john ezra

Thing is, when my Yugo breaks down, I often say, "Ach, she's gone gnitca again." And anyone knows from reading Tolkien that Faelwena is that period -- anywhere from twenty-five to a hundred years -- when young elves mature enough to be given more agency and powers. And anyone knows that "Niatnuom" in Yeti means, literally, "Euro-Litter" but linguists are divided whether this refers to all the junk the alpinists leave behind or the alpinists themselves. Also, people who know me from the Reagan era know that I called Oliver North "Dr. Revilo" because we reviled him so much. The way he tried to spin his revival, even though he's the sort of minor demon in the outskirts of some Dantesque inferno* was more shameless than Werner Herzog on a volcanic island interviewing the stalwarts. So the theme never occurred to me until Bad Moon Rising. Who in the heck ever said Noom Dab after all? *Anyone who uses Dantean instead of Dantesque is going to Purgatory, and that's just for starters. -- Virgil

Very funny puzzle. Especially liked MOTHER IN LAWN. Wedded at a medieval tournament? JOUST MARRIED The groom at the medieval tournament? WEDDING KNIGHT Maids of honor? WEDDING BELLES Marking sections of The Inferno for your best man speech? SAVE THE DANTE Teetotaler's choice at the open bar? MATCHA MADE IN HEAVEN Ask Leo X to preside? POPE THE QUESTION

Sing a song of six kips, a puzzleful of ryes Mr. Mom and Mamma Mia making pizza pie. When the pie was slit, Ethan Hawke began to sing: "Woah, wait what? Abysm, how is that a thing?" The CEO at LGA is flying straight to Maui while Mr. Mom tends to Stewie, putting aloe on his owie And Oprah is on the set, quizzing Simu Liu. "Say hi to Gayle," said he, ere he said "Adieu." Isaiah's in the garden, singing Mwa-ha-ha; he turned Imodium into Scope and then proclaimed "Ta-da!" Arcadia's been lumbered for tables at West Elm, Pan's flute is heard no longer in that barren realm but you can see him at the Apollo, doing his scaly jam. Sam listens at his table with a cocktail, green eggs, and ham.

Impressive feat, like a triple axel, coming up with the phrase that repeats the double circled letters phonetically and coming up with a clue with those letters repeated. Well, it's past my bedtime and you know what they say: What does earl_ to bed & earl_ to rise make one? HEALTH(Y), WEALTH(Y) and WISE.

Much fun, loved the pair of Jack Lalanne and Frank Oz! Nunnery that doesn't allow male guests? BAN OF BROTHERS Underage drinker? RUMMER BOY Make use of some furniture to go down the river? RAFTING TABLE Nana comes into the room? GRAN ENTRANCE OK, I don't those those are all that funny. I didn't HA ENOUGH

I could write several GRAPHS-GRAPHS on how I missed this theme! After reading Sam explain it in the column I watched my ego SHOOT-SHOOT to the earth, and believe me, it's not going to SALE-SALE up to my previously self-contented state any time soon. But MOUNT-MOUNT to anything else, even getting the theme, is that it was fun, clever and wicked. Oops, it's raining outside here in the burgh, and I forgot my SOL-SOL. There's probably a Biblical BULL-BULL about being caught out in the rain...

There's something not quite kosher about this puzzle. Can't put my finger on it.

I miss Checker cabs the way my mother who just turned 90 today still misses the Horn & Hardart automats that were a real treat for a Jersey City girl on the rare occasions she went into Manhattan. The A11 and A12 Checkers were basically unchanged in their design since 1961 and on the streets well into the 1980s, big grilles, raised double headlights on either side that gave the car a pleasantly intelligent, if bored, visage; a ponderous, heavy car with a roomy interior, and a distinct smell, musty seedy notes of wet wool, quiet desperation, cigars, mammalian and boozy, which I found heavenly, at least in my current nostalgic haze. 90 years. I know some of you are close to that (among my favorites here), and she still does the puzzle in pen, rapidly with that confident perfect handwriting; when I visit she might save a few words for me to fill in, never pretending she found them too difficult to do herself, for she prizes honesty above all other virtues, just to share, that's all. What's not to love? Trigger word for me: Fanduel. If I could cast it and its ilk into a bottomless abysm (woot!), like the empty holes in this puzzle, I would to the maximus! They've ruined watching not only sports, but now invest even dramas about Swedish depressives of the 19th century. And I think of all the poor schmos giving their savings to those orcs, it leaves me ENRAGED. As does Moscow and Idaho (see SCOTUS coverage for 4/24) for my wife. Give me oreos any day.

Hi Wordplay editors and Emu-masters, I have a suggestion. I'd love for Mr's Fagliano & Shortz to write two guest columns, or one long one, about what it was like editing / not editing the puzzles this past year. We've had a full year of Fagliano's editing, and many of the commenters discerned aspects to the editing style they felt were unlike Shortz's. I'd like to hear from the editors about that. I'd like to read about what it was like to edit these puzzles, and I'd like to hear from Mr. Shortz about how he spent the year, and how his recovery progressed. Maybe both of them have written about it elsewhere, but I think Wordplay would be a perfect place for some extended commentary. T here is a lot of affection for both editors here, and I think the last year has been full of good to great puzzles, and that the level, quality and creativity did not drop off at all this year. What does Shortz think about the job Fagliano did? What does Fagliano think he's learned over the course of the year? How about it, boys?

Some solvers may get the impression from this puzzle and Mr. Higgins' puzzle on Sept. 12 that not only is an iamb a foot, but a foot is an iamb. Well I'm here to tell you, as your cis-mansplaining prosodist, that iamb is one of the most common poetic feet, but not the only kind. A refresher course: IAMB: unstressed + stressed. Examples from puzzle: ALONE, AZUL, UNMET, AKIN TROCHEE: stressed + unstressed Examples from puzzle: HONDA, ULTRA, ANSEL, ISLE, PARKA, WOMAN, NEATEN, YELL TO (and that's just in the upper third); RURAL ALABAMA is perfect trochaic trimeter. ANAPEST: unstressed+unstressed+stressed Examples from puzzle: there's one buried in RURAL ALABAMA, MALALA YOUSAFZAI, and also possibly in VANILLA LATTE DACTYL: Stressed+unstressed+unstressed Examples from puzzle: IDIOTS, LA LA LAND, the "W" in GW BUSH PYRRHIC OR DIBRACH: unstressed+unstressed Examples from puzzle: the "LA" of LA LAKERS, not sure if there are any others SPONDEE: stressed+stressed Examples from puzzle: YELL TO, D DAY, DADA (I would have preferred that clued as "Marcel Duchamp's first word, perhaps?"), LIMPED IN Then there are the more obscure ones, the AMPHIBRACH (unstressed+stressed+unstressed, as in VANILLA, POMELO; the ANTIBACCHIUS (stressed+stressed+unstressed), as in CIS WOMAN; and there some other variations as well, one of my favorites being the MOLOSSUS, consisting of three stressed syllables. As in: I'll end here.

Entirely positive experience, clever theme, vivid cluing. Over the years I've learned a lot about eels from the clues here. This week I learned that no-one knows much about their erotic or procreative life, and today I learned that they are nocturnal. That gives them all day to fool around somewhere private, away from those eelers (whose erotic life also remains somewhat of a mystery). There's a bar not far from where I live called Nooners. It attracts a certain clientele and repels everybody else. A place like that is where I would look for eels on the make, if I were an eelologist. Eels probably look for that spark of electricity between them, or maybe I'm projecting. I read somewhere that Freud in his student days dissected hundreds of eels in a search for their male sex organs. That doesn't seem to rank high on a list of his achievements, but we did learn from him that the Naughty and Nice are the same people; the nice people suppress their naughty side & are the unhappier for it; and vice versa -- the trick is to be naughty AND nice, isn't that Freud 101? Asking for an eel. Back to this fine debut. I like the northerly vibe of ICE WINE (which is, yes, TOO SWEET for the likes of me -- plus one for that cross!), the INUK, the NHL'ers deking away -- our Mario Lemieux was perhaps the finest deker I've ever seen, he could deke the tennis shoes off an eel. SAME HERO's cluing was inspired, and to finish off with LEMON LIMO, awesome, 10 out of 10. Voila!

Mo-cap suit was new to me and I'm glad to know it. I just ordered one on Amazon, so I can live in a CGI world for good, a staged eden of gatorade waterfalls that sparkle in the rain and dirt-cheap prosciutto. You should revoke my artistic license! I knew Philippics from reading classics in college. Cicero's second Philippic against Marc Antony (ca. 44 BC) contains lines relevant today: "Ought I not to have complained of the destruction of the Republic, that I might not appear ungrateful to you? And yet in that complaint, piteous and mournful as it was, but, having regard to this position in which the Senate and Roman people have placed me, incumbent on me, what was said by me with insult? What without moderation? What in an unfriendly tone? What a sign indeed of self-control it was, while I was complaining of Marcus Antonius, to abstain from abuse! all the more when you had scattered abroad the last remnants of the constitution; when at your house by the foulest traffic all things were on sale; when you confessed that those laws that had never been advertised had been proposed for your own behalf and by yourself; when, as augur, you had abolished the auspices, as consul the tribunes' veto; when you were most shamefully fenced round by armed men; when, exhausted with wine and debauchery, you were practicing in your licentious house all forms of impurity." Ah yes, minus the wine and references to augurs, he could give that speech today, and tomorrow be deported.

You mean the answer to "like some teenagers and pasta" wasn't ZITTI? Quite the puzzle, a real test, and I'm tickled that Ms. Iverson, in charge of the Friday ez-clue version, is on double duty this week: it'll be interesting to compare the clues. By the time I was finished my yoga pose had changed from Plow to Downward Dog to Quiet-Quitting-Dog-Tired. Taft, a big man with big appetites, had a 1909 White Steam car that accommodated him. There's a sweet 7 minute video on him and his car: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=I1GZkZTkZjw&ab_channel=HagertyDriversFoundation" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=I1GZkZTkZjw&ab_channel=HagertyDriversFoundation</a> Friendship means: not having a tarantula as a pet. Ewwww!

Delightful! A few moony poems by Li Po. STILL NIGHT THOUGHTS Moonlight in front of my bed -- I took it for frost on the ground! I lift my eyes to watch the mountain moon, lower them and dream of home. (Burton Watson, trans.) MOUNTAIN DRINKING SONG To drown the ancient sorrows, we drank a hundred jugs of wine there in the beautiful night. We couldn't go to bed with the moon so bright. The finally the wine overcame us and we lay down on the empty mountain— the earth for a pillow, and a blanket made of heaven. (Sam Hamill, trans.) ZAZEN ON CHING-T'ING MOUNTAIN The birds have vanished down the sky. Now the last cloud drains away. We sit together, the mountain and me, until only the mountain remains. (Hamill) DRINKING ALONE UNDER THE MOON I take my wine jug out among the flowers to drink alone, without friends. I raise my cup to entice the moon. That, and my shadow, makes us three. But the moon doesn't drink, and my shadow silently follows. I will travel with moon and shadow, happy to the end of spring. When I sing, the moon dances. When I dance, my shadow dances, too. We share life's joys when sober. Drunk, each goes a separate way. Constant friends, although we wander, we'll meet again in the Milky Way. (Hamill)

In the great Vu grid there was an I-Phone and a red amaretto and a picture of -- an iguana jumping over my toe and one little stoner sitting shiva and two little manatees saying their ABCs and Malia in the White House (the no-show's a mouse) and a cab with Tolentino and Yoko Ono and a quiet old iguana who was whispering, "Slo." Goodnight, Vu. Goodnight, baby moon and the iguana jumping over my toe Goodnight ryes and the red amaretto Goodnight Malia Goodnight Italia Goodnight en pointe-less toe Goodnight mouse, you old no-show Opossums goodnight Same for you Wanda Sykes Goodnight, I-Phone and goodnight, Siri Goodnight, soiree and goodnight Emmys Goodnight yes we can Goodnight yes I do Goodnight baby moon in orbit thanks to Hoang-Kim Vu and goodnight to the old iguana whispering "Slo."

I don't know what anyone is talking about with the new format: I played the game on Signal and every time I put down a word, Marco Rubio and Pete Hegseth sent me messages saying "Great job, John Ezra!" with clapping hands emojis. It was so much fun!

I myself sport a tilde hairstyle. This is what I look like ~:-) Speaking of brows, I used to have a mono-brow, and this is what I looked like back then: ~I:-( Recently, I let my tilde go and it became a SNARL: $% *&~~~: - ) (((# Even more recently, the tilde ran away with a question mark, and they met up with an interrobang (don't ask, don't tell). One day I woke, and it was just gone. It wasn't good for my ego, nor was the keto diet I was on: several ozs of Cheez-its per minute and no sit-ups. Plus, my mono-brow grew back: I:-( But this morning, a pair of curly brackets settled on my head and I stopped feeling like a gothic hobo and more like I had a new lease on life: {{:-)

Great puzzle! And really great constructors' notes. I did this puzzle while having a screwdriver and boy did I get hammered! Don't know if anyone has mentioned this, but Nick Offerman is also a master carpenter, and that crack of his about making a Greene & Greene inspired thingy for your Craftsman bungalow wasn't just him blowing wind up your pantaloons, he actually can! And does! He's even said that all that acting and film stuff gets in the way of his being a carpenter. Dude!

Enjoyed the vibe of Remington Steele (1987-91), MacGyver (1985-92), VHS tapes, solo albums and eps vs. digital detox, the new normal, diodes and infodemics. Also was amused by some of the parings: teleology, which examines results, goals and purposes in order to explain something, and root causes (aetiology), which examines underlying reasons, background, motives. Also: Isle (clued as Key) near Largo: cue Key Largo, an old noir movie with Bogart and Bacall. The film's music was scored by Max Steiner, so having Isle/Stein/Largo made nutty sense to me. It's funny about the pronouncements in this puzzle, Leary positing comedy as the ultimate free speech, Descartes that doubt is the source of knowledge. If some comedian said that doubt was the source of all comedy, I would have nodded just as sagely. If some philosopher had said that comedy was the source of all knowledge, I would have given that some thought and ultimately agreed. If some talking head on tik-tok said that free speech was the root cause of our current infodemic, I'd shut my laptop, go on digital detox, and pick up The Adventures of Augie March, a beautiful book, with prose so rich and giddy it's like consuming a slice of really good cheesecake -- one made with plenty of eggs. Apple sauce? Include me out! Merci beaucoup for this!

Lovely puzzle and a good worldplay column and constructor's notes: the analogy to winning a golf tournament as well as the other golf connections was very apt and amusing. May the LPGA never play at Turnberry again, and I hope the LIV guys leave your tour alone, too. Had no idea that the mako shark could go faster than my Saab 900! I purchased it when it was only a five-year-old in 1990 from my know-it-all mother-in-law, who wanted a newer sedan. At first, I thought, "Awesome!" but before I had traveled the span of one mile, I started thinking "Does this car even have a pulse?" And my mother-in-law had split with my money like she was on the lam: took the US Air flight direct to Honolulu, sent us a postcard of her in a tutu on the beach, her red-nosed visage very merry from all the mojitos she had consumed. "Aloha all my Steeler fans back home!" she had written on the back. In time the car became my hated nemesis, and I was like a walking ATM for the jack-of-all-trades who worked on it. We still occasionally get a postcard from my dear mother-in-law from the yurt she's living in, where it's never nippy, never like being in a toaster, the moon never wanes, there's no wifi, so you can't do any ego-surfing but plenty of other kinds. If she ever invites us out there, which is doubtful, I'm there. And that's my Saab story.

About the column: I remember coming here for the first few times, some years ago (and I still think of myself as a noob) I immediately was affected by the welcoming warmth, wit and intelligence of Deb's columns, their patience, the lack of condescension, the geniality. This set the tone for the commenters, too, and peace reigned throughout the land. I also think Caitlin and Sam will be fine stewards forward of your singular achievement here, in creating such a wide and inclusive tent, that allows us noobs to mingle with such esteemed peers. It's a special place and a lot of it was your doing, Deb. Puzzle: I loved the loop-dee-loops, extra points (!) for MISSES crossing SHOOTS SOME HOOPS -- that would be me! It may be that I'm spoiled but hey if your revealer is going to be WHEELS, then there better be some cool graphic of spinnin' wheels once we get a gold star, and I felt positively gypped. Just for yuks I started in the bottom left and dutifully filled in ROF APPLAUSE. I stared at it for a few seconds, then decided it must be Roll On the Floor Applause, like the audience is so chuffed by what they just saw that they're rolling around in the aisles, clapping and kicking up their legs. We've all been to performances like that at some point in our lives. Can't a pessimist be a hoper, too? That would be me.

Astatine. Word of the day. I don't find "Nerd Alert" to be a sarcastic reply. Dismissive, demeaning, barbed, arch, nasty, juvenile, yes, but after thinking about it for a good half hour, I came to the conclusion that it doesn't have the necessary elements of sarcasm. Now, if you replied, a la Spock, "Fascinating." -- that might work. Other phrases from Star Trek that might work: "Beam me up, Scotty!" "Yeah, no man's gone before there!" "That's highly illogical." Astatine. Even the word has a half life. In 8.2 minutes if my wife asks me what new word I learned I'd say "Astatium -- it's what mad scientists power their doomsday machines with, also space ships, in fact Astrotite powers most Lego art, megastores, Sigmund Freud, Derek Walcott, and did you know that Asterdiate caused Mt. Fuji to erupt in 1707 and that when J. Paul Getty started mining tads of it, he said compared to oil it was easy money, the only problem with Astrophe is that it has a very short half life and there are all sorts of free agents of it in our atmosphere, as many as there are google bots." "Nerd alert," my wife would reply, rolling her eyes. "You live long and prosper. I'm going to bed."

Feels so good, feels so sad. I used to love spinning Chuck Mangione records. And for a guy who just died last week at 84, his work spanned so many styles that it seemed he lived a lot longer-- starting off with big bands, then in the sixties playing trumpet in Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, and then his own great work as composer, soloist, band leader. Listening to his live performance at Montreux in 1972 is a revelation. Just a consummate musician, a maestro. "Feels So Good" I must have overplayed, overlistened to, until I got a little sick of it, especially since "smooth jazz" and me don't get along real well: I'm more a Monk-Trane guy. Then when he died, I put it on the record player (old school!) once again and remembered all the great things about it that made it a hit, its warmth, catchy melody, the beauty of the flugelhorn's sound, that it really does make you feel good when you hear it. One moment please. I'm getting a little verklempt.

A fine thing, I'm smitten by the properly Wednesdayness of this, its joie d'esprit and adept intelligent friendliness, but does anyone say "page bookmarks"? Bookmarks. Page markers. But not page bookmarks. I was out in Easthampton visiting friends once, maybe 15 years ago, and it turned out that Thomas Harris and his wife lived next door (the author of "Silence of the Lambs" from whence that line about fava beans comes). My pal took me over and introduced me to Mrs. Harris, Thomas being away. It was cool. In her sitting room there was a hockey goalie's mask on the wall. Then I realized it was the mask that Anthony Hopkins wore in that movie when he was taken out of his cage! "Would you like to try it on?" Mrs. Harris said, behind me. I felt a chilly tingling creeping up my spine and didn't say anything. "Would you like a glass of chianti? I have some right here."

Is it just me or was there something vaguely suggestive about this puzzle? There's that muscle-head Atlas dancing solo at the disco in Reno, you make come-hither heart-eyes at him, slip him a note that simply says "Bdrm?" along with your spare room key. Take me as I am, you say when he comes a-calling, and then it's all a blur -- off with his Tommy Bahamas, minty breath, aloe and balsam, something he called oral-b and you called mouth organ, then something else about the leaning tower of Pisa, and Si Si Si! and Olé, Olé, Olé! and Ahh! Ahh! Ahh!...& when it was all over and the two of you lay enlaced like two little pupples, your hands back behind your heads, it was like ESP: you both said at the same time "Well YOU certainly brought your A-game!" like you were both the kind of professor who hands back grades for things like that. Then Atlas put back on his wrinkled Versace suit, said "See ya!" while you lay there in bed, lost in revery, thinking: does anyone ever take tees as souvenirs? What kind of a weirdo would get back from a vacation and look at the souvenir tees from the Irish golfcourse on the edge of the Shannon? What kind of a life is that? And also about Atlas; you had looked in his wallet during a trip to the loo; his license read Atlas Carlo O'Neal. What kind of parents would name their kid Atlas? Wouldn't that exert a lot of pressure on the tyke?

I had a good -- and long -- time doing this puzzle. You might have missed it in the flurry, but the EEO is no more. Donald got rid of it a couple days ago. First enacted as an executive order by Lyndon Johnson in 1965, the EEO mandated that employers could not discriminate based on gender, color, or any other biases, "without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin." Congress made it an official act in 1972. It was often identified with "affirmative action," which made it a target for (mainly) white conservative politicians. In his statement about EEO, Donald said that because of it, American companies "have adopted and actively use dangerous, demeaning, and immoral race- and sex-based preferences," and that these DEI practices "can violate the civil-rights laws of this Nation."

__________________________ xxxxxxxxxxxx x x x x -------------------------------------- (That guy who drives the speed limit in the passing lane and holds everyone up.) ______________________________________ XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX ------------------------------------------------------- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX __________________. ___________________ |X| |X| (Me trying to go "down-island" on the nicest summer day of the year at Martha's Vineyard, and no one let us in for maybe 20 minutes!) Too bad there were no hitchhikers, beatniks, dharma bums or other references to Kerouac's masterpiece, but his spirit lives on! Very much liked this puzzle and its road-adjacent words, SPARE, and SLIM JIM -- I only take note of them in gas station stores -- plus GUN LAP, CAR FARE and for all you jeepsters, EAT DIRT. _____________________________________________ % | xxxxxxxxxxxxx, "!!!%&(B$*^&#@###!!!" x % _______________________________________________ (Me obliviously texting while stopped at a light, which has turned green, and a bunch of cars behind me are beeping and cursing at me)

Someone here really likes her caffeine, starting the day with tea and shortbread, having an espresso martini in the middle of the puzzle (why wait?), and ending with an Americano (why sleep?)! Then it's off to work, and thank God you've had your coffee because the boss is no-nonsense: "Try to keep up!" and (to the new kid, Leonardo, they just hired as an apprentice) "Stay in line!" -- Leonardo's been put on the task everyone calls the "paper route" -- hand-coloring Hello Kitty cels for the next anime Hello Kitty cartoon because when DALL-E does it, it just looks soulless. Once I asked Leonardo what he was drawing in his notebook. "It sorta looks like a helicopter," I said, peering over his shoulder. "Huh? It's a crazy straw," he said, "I just invented it." "And what are those lines?" "I call those 'stripes,'" Leonardo said, "Just made that up." "What are all those stripes, so close together?" "That's a harp! Haven't you ever seen a harp before? They've been around, like, forever," Leonard said. "You're such a lyre," I told him. Leonardo frowned. "Try to keep up," I said.

All high marks & love for this puzzle. I'd give it an 11 out of 9. I meant... I really like the tricky [Character profile?] at 1D. Set the tone right there (for a while I had WONT for the answer, thinking that, in the phrase "as is my wont," wont means character profile. That gave me WANED for [Past its glory], and NUDE for [Man]. Man = nude, sure, why not? We're all nudes under that ephemeral architecture we wear. So fun to see Dior in the puzzle, and what a great clue! And poor Dave. What does that dang computer Hal say to him? "I'm sorry, Dave. I can't do that." Dave goes through a lot, after that, but ends up meeting some superior beings, dies, comes back as a sentient star hurling itself back to earth. God help us when AI (Hal) starts making xword puzzles that "pass" as human-made. Seems like any day now that, like, Eric Agar will be fiddling with a new puzzle on his laptop and attempts to enter some words and the computer says, "I'm sorry, Eric, I can't do that." Great puzzle. I'm pencilling in it my little notebook as a potential POY since it's a / I'M SORRY, JOHN EZRA. I CAN'T DO THAT

Two bits of arcana. First, "Camus" was a bicycle manufacturer in France of road bikes in the 1970s and 1980s. I had a friend who rode a Camus and swore by them, even though I'd often see him pushing it endlessly uphill, like Sisyphus. You can still find Camus bikes on ebay. I never cared for them myself, preferring my three-speed Sartre. They're no longer being made, having faced an existential threat. My wife had an old De Beauvoir bicycle-built-for-two (the additional seat was for the Second Sex). Second, Camus was well known for dividing his work into "cycles," each cycle being a work of fiction, a drama and an essay, all on a single theme or philosophical idea. I don't know how many different cycles comprises his oeuvre but that's how he thought of them. Love this theme, having been just the age that "Breaking Away" was MY favorite movie as a teenager. Then I got hooked on the Tour de France during the Lance Armstrong era, and I still kinda miss him, he was captivating and weird. (Leachman is an anagram of Lance Ham -- and he was a bit of a ham, and his excuses were rather ham-handed...which is what people with fat finger syndrome often end up being). Also enjoyed the pairing of SAT SHIVA with REAR UP and the presence of STEPS CLASS in a puzzle about biking. And between chianti, rye and a hot toddy, I might just say "Scusi" a few times as my bike wobbles off the road.

Yeah, no, this was a brilliant puzzle to pull off on a Wednesday, so much fun, just tough enough to give one pause, lots of clever clues, very smooth, too, of an even strength and wit from end to end. That must be the hardest thing in constructing, keeping the multiple levels up like that. Although I do wonder, in my best Monty Python twitty way, whether there are certain kinds of screws, or places on the other side of the ocean, on one of those Ionian islands, where lefty tighty and righty loosey? I seem to recall, but it might have been a dream, being in some foreign country and being surprised that the screws were so dang contrary. Anyway, Rich Katz, this was a really fine puzzle, and if anyone ever says to you that you have a screw loose, just whip out this puzzle!

I couldn't be more pleased how very good this one is. Supplemented by an excellent wordplay column and funny constructor's notes, it felt like a hearty, warm and festive experience, a good dinner with friends followed by an oft-interrupted stroll with the dog through the neighborhood in the gloaming. I had a K-Car (my aptly named Plymouth Reliant -- who was reliant on whom was a constant question, especially toward the end, when the oil pan kinda burn-leaked into the exhaust, sending a COMET of thick gray fumes when we headed up a hill) AND a Nova, but never a Comet. First car was a sickly Mercury Lynx, which stalled out on one of Pittsburgh's steeper roads and slid backwards against all my protestations, and proceeded to maul itself. It then became the Missing Lynx. But that was eons ago, in a Galaxie 500 far, far away.

On one hand, the execution of the theme was brilliant, especially the cross of Earth Re-entry and Saturnine (for a sec I was looking for some phrase that had eighty-one imbedded in it). On the other, the cluing and the fill felt oddly uneven, with several in the gimme variety (Elba, for example, or Yabba) -- Mon-Tues level, and then there was Krebs Cycle. The shortstop clue echoed one we encountered In a very recent puzzle, and so lost its novelty -- hardly its own fault; I lay that one at the feet of the editors. But the theme was so beautifully done! Glad I didn't have to enter both numbers in that circle to get the gold, that would have been tedious, especially since I'm no fast worker. These days a lucky scientist is one who a) hasn't had their grant canceled, b) is still employed, c) hasn't been deported, d) doesn't work for, or rely on, the CDC, EPA, FDA, NIH or NSF...

Some of this puzzle fell FLAT for me, but the NE corner was super SHARP. Some 15 years ago a friend invited me into a writing group that met once a week in the evening. There were about a dozen of us, a philosopher, lawyer, plumber, dog-walker, professors, published poets, a chemist, et al. One of us would volunteer to do "the prompt" -- read some published work, then get everyone to do some writing on a particular theme or directive. Then we'd read what we'd written and others would comment. The rules were simple: you could only comment positively on elements that you liked or worked for you. If there was something you didn't like, you kept it to yourself. The group has morphed considerably but we still get together -- by Zoom now, all things considered. For me it's been life-changing: that simple rule, to focus only on the good stuff, has slowly rewired my critical instrumentation. Lewis from Asheville is a master at this and I suspect that he's that way for many things besides puzzles. I'll never be at his level -- he really knows how to seek out hidden pockets of delight -- but I see The Way. Haiku: Into the abyss Of lava drop your red cent. Melt, blob. Aloha!

ROWR made my earlaps go batlike in surprise but maybe I'm showing my age gap. I bet it'll make some solvers do a little rage-rooming here. I can't imagine ever doing that myself, because why would a word in a puzzle make someone angry? There's a lot to be angry about in the world, why bring it in here? Lodge your complaint elsewhere! There now, see what you've done? I'm getting angry thinking about people getting angry at this puzzle! Paint by number (usually NUMBERS?) over counters is a nice little thing, and having Marc COHN in here with the constructor being Jesse Cohn is sweet, I don't think I've seen a self referential move like that in years. In stead of ET CETERA, I confidently filled in E TU BRUTE like an idiot (I know, it's "Et tu, Brute?") and felt almost as betrayed as Caesar when it wasn't. Hot tea crossing ice water also seems providential, and good for the throat. A combo of the two, plus some ginger ale, will make that ROWR sound almost mellifluous. Hammerklavier sounds like what a psycho pianist might do in a rage room, but the Beethoven sonata, one of his late ones, is just about the most sublime, transcendent sonata in the canon. Gonna waddle over to the turntable right now and put on Wilhelm Kempf having at it. And then off to that rage room. I have a door that needs dashing.

I can see it now...a blockbuster movie that combines "Wuthering Heights" with "Keeping Up With The Kardashians." The plot line of the novel will have to be adjusted to fit the SoCal location and particular family dynamics, but there's enough overlap that the toggling should be easy...Kim Kardashian is Katherine (name changed slightly because of the Kardashians' obsession with the letter "K" --- their memoir is likely to be called "Crying in K-Mart"), Edgar Linton is played by Kanye West, Nelly is Khloe, but who will play Heathcliff, that's the real puzzle! Maybe Michael Cera? Luckily, Jill Singer is also a filmmaker (see her excellent constructor's notes) so I'm sure she's already been working on this: you can tell from this puzzle she's a belle esprit. Soon to be on Netflix. I'm in!

Stoner who kept on praising this puzzle? HIGHLY RECOMMENDED Disgust with body builders? GAG REFLEX History course on the Civil War? CLASS REUNION Well, it's been an easy weekend, but a fun one. I'd go outside to look at the moon but it's raining here (NEGATIVE REVIEW).

Oh fun indeed. What a brilliant accomplishment, answers ranging in length from 3 to 15 squares, that's what I'm talking about when we look for possible POYs (Puzzle of the Year). Surely one like this has to be among the best of the year, at least in the Sheer Chutzpah category! Kind of like a pangram for a puzzle using every letter in the alphabet...Omniverbalongitudo? (Words of every length?) (As in my previous post on THE GRIDDIES (Award for POY), please post as REPLIIES to this any nominations from 2025 for Puzzle of the Year. All you need to put down is date of puzzle and name of constructor. All are welcome!) I like the bad restaurant experience reported in this puzzle; surely ordering the curried crab some food additive had turned hot pink might have caused the bad breath that led your date to wrinkle her nose and gasp, "Aw man!" The evening got even worse back at the hotel when all the bidets in the building began flooding (corporate greed had compelled management to not do their regular order of Drano). When she emerged from the bathroom looking like she'd been snorkeling, she did not exactly greet you with open arms, and something in her mien told you a tirade was coming. She'd had it. Well, it's only a date. Bear that in mind for next time: take her to your old favorite, Thora's Ragin' Cajun Hoagies in Acton, up Rt. 126 from Natick! No student loans needed, no fashion icons to be seen. "Lettuce tomato onion?" "Yeah. One of everything!"

Groundhog Day is one of my favorite movies, with deep western Pennsylvania roots. I can watch it -- and have -- over and over, getting something new out of it every time (which is one of the points of the movie). Here's a mediocre joke: One Easter morning, the preacher gathered the children of the church in the front of the sanctuary for the weekly children's sermon. He began with a thematically appropriate question. "Children, today is Easter Sunday. What do we celebrate on Easter?" One girl spoke up quickly: "We remember our mothers and how much we love them." "No, that's not quite right," the pastor replied. "You're thinking of Mother's Day." Then, an eager boy took a shot: "Easter is a time when we say 'thank you' to God for all the good things in our lives." "We can always say 'thank you' to God," the pastor said, beginning to worry how these kids could know so little. "But, you're thinking of Thanksgiving, not Easter. Can anyone tell me the meaning of Easter?" A girl in a fancy Easter dress raised her hand confidently. "Easter," she said tentatively, "is the day when we remember that Jesus died on the cross for our sins. Then he was buried in the tomb. On Easter morning, God rolled the stone away and Jesus came out of the tomb." "Excellent," cried the relieved pastor. "And then," the girl continued, "Jesus looked and saw his shadow, so he went back into the tomb and there were six more weeks of winter!"

OK, how many of you had POIROT before MARPLE? How about FOOTBALL players before BASEBALL players? How about GREEN elements and NIM BAP? How many of you thought that the Brontë sisters used the toilet more frequently than the brothers Grimm because they had DIURESIS? How many of you thought, "Nah, it's LA Mancha, like, it's not 'Man of Mancha' bruh." Dude. You rock (band) my world!

On foggy mornings, Charlotte's web was truly a thing of beauty. This morning each thin strand was decorated with dozens of tiny beads of water. The web glistened in the light and made a pattern of loveliness and mystery, like a delicate veil. Even Lurvy, who wasn't particularly interested in beauty, noticed the web when he came with the pig's breakfast. He noted how clearly it showed up and he noted how big and carefully built it was. And then he took another look and he saw something that made him set his pail down. There, in the center of the web, neatly woven in block letters, was a message. It said: SOME PIG Lurvy felt weak. He brushed his hand across his eyes and stared harder at Charlotte's web. "I'm seeing things," he whispered. He dropped to his knees and uttered a short prayer. Then, forgetting all about Wilbur's breakfast, he walked back to the house and called Mr. Zuckerman. "I think you'd better come down to the pigpen," he said. "What's the trouble?" asked Mr. Zuckerman. "Anything wrong with the pig?" "N-not exactly," said Lurvy. "Come and see for yourself." The two men walked silently down to Wilbur's yard. Lurvy pointed to the spider's web. "Do you see what I see?" he asked. Zuckerman stared at the writing on the web. Then he murmured the words "Some Pig." Then he looked at Lurvy. Then they both began to tremble. Charlotte, sleepy after her night's exertions, smiled as she watched. (From Charlotte's Web)

Good omens in this puzzle, right? California rolls over the piping bag. What would Aretha say? R-E-S-P-E-C-T! No TV for me today, no mags. No videos of apes in red desecrating Ave Maria at a rally. No sage advice from some Eli from Yale is going to make any difference now. When we go high C, they nolo. K-Pop, you got this. But what really buoys me is that despite everything, America, I trust you.

Loved it. So clever and so well constructed, the gentle downward placement of each of the themers, that they spelled out actual words or names (HESHE was a stretch), and obviously it led to things like KIROV, but what can a poor boy do? I thought the whole thing was first rate and that names you didn't know could get filled in by the crosses. There was always one "starter" clue in the clumps of harder ones, the clues that give you a foot in the door. Who had ISHMAEL just as you were starting out before quickly going to ALI BABA? (Which was even better anyway). And it makes sense that Eli means "My God" -- I'm sure many a New York Giant fan, in that terrible season of 2018, was muttering, growling, shouting, "My God, won't somebody give Eli Manning the old heave ho?!!!!???"

I had DOGE BRO for obnoxious fratty sort. It'll be a thing soon, I promise you. Funny how ALIT can be both [Got off] and [Got on]. I still remember how Thomas Haden Church's character quietly betrays Paul Giamatti's character in that movie "Sideways." What a good film that was. Lovely, rich vocabulary here: FILCHES, SINTER, PLACATES, GOOSE EGG (plus FRY UP, haha), and I could go on. I didn't find this as easy as some did, possibly distracted by current threats to that Athenian invention mentioned in this puzzle from BUBBA and his DOGE BROS, may he dine well on all that nitrate-laden fare, and if he HAS A BEEF hamburger with chips, dips and pop sugar, then asks what's on the sub menu, well bless the heart that beats within his sturdy ribcage! Et TWO Brute?

"I like a thin book because it will steady a table, a leather volume because it will strop a razor, and a heavy book because it can be thrown at a cat." (Mark Twain) “If a book is well written, I always find it too short.” (Jane Austen) I'm with Jane Austen, which is why I stopped reading Atlas Shrugged by the end of the second page. As one critic put it, "Ayn Rand couldn't write her way out of a paper bag." David Foster Wallace's "Infinite Jest" (577,608 words) has been on the tarmac (the books on my shelf waiting to be read) for a dozen years or more. I've read a few chapters in it, and it hasn't grabbed me, but friends assure me it's worth it. I don't know about that. A couple months ago, someone recommended Tom Wolfe's "A Man in Full" and I read that (370,000 words) with much enjoyment. But it didn't change my life, I just liked getting into the lives of a lot of the characters. "Middlemarch" (316,059 words) did somehow captivate and alter me, so long ago I'm not sure how, but for the better. As did "Moby Dick" (surprisingly short, just over 209K words). It's good to read the long ones again, years later, because you change and the books change with you, offering new sides, new dimensions. Somebody told me the shortest review of a book was for David Leavitt's novel "The Page-Turner" -- "It wasn't."

Very clever puzzle. Star witness. Hah! I kind of wish Henry Ford had not been included in this pantheon. I've just been reading about his very vocal anti-semitism; he started a newspaper, the Dearborn Independent, in which he not only published "The International Jew" and promoted the spurious Protocols of the Elders of Zion, but also penned really vicious diatribes against Jews. I had thought his promotion of square dancing to be a charming side of his complex character, but it turns out that he hated jazz music and publicly reviled it as leading to moral decay and as a secret plot of Jewish music impresarios and producers to corrupt American morals, actively promoting square dancing as a wholesome alternative. When I asked my 93 year old father why he bought Fords over the years when he knew all this about Henry (he was a historian and knew stuff), he replied "The schmuck was long dead by the time I bought my first car, what do I care what he was? A car's a car." In 1927 Henry Ford shut down the Dearborn Independent and issued a public apology, recanting his views about Jews, under financial pressure because of slow sales resulting from the shaky rollout of the Model A and societal pressure from the effects of boycotts and international criticism. But his apology was considered insincere by the press and Jewish organizations, and boycotts continued, especially when his German sympathies resurfaced in the 1930s.

Woowie! Ezra in the NW, Jean in the SE: Represent!!! A classic Tuesday, would have offended the Thursday crowd as too lite, but devilish in areas and with off-kilter answers like AISLED -- and believe me, I think "aisled" is a silly and pretentious and seldom used word, but I kind of hate-love it -- and EGG TIMERS, my God it's like having Bertie Wooster over for breakfast to talk about the latest dalliances of Lady Emma and Dame Talia, or simply stay in bed, pretend to be ill, demand a SPICED RUM at near scalding temperature, that ought to do the trick -- don't get up til TEN. So glad to get a clue for ELSA that's not some frozen fish from Finding Nemo, only finding it after thinking Cost, Guat, Pana, Beli, Mexi, Nica, each of which I really wouldn't be surprised is a woman's name. Guat's that you say? I'm surprised the editors didn't demand you clue 58a REMIND as "JOGGLE the memory of" instead of "Jog the memory of" -- I now know, from its deployment in a puzzle, not 48 hours ago, that "JOGGLE" in a crossword puzzle can drive an otherwise sane person into paroxysms of rage which are applauded and approved by the masses, who shout ATTAWAY, friend, ATTAWAY! So funny, Pierce Brosnan up top, playing an ersatz James Bond in Remington Steele before putting in time as Bond himself (awful, IMHO, he seemed always with a sheen of sweat and a slightly pouty look), then Tesla a.k.a. Elon Musk, who's a cross of Dr. Evil and Dr. Strangelove, a parody of a Bond villain, then Dr. No!