first mug of tea on the screen porch on this delightful 64 degree morning.

Not my jam at all. Like many others , I found FEMININESIDE to be a ridiculous bit of misogyny, and qualifying it with "might be" in no way removes that. Does anyone say EVENER? I've only ever heard "more even". Regardless, I found it to be an awkward fit for its clue. Something can be EVENER without being essentially level, and something that was essentially level wouldn't be EVENER than something that was level. Weak. On the plus side, I was amused by ICANTEVEN and KEG stand.

This was a very fun, very clean puzzle. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's always fun to fill in spanners like SAN ANTONIO SPURS and NOTMYFIRSTRODEO immediately.

Greg's RUSHJOBS clue was far superior to the editorial substitution in my mind. Of course, the first album I ever bought was Permanent Waves, so I may have a different perspective than most. Like many, the SE corner was nearly my downfall. I was proud to recognize NBA on my first pass, and RDA was a straightforward fill, but the rest... The puzzle was a smooth solve for me otherwise, with each pass through the grid filling in more answers. An enjoyable way to start my Saturday.

I found this to be a fun and clever puzzle, and I was quite surprised by the amount of whining in the comments. If you don't know what a COZY MYSTERY is, I suggest more frequent trips to your local independent bookstore. The first Blue Jays pitcher I thought of was Dave Stewart, but STIEB came to me when I got the B on the cross. On the other hand, there are a bunch of "too easy" comments. If I find a puzzle to be easier than expected for a given day, I view that as a little gift. Just because it was easy for me, I don't assume that it will be easy for everyone else.

I'm glad Mr. Neuthaler persevered, because submission #40 was a winner! A really fun theme that was well-executed. I especially appreciated BLOODTYPO as the first theme entry.

Clever construction and a very fun solve!

Missed my best by nine seconds. A fun Monday with a cute theme. Glad I chose to leave a couple of ambiguous entries blank, as it is faster to type on the second pass than to delete and then type.

I appreciate Sam pointing out the good and the bad. I agree that UPC was cleverly clued and that ANAG should never appear in a crossword.

A very enjoyable trip back to my youth. Thanks for that!

I have lived in the South for nearly 40 years, and I've never heard "that dog don't hunt." It's always "that dog WON'T hunt." My wife, who is a Mississippi native, agrees. To those who may roll their eyes at the many posts on this, I refer you to the great Zabar's deli debate a few months back.

UZI/SUZIE is quite the natick. Maybe Stranger Things viewers see her name spelled out in the show, but SUsIE is my default spelling for that name. The puzzle had some fun elements, but too much awkward fill to be enjoyable for me.

CTRLALTDEL was an instafill, and quite a rewarding one at that. Much better than being forced to do a three-finger salute because your computer has locked up. This puzzle didn't feel particularly easy as I worked my way through it, but I ended up finishing well under my average but a bit above my record. The rating of the difficulty of a puzzle will always be subjective to the solver. I've blown through puzzles that others have struggled with, and vice-versa. To me, the day of the week is a rough guideline of difficulty, not an objective measure etched in stone. There are many weeks where I've struggled mightily with a Friday and made steady and joyful progress the following day with the Saturday puzzle. And that's okay.

Like Deb, I enjoyed all the theme-adjacent fill. Fun, as a Monday puzzle should be.

It didn't take me long to see that either up or down would fly in the circled squares in this delightful Wednesday rebus puzzle. For those that fear the rebus, this should provide a gentle entry path to successfully solving one.

I was confused initially when ROCKCLIMBER didn't work but I figured the answer would reveal itself eventually. Sure enough, after several crosses the answer became obvious, and then I rapidly filled in the rest of the themers. I had to let go of TCM for Turner Classic Movies and to with TMC for The Movie Channel, even though cinephiles watch the former moreso than the latter. However, that was the only way the SPIDERMAN was going to scale that wall. Fun puzzle!

Ah. Minesweeper. Often a diversion from work one should have been doing on the computer. I didn't immediately recognize the purpose of the numbers (perhaps because there were so few of them) but when looking at MINESWEEPER in proximity to UNDERMINE/DETERMINE, the light bulb finally turned on, and my appreciation for the puzzle increased many fold. A very clever and enjoyable puzzle.

"Lea low?" almost laid me low before I heard the cow's bellow. . . . . . MOO