Brian Sinclair

I get why the puzzle contains artist names instead of painting names, and why those paintings (I mean artists) aren't highlighted or referenced when the matching clues are selected (because they're hidden by the thief), but both of these things increased my irritation and frustration as I solved. And if you need copious instructions on how to make sense of the finished puzzle, you've likely made things way too complicated.

It's disappointing to see the inconsistent notation of misdirection clues as a way to make puzzles harder. At least, I'm assuming that's why this happens, because otherwise it's just poor editing. For example, we have the misdirection indicators ("?", "e.g.", etc) on 7A, 4D, 8D, 20D, 26D, 34D, 38D, 39D, 40D, but not on 25A (tax vs. baseball), 38A (UK vs CA), 3D (fairy tale character vs. underdog team) and 27D (career vs. utterance). I find misdirection to be the best thing about crosswords, but this haphazard way of clueing them makes the experience frustrating instead.

If "modern reimagining" means stripping away the elegance of good poetry, then mission accomplished. As someone who appreciates the construction of good English prose, this crass reductionism left me cold. It'd be much more impressive to build on this classic -- add more context --- e.g. tell me something clever/interesting the author needs to do before sleep. *That* puzzle I'd love to solve, not this one.

Right off the bat -- the 1A clue baffled this tennis player of some 40 years, A line judge doesn't call a ball in during a point, they make a hand gesture (palms down) so as not to disrupt the play. Thus, if asked after the point by the chair umpire, they would instead say "it WAS in". So many other ways for this to be clued, using tennis shows a lack of understanding of the professional game.

The poorly worded theme clues made this more frustrating than it should have been. I knew the answers but struggled with how to enter the letters. Usually an indicator of confusing instructions. The "instructions for answering" (i.e. entering) the correct right hand theme entries were all provided by the crossing down entries, since only those letters make sense as entered. Better phrasing on the left hand clue would be "or a hint to understanding..." since we need some explanation as to why the entered letters don't make sense for the given clue.

Unavoidable it seems, but clunky to have plural TARO ROOT and ENAMEL, but only one REARTIRE.

Great Wednesday puzzle!

Really disappointing puzzle. Why do only 3 letters out of the 4 participate in the magnetism? Leaving those outside letters hanging doing nothing there makes no sense. And what exactly is it about these animals that makes them pair up and attract one another? DOG and ANT. Just nonsensical. I kept going, waiting for some elegance and ingenuity in the theme to reveal itself, and it never did.

Might be my favorite Wednesday of all time. Clever, just enough misdirection, and 17A clue is perfect. Well done!

Unique week where my Saturday solve was faster than my Tuesday. And to "pants" someone is to pull down their pants to reveal (hopefully) their briefs - otherwise you reveal a lot more LOL. How does that equate to "de-briefing" them, which implies removing their briefs? One of those where you think "well it can't be anything else, but it doesn't make sense."

Well, you either use a white flag *or* a bell to signal the last lap of a race. The former in car racing (as a visual sign for drivers in a noisy race), the latter in track and field (because runners can hear the ringing bell). But you would never use them both at the same time. I love misleading/misdirecting clues. But not ones like 28D where you think "well, it can't be that because...." (all the above reasons). So many other/better/clever ways to clue this one - like "When to begin your final kick".

Just a perfect Monday puzzle - the theme was clever and tight. And it made me chuckle, What else could you ask for?

Clever puzzle -- though technically, the term "gene" wasn't coined until decades after Mendel's work - what he really studied was inheritance, being too early to study the biology behind it.

Really well done. I didn't catch on to the theme until very late, but in hindsight, worth the struggle.

The theme seems a bit clunky to me, since what is "growing" in the puzzle is the length of the interjections brought about by events that cause pain. If it's the pains that are actually growing (reading 21A literally), then the largest pain should illicit the loudest and most colorful expletive. And in that case, SHOOT just doesn't cut it.

Liked the concept, but feel the best rebus puzzles are ones that work in both directions. Without the Y-E-S substitution, the across clues don't. And since Y-E-S must cover 2 squares, making the substituted down entries form real words would be nearly impossible. A valiant rebus effort that was doomed to be inelegant from the start.

Clever concept, made sufficiently difficult by a) not knowing that extra letters were needed, and b)not knowing which answers needed them, since all entries spelled actual words (tho OPE and DECO seem a stretch). My only nit to pick would be the unevenness of the clueing for those answers, specifically 46A and 58D which are misdirects while the others are straight forward and relatively easy. Seems more elegant to keep all those clues at the same level of difficulty. Still, a small nit in an otherwise fun puzzle to solve.

Loved the Thursday trickery here, but I'm not surprised that there's no explanation for, nor mention of 43A in the column or constructor notes. I'm all ears for anyone who wants to explain how the first 2 letters make any sense as clued.

If the duck thought the blind was a ruse, they would stay clear -- knowing that hunters (or photographers) were lurking inside. It is a ruse only to the human that put it there.