MaryEllen
NEPA
NEPA
@CNB like Mr. Ancona, I use the crosses but I also use Google for what I don’t yet know…that way I add to what I do know in the long run…learning something new is never a fail. PULIS are the cutest dogs!!! I had not heard CRASH BLOSSOM before but now I know. Also: after my first few go through, if I don’t have much, I read the first part of the column. If it’s worse than that I read about the tricky clues. I edge my way in for solves in baby steps I guess. Hope that helps. I’m 62…I’ve learned there’s always going to be more that I don’t know…keeps living interesting…keeps solving interesting, too.
This is my MOST FAVORITE puzzle ever…kudos to the constructor for his wit and art. Just a wonderful tour de force. Bravo Sir 👏👏👏
Nice Monday puzzle! Wishing all a great week!
Great puzzle! Nice start to the week! 👏🦋
NO STARS NEVER USED THE TERM FLYLURES EVER…fly fished most of my life with my dad 🤦🏼♀️ so sick and tired of non-isms that make zero sense. Worse a rebus like this that is a puzzle but in no way a crossword. Worst Sunday puzzle in the history of puzzles.
@Steve L you make quite a few generalizations here that, for me, are patently untrue and unfair…say how you feel but don’t make assumptions about me please It is not more fun to complain. I love puzzles and crosswords and often come to express my appreciation for a good puzzle. I do read both sides of the story. I would love to at least like rebuses…and maybe I will someday when I can comprehend them in a better way. For now they feel like artificial cleverness in a format for which I have a lifetime regard. I do not need to agree with you to be respectful to you. Perhaps using more respect is the greater lesson here and for this time in our world at large. Have a great Sunday and a great week ahead.
Yet another puzzle with clunky clues and inane answers. NOPE for me today. Hopefully tomorrow is a better day. Have a good Saturday all. Going to the archives and the 1990s for something better.
What a great way to begin a Monday! Everyone have a wonderful week!
Wonderful Puzzle…fun solve without google…sending so many Blessings to this constructor and family after such a rocky 2025!♥️🦋🫶🏻👏
Great Monday puzzle to solve…all three (mini, midi and daily) were fun solves. Looking forward to the rest of tomorrow’s puzzles 🎈
Wonderful start to the week and congratulations to the constructor! Loved the word play within the crossword format. Whenever I solve a puzzle I feel like all those that taught me how are invisibly but palpably sitting in the room with me. This puzzle felt like one I would have solved with Aunt Ruth at the old line kitchen table in the pink kitchen. Thanks again!
A lovely clean sweep and satisfying Monday puzzle…kudos to the creators and to NYT for publication! Happy Monday 🦋👏🥳
All puzzles solved for today. For me, the most creative puzzle was the mini by Sam Ezersky…loved it. My fave puzzle of the day was Connections…if you haven’t looked at it, do take a moment. The sudoku puzzles were good today…the medium was a great one for new folks and the hard was harder…love all three. Time to go feed the cats…again.
Good solve…loved the theme. Most of the cluing good. Thanks and have a great week ahead.
Very straightforward fast solve…admitting I’m surprised to hear people mention lacking familiarity with words that should be familiar…are people reading less? Or maybe retaining words less with audio books? Idk. Just purchased the latest edition of MW to read through at bedtime and discover meanings and words heretofore unknown. Have a great week all!
Grateful for a wonderful solve from an experienced constructor. Happy Easter and Zissa Pesach to those celebrating
Wonderful puzzle today with great vocabulary…thank you …more please just like this
Mr. Dolan and NYT thank you for a delightful Saturday morning solve!!! I love a themeless puzzle and new discoveries within said puzzle. Off to read about the case of the Ratman! (And possibly get nap-trapped by my cats!) Have a great weekend all 🫶🏻
Wonderful debut puzzle…my fave clue: antediluvian! Enjoyed very much…congrats to the constructor!
@Eric H. Dude…there were only three letters in the word…it had to be doe
Loved the long entries…always a pleasure to solve those! Great puzzle for an otherwise gloomy day.
My husband and I both enjoyed the puzzle…kudos!…although we both would have loved BARENECESSITIES for completely boomer reasons 😉
Nice Tuesday puzzle with no sweat…enjoyed the theme and wordplay…especially enjoyed the main focus was the puzzle itself. Thank you and have a great week all.🦋👏
Huge missed opportunity in this puzzle…I am a WASP raised on Down-Home American cuisine married to an Italian-American raised entirely on his mom’s Italian cooking and maybe occasional Chinese take out. When I saw the clue for SAUCE IN ITALIAN AMERICAN CUISINE it took me back to his family’s use of the word “gravy”…theirs was red…mine was brown, chicken, pan, red eye, etc.
Loved everything about today’s puzzle esp in light of um er recent events 🤣 Congratulations to the father/daughter constructor team…wonderful. Have been solving nyt puzzles daily since the mid eighties…Miss the folding of the newspaper …Miss the old ritual but love the gain of community. I wonder how many rebus puzzles I shrugged off in that span of time before phones and keyboards.
@Doug I concur…it was a huge nope
Great Monday puzzle that made me smile and enjoy the clues. Thank you for a great start to the week ahead!
Longer solve time because I began in the wee morning hours as part of my “insomnia theater”…25 minutes. Enjoyed the solve and went slowly so the answers would come to me after being up much of the night with my older cat who is not feeling great. Great clues…loved the anagram and canines. Visited the poets corner in my youth and that made me smile at the memory. Have a great weekend.
Great puzzle today…love seeing puzzles from long time constructors…I’m sure I solved the one in 1985 bc I solved every weekday back then. To Steve L and Barry Ancona: thx for the puzzle recommendations…my husband and I solve Connections everyday so looking forward to the puzzle by Wyna Liu. For today, all NYT puzzles solved…wordle in five sadly, one mistake with connections, medium sudoku puzzle easy today so good for beginners…hoping for a more challenging crossword tomorrow. Happy Tuesday!
Nope…I am always going to hate rebus puzzles…glad for those of you who love them…looking forward a crossword elsewhere. The Midi, however, was a joy to solve today. Wordle in three, connections…gotta love and admire Wyna…sudokus waiting for me…spelling bee had two new to me words today. Have a great week ahead.
Please may we have a “Disable Rebus” button…surely this is possible given the current state of technology. In this way, everyone can enjoy a puzzle without the torture?
Great puzzle and great column today…wonderful way to begin a week! Thank you nyt and Zhou Zhang!👏👏👏🫶🏻
Nice debut puzzle to begin the week…looking forward to tomorrow’s
I get excited when I see a wide open grid. My hope is for some big new vocabulary or new phrases to build up my crossword agility. There were some clever clues and answers new to me. Atalanta new to me…awesome. Not awesome for me are multi-small-word phrases, adverbial or otherwise. I get fill needs these sometimes, but today the weight of these felt excessive and beneath the adulation I have always felt for the NYT crossword. I don’t know if the was constructor or editor…it’s a me issue and I get that. Hoping for better tomorrow.
Average Tuesday solve coming in right around my average time. Since solving the NYT Crossword is associated in my mind with a certain prestige, I wouldn’t want the Tuesday to be any easier…otherwise I could solve a puzzle in a different less prestigious newspaper. I learned a few new terms (Uncanny Valley new to me even though I’m reading a novel about just that.) Lollop is a spelling bee word and fun to see over here. Hoping the increased difficulty continues! Thank you NYT.
An easy Sunday but I enjoy solving the long answers and TOEBEAN was my favorite answer…would make a great cross in a puzzle with BOOP! Have a great Sunday and week ahead.
Enjoyable puzzle today; remembered old things I hadn’t thought about for a long time (SID) and learned new things (DARKACADEMIA) that are of interest! Have been sitting with old Eugene T. Maleska Sunday puzzles in the evening this week as well as the recent Puzzlemania (my husband and I pass it back and forth). Loved the earlier comment comparing older puzzles to the paleo diet🤣👏…Have a great weekend all 🥂🥳
@Heidi when a newborn or “neonate” is staying in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit there is nothing pretentious going on…rest assured. Have been on both sides in that unit…as a parent and as a pediatrician…no joy rides going on.
Loved loved loved this puzzle…do they even make that green shampoo anymore?? 🤣🤣🤣👏🫶🏻♥️
@CatDad I never tire of LOTR references…I remember the Christmas those books came in my “annual shoebox of books”…I still have those books all these years later.
Loved today’s puzzle and took my time with it bc it was so enjoyable. Before the advent of penicillin, people like my grandmother had mastoidectomies…gotta love serendipity! Did not know the story of microwave ovens. Have a great week.
This was an elegant puzzle. Thank you NYT for the experience and opportunity! Have a great Sunday and a calm week all!
Today’s comments are and are not surprising. I slid into today’s column to see if I could gain an understanding of the grid art…and got so much more. Thank you for a great column today. It helped me slide through the rest of the puzzle and “get” words that were confounding me. I have stopped saying anything about specific words here in the comments section bc the typical answer is: it is in any dictionary and therefore within allowable usage. When I solved SLEEKEN I will admit to feeling pretty happy with myself…and I imagined it was used in reference to hair. As an old fart and boomer, I was happy to see DOTER, an older word in crosswords that I learned from aunties who taught me crosswordese. Loved the puzzle. Love crossword history. Unsure about its future…hoping for the best. Have a great week all. 🦋
@MaryEllen sorry…was trying to find the search function…🤦🏼♀️…enjoyed the puzzle today very much…after an already rough week where we had to help a beloved pet gracefully exit this punny solve lightened my heart…thanks 🦋🫶🏻
Will share this one item: after sciencing this concept through several puzzles where we basically ignored the rebus…a gold star can be earned by only inserting the first letter of the rebus into the rebus square. Have succeeded (unintentionally at first) at least five times with happy music and gold star. My husband was so gobsmacked with this concept he solved today’s puzzle using this “accidental discovery”.
@Andrew agree 💯…forty years ago in graduate school I did the puzzle every day and the nyt puzzle was a much different beast in those ancient times…but beloved nonetheless
Really loved today’s mini…clues answers all of it 👏👏👏 the main Saturday puzzle was okay…a bit of a slog with names I didn’t know but learned them for next time if there is a next time Have a great weekend all! Going to an art show in a bit!
Enjoyable puzzle and I caught on to the trick quickly and on my own…that hasn’t happened often enough since I’ve dug back in to solving crosswords. I will take this win and head to my music studio for the rest of the day! Happy Thanksgiving week all! Stay safe and healthy ♥️🦋🍁🫶🏻
I was very young when I was introduced to crossword puzzles…first grade…so glad my parents didn’t have to explain gay dress codes to me…how very awkward. I wonder how parents today would feel about that.
@Times Rita Dear Rita, sending good vibes and well wishes for the mri this afternoon. 💕