Nancy

Lewis is OK!!!! Here's his email to me that he's asked me to share with you: "Hi Nancy, No damage, but for two days, no power, NO WATER!, no internet, no phone. Saturday night the power came back on, but all the other things are off. (I found a wifi place a good distance from home.) Anyway, I'll let you know when news happens and I'm able to report it. We're basically doing okay. The killer is being without water, and it sounds like we'll be without it for at least two weeks. Anyway, would you be so kind as to let both blogs know that I am okay and anxious to return, and I will when we get wifi once again; don't know how long that will be; it is rightfully lower on the priority list of needs in the area."

The theme and grid were Greek to me, But I am not to blame. I do not know this game at all. I do not know this game. But lo! The "Aha Moment" -- Wow! "Aha, Aha!!!" I cry. The rebus "HOLE" gets changed to "MOLE"!!!! And I can't tell you why. I feel so smart! I stand apart! I drifted blithely o'er That blasted game I cannot name, But didn't hurt my score! I saw the hitch; I made the switch From HOLE to MOLE in time. The theme's obscure, and yet I'm sure This puzzle was sublime!

Now this is what I call a puzzle!!  Devilishly conceived, brilliantly executed, and really dense, it created an almost unbearable feeling of curiosity in me before I caught on.  When I did catch on -- and only because of the two apt, clever, and in-the-language revealers -- my Aha Moment was huge.  The fact that the Acrosses and Downs are doing two different things and also doing them differently was an added delight.  And then the fact that the X-added answers and the O-subtracted answers are real words of their own -- what an achievement!!!    Kudos to Kareem for this.  It's going into my running list for Puzzle of the Year and could end up my top choice.  Keep 'em coming please, Kareem!

What have you done to Robert Frost? His words are jumbled -- tempest-tossed! They make no sense; they leave us lost! What have you done to Robert Frost? He doesn't need improving, Joe! "Stopping by Woods" has grace and flow, So why you've done this, I don't know -- He doesn't need improving, Joe! He can't protest because he's dead. So I'm complaining in his stead. The words he wrote, the words he bled Are not your words to take and shred. So stick to what you know the best: The "SMOOVE"s and "U"s and all the rest. And make your silly nonsense cease, And let poor Robert rest in peace!

I cannot solve this grid with ease. The shaded "RERE"s do not please! So how should I decipher these? Oh, now I see: a pair of "RE"s!!

OMG, they're ALL spelled wrong!!!!! What a dummy I am! I was so flummoxed by BICFOOT, couldn't replace that C with a G no matter how hard I tried, so I came here to see what Rex had said about it. Was there perhaps an alternate spelling of BIGFOOT? Yes, I had noticed NESSEE, not NESSIE -- and was going to complain that they'd chosen a "less familiar and less accepted" spelling. It never occurred to me that NESSEE wasn't a spelling at all. KRAKIN and YEDI sort of sailed right over my head. Did I pick up on the deliberateness of the misspellings when I saw the word "pseudoscientist" along with "sightings" in quotation marks in the revealer clue? Ah, but that would have taken something resembling actual intelligence and Today I Am An Idiot. This puzzle has it all: Enormous originality, terrific humor, and for me, a much-too-long-delayed "Aha Moment" that blew me away. An irresistible candidate for Puzzle-of-the-Year.

"The main challenge in making this concept work was finding JOHNS who fit comfortably into the grid and would be familiar to a vast majority of solvers. Getting a good “aha!” moment with this theme requires the solver to think they know the answer right away from the clue, only to realize that the length of the full name is one letter off. If the John in question is too obscure, that won’t happen." --Constructor JOHN I can't begin to tell you, J-CL, how much I applaud the thinking process you describe above in constructing your puzzle. Not only because I think your decision to use well-known JOHNs was spot-on, but even more because you were so obviously thinking about what the solving experience would be like for the SOLVER. It's the most generous and unselfish motivation a puzzle constructor can have -- and I wish there could be a Constructors' Rule written in stone: THOU SHALT GIVETH THE SOLVER THE BIGGEST AND BEST "AHA MOMENT" THAT THOU POSSIBLY CANST.

A STAR IS B OR N. Wow!!! I've said it before and I'll say it again. Every time you think no one can come up with a completely original puzzle idea, someone does. Right away I saw all the missing "B"s and "N"s in the clues. I parsed them all perfectly. But why those missing letters? Would the thrice-made movie have the word "missing" in it? Or "vanished"? Or "disappears"? And what could possibly tie together an N and a B? Had my life depended on it, I could not have come up with the answer. So A STAR IS BORN comes in and I'm told to parse. And I parse away. Parse, parse, parse. As tar is born? What the--? And that's not six words. Aha!!!! I see it!!!! A big grin comes over my face. This is so clever and so completely surprising. It gives me a real kick on a rainy miserable morning. Into the running list I'm keeping for Puzzle of the Year. it goes.

Lewis is OK!!!! Here's his email to me that he's asked me to share with you: "Hi Nancy, No damage, but for two days, no power, NO WATER!, no internet, no phone. Saturday night the power came back on, but all the other things are off. (I found a wifi place a good distance from home.) Anyway, I'll let you know when news happens and I'm able to report it. We're basically doing okay. The killer is being without water, and it sounds like we'll be without it for at least two weeks. Anyway, would you be so kind as to let both blogs know that I am okay and anxious to return, and I will when we get wifi once again; don't know how long that will be; it is rightfully lower on the priority list of needs in the area."

If I were writing POETRIES [sic] about this puzzle -- and I can't resist because, after all I'm a poetriesist -- I would begin with an ODE: Why is this awful? Let me count the ways... 1) POETRIES 2) Annoying tiny little circles -- which I hate to see on any day of the week, but when it's on my favorite puzzle day, Thursday, my heart sinks at first glimpse. 3) Having to figure out what the tiny little circles are doing when it's not remotely apparent to me and I plain don't care. 4) Building an entire puzzle around MR POTATO HEAD who I gather, for reasons known to someone but not to me, is now no longer a MR. What a shame. 5) The rapper who names himself after...an assault rifle. And would you believe he's yet again another LI'L? 6) ARCANE pop trivia names 7) Ugly partials: ZIN, IST, EPI, PCP, HOO Hoo boy, was this ever bad!

I'm sort of betting that, Rex notwithstanding, no one is going to diss this puzzle. Not even the people who normally hate word ladder puzzles, of which I am one. But not today. It's a word ladder with a message, richly enhanced by the density of the other theme-related answers. And while I don't think for a moment that a mere crossword puzzle can do anything practical to end our reliance on FOSSIL FUEL, enhance GREEN POWER or solve the existential crisis of GLOBAL WARMING, it's still a worthwhile subject to build a puzzle around and this is an impressive piece of work. Usually a word ladder is just a word ladder and doesn't need to include any other theme elements. This does so much more. So let's give this elegant grid the kudos it deserves.

Maybe the most enjoyable Tuesday puzzle I've ever done. The themers are all so imaginative and so funny. It takes a certain kind of wacky wit to come up with these and I can picture Howard chortling with delight as answers like BLOOD TYPO, SAME HERO, and LEMON LIMO came flooding into his brain. They are all quite delicious and they're all clued in an exceptionally playful way. But Howard also TOOK PAINS with the non-themer clues. He seems to have been having fun there as well, as he clued MOI and BARBELLS and COLBERT and GO LONG. Sometimes a constructor's personality shines through and makes you feel that this is someone you'd enjoy having lunch with. This is one of those times. A delightful puzzle.

Sometimes you have to bail to save your sanity. But you won't know, until you check the answers, whether you made the right decision or not. Will you discover that with just a little more grit, just a little more stubbornness, just a little more determination, you could have solved the darned thing? Well, in this case, a resounding no, and my sanity is thanking me. I'm too shell-shocked from wrestling with this to expend the energy it would take to list my wrong answers and the answers that were completely unknown to me. Suffice it to say that I successfully filled in the NW corner and the SW corner and nothing else. I did have WEDDING RINGS running down the center-right of the grid...but it was wrong. A struggle that I abandoned because it really wasn't fun for me at all. I applaud those of you who solved it with no cheats -- I'd say that's a really impressive accomplishment.

Repeat after me: When the answer to the clue makes no sense at all, the trick is in the clue. I was looking for the trick in the clue from the ONSET -- and though nearly maddened with curiosity, I took my own sweet time getting to the revealer. I had filled in SOME NERVE, TOILET BRUSH and SPARKLED and I wanted to figure out the trick for myself. I couldn't. And yet it's really such a simple one. Simple, but not obvious. I loved this and it will go in the running list I'm keeping for Puzzle of the Year. A brief note. Maybe a couple of years ago, I hit upon the idea for an ALL FOR ONE theme. In my case, the trick was in the answers and not in the clues. I came up with some ideas for themers and was crestfallen to learn that the theme had already been done. But it's another puzzle entirely when those words are swapped in the clues. This is so much better an idea. I love this variety of puzzle!

Curiosity is my favorite emotion to be gotten from a crossword puzzle. Challenge is great, but challenge can sometimes be painful. Curiosity is always delicious. I was immensely curious when I read the theme clues. What on earth did the country have to do with its clue? But my curiosity didn't last very long. I had MONEY at the top; I saw that STAND TRIAL was coming in; and I saw that STAND TALL was the right answer to the STAND TRIAL clue. Aha! That means that the phrase is MONEY IS ALL. It's not -- it's MONEY CHANGES EVERYTHING, which I've actually never heard said or seen written -- but it doesn't matter. The trick is the same, and the right words in the phrase will come in soon enough. What a beautifully conceived and executed puzzle! Sheer perfection. Well, except for the SW corner with its grp, director's name, song title, and Harry Potter clue. I thought I'd crash and burn there -- until I came up with COWL which somehow bailed me out. CAMERON (he was "Titanic", right?) came in and I realized NERD was the answer to "Square one" -- a clue that fools me every time. Loved this puzzle! I'm writing it down as a POY possibility.

What an inspired and original idea! What a huge "Aha Moment it gave me when I got to the revealer! Without the revealer, I wonder if anyone would get the theme? Certainly I wouldn't have. But then the scales fell from my eyes and everything fell into place. I never cease to be amazed at the inventive ideas constructors manage to come up with. As I've said before, every time I think there's no new idea under the sun, someone proves me wrong. This idea -- so simple, so smooth, so seemingly effortless -- seems absolutely genius to me. I love this puzzle, Freddie!

For a puzzle that's essentially themeless, this has one of the great themes of all time: ROCKET SCIENCE crossing BRAIN SURGERY -- both clued as "What it's not, in a saying." Normally I'm not wild about super-vague clues, but this one works splendidly here. And the cluing is delicious: SHYNESS; ASCENT; CUBISM; TUMBLE; TSA. Delicious answers too: BS METER; CARNALLY; HAIL MARY. And I see only one name: WAYANS. And only one stupid car -- at least that's what I think it is: KIA RIO. Wow! Why can't everyone do that. My only nit: MEH as the answer to "whatevs". I would never say "whatevs" for MEH. But then I would never say "whatevs" for anything. A lovely puzzle that I found highly enjoyable.

Just great, Lewis!! What a wonderful themeless puzzle on every level!!! I always know with a Lewis puzzle that the cluing will be devious, challenging, and highly original. There were a lot of initial puzzlements leading to "Aha"s here: most notably WEEDS, which gave me fits when I'd wanted spouses or pets for the bed hogs. But also DROOLS, BRR, NOBLY, and the trickiest clue for TATS I've yet seen. The grid is gorgeous too. Lots of interesting long answers, smoothly assembled with almost no glue. Very few names. No crosswordese except for TATS -- and when you clue it that beautifully, who cares? If I've singled out Lewis, Barbara, it's only because I've known him for a long time, even collaborated with him, but I think he's got himself a dandy collaborator in you and that you two should create more puzzles together in the future. A terrific, just-about-flawless Saturday that I thoroughly enjoyed.

When I saw the PEACH atop the PEKOE atop the ASSAM, it looked for all the world like the three teas were being served in the same cup. As a coffee drinker, I have no idea whether PEKOE would mix well with ASSAM, but I was pretty sure that the PEACH would be an outlier. "I would never drink that concoction," I said to myself. So that when NOT came in at 51A, I immediately thought: "OMG, the answer is NOT MY CUP OF TEA!!!" And I laughed out loud. What a delightful, original, and funny puzzle! I absolutely loved it! The grid is no slouch either -- filled as it is with grownup non-Tuesdayish words like ALIENATE and WINNOWED and AMBIANCE. And there are almost no names. Here's an optimal choice for a puzzle I would give to a newbie solver whom I cared for and respected. (You should know that my newbie solver might be new to crosswords, but she's no dummy.) I think that she'd solve it without too much trouble, but that it would hold her interest throughout, and that it would give her a nice chuckle at the end. It would make her want to come back for more puzzles in the future, which is the whole idea. This is a superior early week puzzle -- and I wish there could be more like it.

I mentioned to Lewis last month that since, unlike him, I tend not to remember puzzles once I've done them -- and certainly not for an entire year -- that I planned to keep a running list of puzzles that I considered candidates for Puzzle of the Year 2024. "It won't be long," I said. "I'll only write down puzzles I think are extraordinary." Today I made my first entry to the list. The cleverness of the concept and the brilliant way it's executed is equaled only by how smart the puzzle made ME feel. I got the trick at DIMMED/DIED/TOMMY/TOY -- I was still struggling at the DRIPPED/DRIED/RIPPLE/RILE section and I immediately said out loud to no one in particular: "Aha! It's DOUBLE OR NOTHING!" And so it was. The way the meaning changes between having FLINGS and having FEELINGS; between being CUED and being CUSSED is nothing short of genius. This must have been really hard to construct, I'd imagine, but it was a joy to solve. !'ll nominate it for POY when the time comes -- now that I know I'll remember.

(This comment may only make sense to someone who solved on paper.) In my entire history of doing the NYTXW, I can't remember ever having a more profound reversal from highly negative feelings to highly positive feelings mid-solve. Oh, was I ever hating this puzzle! Look -- you already know that I can't stand the squooshed squares one gets in a 16x15 puzzle -- squares that leave me no room to write in my own letter. You also know that I'm put off by annoying tiny little circles that look confusingly like "O"s when I want to write in my own letter. So I'm saying to myself today: "Don't those stupid NYT puzzle editors know that these bleepin' blue squares are MUCH TOO DARK to allow me to see the letter I'm writing in? I mean really! And then I hit the "TRIP" of TRIPLE LETTER SCORE and the scales fall from my eyes. So THAT's why that shade of blue looked so familiar! Aha!!! Scrabble!!! And, yes, it would have been a weaker puzzle if the blue had not been that precise shade. I went from hating this puzzle to absolutely loving it. Great "Aha!" moment. Cleverly chosen themers. Nice and crunchy before getting the trick and enjoyably whooshy thereafter. You're forgiven NYT. Your choice of blue was necessary and correct. No, I still couldn't see the letters I wrote in, but...I coped. It was all in a good cause.

There's hard and then there's ridiculous. There are also limits to how much suffering I'm willing to do on any given morning. So that after -- and I'm not sure exactly how -- finishing the 3/4 of the puzzle that wasn't the NW, I came back to the NW and said "No more! Please! Can't do this! Don't wanna." I gave up and came here to learn that I wouldn't have been able to finish the NW in a million trillion years. I thought this was a confusing mess for the solver. I'll be interested to know how many of y'all finished it. And I have this sneaking suspicion that if Ella Dershowitz hadn't constructed the puzzle but rather come to it as an innocent and unsuspecting solver, she might not have finished it herself.

Son of a gun -- I think ALL of the ACs are dead center in both the Acrosses and the Downs. At least in all the ones I took the trouble to check, they were. What an amazing construction coup that makes this -- though my solve wouldn't have been any different if the ACs hadn't been in the center. A very appropriate puzzle for the weather most of the country is going through right now. I'm Exhibit A for staying home in AC: I had an important post-cataract operation check-up appt scheduled at Manhattan Eye and Ear Hospital yesterday when the air quality was very bad, the humidity was off the charts and the temps were over 100. It was a NYC record. I cancelled it the day before. I didn't give them a choice and they didn't give me a hard time. But I couldn't get another appt for two weeks -- condemning me to two MORE weeks of eyedrops before (hopefully) then being tapered off (two more weeks after that?) I've now been on these drops and others since April 22. But emergency situations call for drastic action. My philosophy: The best vision in the world won't do me any good if I'm dead of heat stroke. What's happening to the climate now is shudder-making. I just hope Iran doesn't decide to take down our power grid. I thought this was a pretty easy rebus as rebuses go -- made immediately obvious by MAGN[AC]ARTA. But there was some challenge in the surrounding fill. I enjoyed it and appreciated the timeliness.

OMG -- The theme answers are SO good!!!! When you have a change-a-familiar-phrase-into-a-wacky-one type Sunday theme, there are only two tests that matter. 1) Are the wacky answers funny, clever and even inspired rather than being forced and TEPID and 2) Are they accurately and fairly clued so that the solver has a sporting chance of getting them with just a few crosses. This passes both tests with flying colors. I got most of the themers with very few if any crosses: EXCHANGE WEDDING VOWELS; PACK YOUR BAGEL AND GO; WHAT'S PASTEL IS PAST and YOUR DELAYS ARE NUMBERED. I had NOEL, but needed crosses for the rest; I knew it was PEELER something-or-other; and I couldn't get the truly magnificent DON'T GET MAD, GET ELEVEN without lots of crosses. I laughed out loud over every single one of them. They are all so funny and so original and so well-chosen. The constructor is a retired editor. Of course she is! We retired editors have a deep love of wordplay and the colorful things you can do with language. Congratulations on a wonderfully entertaining and beautifully conceived puzzle, Caryn!

Well, I'm taking a chance here, having not read any of the crossword blogs including Rex, nor any of the comments on any of the blogs, but I'm prepared to take every nickel I have in the bank and bet that... NOBODY guessed this theme, much less the revealer. Not Rex, Jeff, Deb, Sam, or Rachel. Not either of the Patricks, nor Erik, nor my collaborator Will nor David S. The theme is so...subtle! After seeing the revealer, I still didn't get the connection. I thought and I thought some more. And then, finally... AHA!!! But even if this had been a themeless -- which is what I solved it as -- it would have been terrific. No junk at all -- I'm looking for a name and I'm darned if I see one. And such a smooth grid! A splendid Tuesday -- with the ace well hidden up the sleeve. Nice one, Christina!

A heads-up to let you know that tomorrow (Thursday), Will Nediger and I will have two different puzzles in two different publications that are not the NYT. One is in the WSJ and one is in the LAT. Both are accessible online to anyone and I hope you will want to do them. I'm pleased with both and recommend them. Today Will did something quite different with a different collaborator. Tiny little circles do not a "Nancy puzzle" make. I can promise you that neither of our puzzles tomorrow will have tiny little circles. Will knows of my complete lack of interest in how tiny little circles can be manipulated within a grid by constructors -- and he is always kind enough to humor me when we collaborate. Of course Will can construct ANY type of puzzle with any type of collaborator. He's a true Renaissance constructor.

Above my pay grade. I bailed -- and came here to find out what the bleep was going on. This falls into the category of "be careful what you wish for". The reason I so often complain about randomly placed tiny little circles is that they usually demand nothing at all from the solver. You ignore them, fill the puzzle in just as though they weren't there, and later find out what intricacies are in the grid that had nothing to do with your solve. This was just the opposite: TOO MUCH for the solver to have to figure out in order to solve -- no two of the theme answers anything like one another. Some were rebuses, some were olios, some were word pictures -- need I go on? Maybe if the clues hadn't been so ridiculously vague. But they really weren't any help to me at all. I like puzzles that make me feel smart, but this one made me feel dumb. I won't say that it isn't clever, though.

A star is born!!!! For a high school senior to come up with this sophisticated, clever, imaginative, varied and thoroughly grown-up puzzle is astounding to me. Every themer clue was a delightful little puzzle in itself -- and it was great fun to figure out every single one of them. And the grid is so wonderfully free of the kinds of things we're told that today's high-schoolers are so completely into. There's almost no pop culture at all, few proper names, nothing having anything to do with screens or textspeak or anything of that ilk. If I see a hint of the constructor's special interest, it might be in solving the problems of climate change -- to which I say Bravo! I think you're going to be one of the great constructors, Luke, and I'm putting this superb Sunday into my running list for Puzzle of the Year. Hope you have a great time at Princeton.

Yay! Robyn is back! Sparkling clues as usual -- and I had quite a bit of trouble in places. GOT UP before SAT UP for "stopped lying." PLUS before PERK for "Bonus". Have no idea what BABY GROOT is nor what/where the STAX is that Elvis was at. I'm ashamed of myself for my TEXT BOX DNF. First I wanted TEXT BAR, but ORTHO demanded an O. Then I wanted TEXT BOT, but TRAYS doesn't fit the clue "Looks below the surface." A big "Hmmm?" for the latter. How about GRAYS???!!!! The look below the surface of your dyed hair is GRAY, right? Of course that left me with TEXT BOG, which isn't a Thing. But it might have been -- you never know. Don't ask. But I'm very glad that Robyn has reappeared. Come back often, Robyn, please.

Gosh. LIB DEM is a centrist in British politics? In the U.S of A, you're considered a pinko Commie Marxist revolutionary. But LIB DEM was actually one of the easier entries for me in the SE where I had most of my trouble. My age means that long before any liquor store had ever thought to post a sign that said WE CARD, I was way, way over legal drinking age. What I don't know about the WNBA would fill a basketball arena -- and it didn't help that I had RATS instead of NUTS where the N of FINALS should have gone. Also the only unit of radioactivity I could think of was RAD. CURIE would have helped me see the wonderfully clued BICEPS -- but I had B??EPS and all I could think of was BLEEPS. Whenever there are some capitalized words like RIO and SORRENTO, I always wonder if it's a car? I only know one 3-letter car, KIA, and the A went with THRASHES. "Aha, PEEKABOO!" I said of the toddler's game. I got ENT from the very clever "stuffy client" clue without even looking at the grid and knowing the length of the answer. This made me feel smart on a day when I was somewhat less than brilliant. Conclusion: this was a lively and interesting puzzle that made deft use of a multi-faceted word you wouldn't necessarily think of to build a puzzle around. And I think it works beautifully here. Nice job, Sam.

Oh joy, Oh happiness -- a crunchy, cryptic-like challenge on a Monday! My cup runneth over. I saw the trick immediately when I couldn't make the letters FAEL go away. Since I was stuck with them, I therefore had to explain them, so I immediately saw LEAF upside down. I then immediately thought of TURN OVER A NEW LEAF and all was clear. OLIVER NORTH was hilarious. For those of you who are too young to know or remember, this answer may have been perplexing to you -- but all the crosses are easy and fair. We probably got this treat because it's April Fool's Day as well as Monday. Would that all Mondays could be April 1st. I know some of you will complain that this is too hard and too tricky for a Monday, but to me, this is what fun is all about. Loved it!

It may be a MYTH -- but for this puzzle I really didn't need more than 10% of my brain to solve it. A really, really easy Monday as far as the clues were concerned. OTOH, the cute theme was unguessable. I saw the colors, but didn't see any connection between WHALE, BALL and WINE. Homonyms!! Very, very nice. Never thought of that. HUE AND CRY is a terrific revealer!

Not only was it a huge "Aha Moment" for me when I finally saw what was going on -- it was also a huge relief. I had been SO completely in the dark for what seemed like forever. If I had only gone to the revealer immediately, I probably wouldn't have "suffered" so much, but my "mens rea" left a great deal to be desired this morning. I love you, President MONROE!!! You were my salvation. That "E" in PICKETed absolutely had to be an "O"! PICKETed couldn't be PICKETed. I got to you, President MONROE, a few nanoseconds before I got to TRADE NAMES. At which point the scales fell from my eyes and all became clear. Aha! DON/TED!!! And then back to ANN/RAY!!! ALI/LEA!!! And finally TIM/HAL!!! I had the final "E" in what had come in as HALE (19A) and I couldn't come up with the "marathoner's focus." RACE? TAPE? CORE (as in a runner's sixpack abs)? But RAC, TAP and COR are not names. INTIMATION belatedly gave me TIM. Aha -- TIME!!! One of the hardest Thursday puzzles I've ever done. Solving it makes me feel very smart. If you solved it, you're very smart too. I didn't find it much fun at all until I cottoned on to the trick -- and then I found it enormous fun!

Long, long before I was anywhere near the revealer clue or had looked at the length of the answer, I fairly yelled out "POST-IT NOTES!!" At that point I had only BREAK IT DOWN and KEEP IT REAL filled in. So I am feeling quite pleased with myself and perhaps a little SMUG. A very nice play on words and very nicely chosen themers. All theme answers are very much in the language and all are well-clued. I kept wanting PUT IT gentLY at 40A, but GE is not a note. I needed crosses to get MILDLY. Just couldn't think of it. Nice clues for OWLET and SPANK. ROUGE is so yesterday; these days it's BLUSH. (I'm old enough to have used ROUGE back in the day, but then I'm old enough to have used a rotary phone too.) A cute theme and no junk. Liked it! (A note to whoever wrote the sub-headline in the column: PLEASE DON'T DO THAT!!!! Don't completely give away the theme with the word "musical". While I never come to any of the xword blogs before solving the puzzle, I imagine there are some people who do. The word "musical" gives away the whole shebang and there's no way to UNSEE it. And even if most solvers won't mind, it's definitely not fair to the constructor. I'd be having a fit if it were done to me, TO PUT IT MILDLY.)

Oh, this is so good! The Spoonerisms are so smooth, so completely in the language, that they never caused me to question them. I didn't see the trick until I got to the revealer; I kept looking for some sort of letter change. But I did repeat my very own Mantra [TM] to myself: "When the answer doesn't agree with the clue, the trick is in the clue." But I was looking for letter changes, not sound changes. Oh how I struggled with trying to turn "Recently dated" into GOOD ENOUGH. Recently daRed? Recently daZed? Recently Mated? Nothing was working. It was delicious going back to see how good the Spoonerisms were -- once I had the revealer. This will go into my running list for Puzzle of the Year. Brilliantly done.

Loved it!  Thought that all the theme answers -- all so different -- represented "it's hard to say" perfectly.  A really, really good and original theme executed beautifully.  And it's so playful.  I love playful! I also found it quite crunchy for a Tuesday.  First of all, I've never heard the term A HOT MINUTE.  I only know what a "New York minute" is.  And then, I've never seen "antonym" used as a modifier.  "Antonymously"???  I had to read it three times to make sure it wasn't "anonymously".  And then I had to think: "Now what's the antonym of "quite some time"? A unique, un-Tuesdayish clue for BUYS.  A curveball to have EWW as an answer where you'd expect TMI to go -- and I fell into the trap.  In short, a bit of difficulty and a lot of playfulness made for a really enjoyable Tuesday.

"Oh, you're going to be MOUNTAIN GOAT, aren't you?" I said with delight to the Sir Edmond Hillary clue. (At the time, I only had MOU.) And it was, and I was charmed. I absolutely love the GOAT wordplay. This clue/answer is worth the price of admission. But ALL the themers are clever and all of the wordplay answers are deeply embedded in the language. I have a definite soft spot for BIRDBRAIN too. And AIRHEADS. What;s not to love? I found this whooshy everywhere but the middle of the bottom, where I didn't know the GOT Queen and I always forget to think of OREO as a "flavor". Also don't know my Spanish drab colors and don't remember enough of my Latin. This went by in a breeze and I had great fun coming up with the theme answers -- helped by the fact that all were so in the language and so completely fair. A very enjoyable and well-executed Sunday.

I love it when a pun puzzle has answers that are not in the least bit tortured and are completely in the language. It means that you can guess the answers with a minimum of crosses -- and it's the guessing of the puns that provide all the pleasure of a pun puzzle. Right? This one was perfectly swell. And in fact it was the themers that helped me with some of the rest of the answers that I didn't know, like the partner of Hoda, the security camera letters and the "Sweet but Psycho" singer. Remind me to miss that one. My kind of Sunday puzzle -- smooth, well-clued, and amusing. I enjoyed it a lot.

Loved it! The perfect rebus puzzle: impossible before you figure out the trick and very smooth sailing thereafter. Because once you have the revealer, you know exactly where the rebus answers will go -- a huge help! I had the advantage of having often heard the expression THE WALLS HAVE EARS -- which, if you haven't, will make the puzzle tougher. Because I had ACL??? and wanted ACL TEAR, as soon as WALL came in at 7D, I wrote in the expression and I wrote in the TEAR rebus. I had wanted WEAR AND TEAR at 1D from the get-go, but couldn't make it work. And now I could. I decided to go the the other "walls" and try to get them all without crosses. And HEAR YE, HEAR YE, I did. All 3 of them. I was helped by the fact that BEAR STEARNS used to be my broker before it folded. I live for double-rebus answers like these! Very well-chosen themers and a smoothly-made grid. One small critique. To ARREAR: ALCOHOLS would like to gift you with its "S". It doesn't need it and you do. But a small price to pay for a really enjoyable puzzle.

When does a collection of puns that are unremittingly and excruciatingly dreadful suddenly MORPH into "Hey, not so bad at all" and become fun to figure out? Answer: When they have a raison d'etre theme that ties them all together and makes even the worst of them guessable. FLOOR IT DUH was perfectly awful in every way imaginable -- and I hate, hate, hated it when I filled it in. "You call this a pun?" I said to myself. "I mean, really." But then what looked like it was going to be a Mississippi pun started to come in. There was a fast-running "she" who was obviously (and from my crosses) a MISS. Aha, she IS something! What IS she? Hmmmm. Aha -- ZIPPY! Yippee, this is sort of fun, after all. It's going to be puns of STATES. I notice the terrifically apt title for the first time. And I'm off and running to find as many state puns as I can without crosses. Gotcha, MINI-SODA! Gotcha, WHY OMING! Gotcha, HUH WHY E! Gotcha, WHISK ON SON! I needed many, many crosses for the others -- and I had to cheat on RHYS to get TEN ASEA. But I ended up having a very good and, in its own way, challenging time with this. Perhaps the most successful puzzle I've yet seen in making a bunch of silk purses out of a bunch of sow's ears.

A wonderful themeless -- with most of the difficulty derived from vague or misleading cluing rather than from arcane trivia. And where there were proper names, they were mostly from my era and/or within my sphere of interest and knowledge: ELLA; PARTON; DON DRAPER. (Delightful clue for DON DRAPER! If you never watched "Mad Men", watch it now, for heaven's sake!) But some of the names from my era had vanished from my brain in a sea of Senioritis. I had the EN, knew he was a Jonathan, and thought his last name was maybe...FReiZEN? And I know you, [blank] Dundee!!! What's your first name again? It didn't help that I'd written in an "S" for the first letter, since I couldn't come up with FORA, but was sure the "meeting places" would end in "S". Until I got FORA, I couldn't come up with ANGELO. Interesting that the one thing my aging, fuzzy brain didn't forget today was something I only know from a previous crossword puzzle. COW TIPPING. I'm not sure what it is, exactly, but it's such a funny image and such a NOVELTY that my always-forgetful brain refused to forget it. FLU SEASON was clued in a way that could have been a technology Beta launch. EASY FIXES was clued in a way that it would have been some sort of bASe mIX. The cluing was devious and a lot of thought obviously went into it. Thought this was a terrific Saturday.

EIFFEL TOWER came in and I repeated my mantra [TM] to myself: "When there's a mismatch between the clue and the answer, the trick is in the CLUE." But I didn't need my mantra -- and neither do you -- because the revealer clue tells us that. What great fun this was! It's always good for a constructor to put his trickiest themer first -- before anyone has figured out the trick. I had a really big "Aha Moment" when I belatedly realized that "parasite" = Paris site. Now that is really inspired! Off I went to figure out all the others on my own. "Grade A" = gray day. Wonderful!! "Self-own" = cell phone. A bit more forced, but still fun to figure out. Other than starting to write in BUTT CALL before BUTT DIAL, I had no trouble. I didn't know what the computer program was that produces such gibberish, and what I had was SPEECHsomething-or-other. AGRa instead of AGRO wasn't helping me. But now that I know it's SPEECH TO TEXT, remind me not to ever sign up for it. As you know, I have a love of puzzles that put their trickery in the clues. This was a highly entertaining example of it -- and with the perfect revealer to explain the trickery. Another candidate for my running list for Puzzle of the Year.

A more sophisticated, smoother puzzle than you usually see on Tuesdays -- even though I'll never be a fan of tiny little embedded circles no matter how elegant the embedded words might be and how elegantly embedded they are. I initially came here to look at the Constructor's Notes -- specifically to see what Jeff Chen would say about collaborating on a Tuesday. He didn't have a whole lot to say. But I found Stephen Prock's remarks absolutely fascinating --and extremely relevant to my own life. Specifically to my experience as both a non-grid-making puzzle constructor and as a lyricist who can't write music. Stephen discusses how the demands of writing music are highly similar to making a grid -- and he gives specifics. (There go my chances of ever doing either one!) I found his comments extremely interesting and think many other people here will find them interesting too. I recommend reading them.

I got it, I got it, I got it!!! Without looking!!! Word for word!!!! NOT MY FIRST RODEO! Yay!!! Of course it helped that this was the only RODEO phrase I could think of. I didn't think it made the perfect revealer, especially-- I wanted something about things you find at a rodeo. But there's no such phrase. Trying to guess the revealer gave my brain something to do during this very, very easy solve. The only other thinking I had to do was guess whether the kealoa would be WHIRLS or TWIRLS. But even though easy, I applaud this puzzle for a smooth-as-silk grid and for two grid spanners. I guess that's enough for a Monday.

This is what eminently fair and accurate equivalent phrase cluing looks like. I would urge any puzzle constructors who are planning to put a lot of vernacular phrases into their puzzles to look at how well THIS IS POINTLESS, ABOVE MY PAYGRADE and TOOK IT ON THE CHIN are clued. I also applaud how deeply embedded in the language these phrases are. No text-y, ephemeral JUST A MOMENT phrases that will be gone by breakfast tomorrow. But because of a really stupid idee fixe of mine, I was forced to PLAY CATCH-UP in the NE. I had written in AmC for the TV channel without a second thought -- forgetting that ABC exists and is about 563,000 times as popular. So what was BAMYMOON? I questioned everything else: RYES and AMARETTO and MANATEES. I simply couldn't go on any longer without first typing BAMYMOON into Google. And Google said "poor thing" and gave me BABYMOON. Needless to say, I had never heard of BABYMOON. But AMC in preference to ABC is truly unforgiveable. So I didn't win the $100,000 First Prize today due to my idiocy. But I enjoyed the puzzle.

I do not love thee, IVAN, ESSO, LARA, RETTA, VIV. I think your names are just a heap of unknown, pointless triv. And this puzzle could have been SO good without them! Fabulous clues for ANIMAL LOVER (bet Lewis will include it this week); WEB OF LIES; GUESSTIMATE and TENSE. Lots of traps to fall into and I fell into all of them. LEO before USA for the July birthday celebrant. DOLED before DEALT for "handed out". ECRU led to RIDS instead of TINT leading to NETS at the "Light shade"/"Clears" cross. Why do constructors insist on spoiling otherwise excellent puzzles with arcane names that absolutely no one knows? Why, why, WHY????? I will never understand it.

Oh, this is so, so good!!! Even before I got to the wonderfully amusing theme -- two answers of which made me laugh out loud -- I sensed I was in very good hands. My first three non-theme answers in -- SCOOT, SCHLEP and CRUDE (as clued) -- were so lively and so colorful that I knew the constructors were very much in the entertainment biz. And the theme choices -- Wow! I adored MR RIGHT RITE and thought it was definitely today's marquee answer, that is until SECOND TO NONE NUN came along. Two inspired answers I'll never forget. Well, actually I WILL forget them, being me. Only now I won't, because this puzzle is going into the running list I've decided to keep this year for POY nominations at the end of the year. I absolutely can't rely on my memory. I can practically hear Laura and Katherine chuckling with delight as first they made this and then they clued it with so much verve and imagination. I experienced the same sensation of delight while solving it.

The NW was my nemesis -- and when the absolutely wonderful BLANKET HOG came in, it was all I could do to not jump up and dance for joy. I had had the "B" from TIBET (which I was pretty sure was right), and I'd written in (very lightly) BED something or other. BEDMATE was too short and I couldn't think of a substitute. Confession: BLANKET HOG probably wouldn't have come in if I hadn't cheated on SEGEL. Once again, I was following the Nancy Rule [TM]: Cheat only when you're really, really enjoying a puzzle and have hit a wall so that you can't continue with the puzzle that you're so enjoying unless you cheat. A tough puzzle -- with the toughness coming from fiendish cluing and occasionally from vague cluing, but not from a boatload of mindless trivia. One question: Just how many prize-winning CURIE scientists are there out there anyway? After BLANKET HOG, my favorite clue is the one for ITS A PLANE. I know zilch about the Marvel Universe, but even I know Superman and his familiar intro. Two winning clues for this week, I'm thinking, Lewis. A perfect Friday -- one that makes you use your wits rather than have to come up with up a lot of tiny, random facts. I loved it.

After struggling yesterday where many of you didn't, I whooshed through this one at breakneck speed. Every answer turned out to be exactly what I thought it would be when I read the clue and when I didn't know immediately, like with WAMPUM, the right crosses were immediately available to help me. There was no junk; the entries felt lively; and I found it quite enjoyable. Some thoughts: I always thought FESTIVUS was a made-up holiday invented by George Costanza's father on "Seinfeld." It's a real holiday? The History of Baseball According to Nancy: The BASKET CATCH was invented by Willie Mays of the New York Giants. (Don't let it be forgot that once there was a team called the New York Giants that was not a football team.) No one had ever caught a ball in such a manner before. Willie's most famous BASKET CATCH was off of Vic Wertz in a World Series game. You should Google the play. In 1957, the evil owner Horace Stoneham whisked the Giants off to San Francisco. And no one other than Willie Mays ever made a BASKET CATCH after that. Don't tell me that they did, because if I never saw it, it doesn't count. After the evil Horace Stoneham took my team away from me, I stopped watching baseball entirely. Well, I did make a brief attempt to switch my allegiance to the hapless Mets, but it was unsuccessful and very short-lived. And that, Dear Reader, is my very brief history of the BASKET CATCH.