CityDad
St. Louis, MO
Bravo, Marshal with one L! What an absolute gem of a debut! 😍 This puzzle was f̶l̶a̶w̶l̶e̶s̶s̶ ̶l̶o̶v̶e̶l̶y̶ ̶u̶n̶b̶e̶l̶i̶e̶v̶a̶b̶l̶e̶ ̶r̶e̶a̶l̶l̶y̶... ...um.........it was cool.
For all the Ted Lasso fans out there… ____ Sam Obisanya's crushed hopes after finally meeting his Bantr match in person? DATEDOWNER
Absolutely loved this puzzle. Major kudos to the constructor! I am grateful to have never run into technical issues using the app—Android/Google Pixel—because the issue described by many iOS users (missing visual clue overlays until force-updating the app) sounds incredibly frustrating.
@Expat in Canada - and here I've never heard of 'sea grass', but I am very fond of the popular smooth, colorful 'rocks' known as sea glass. :)
@Helen Wright thank you for sharing that! My seven-year old also has dyslexia and writes every letter from right to left unless he's really focused on not doing so. But even then, many individual letters and numbers are reversed. I found your anecdote and your son's journey quite G N I T F I L
@Puzzlemucker agreed - this was an excellent variation and misdirect. Once I had '__A', my first two ideas were TSA and AAA. :)
I can't be the only person who had never, ever heard the words 'Ta-____ Boom-de-ay'. Having that cross with what was—to me, at least—an unknown animal name (14A) was frustrating. Had to finally just run the alphabet on the first letter in 15D for the solve...pretty unsatisfying and unusual to have to do on a Monday.
Loved this puzzle! The cluing was perfect - challenging, clever, and rewarding. Excellent constructor's notes as well. Thanks, Julian for all the time and care you took with this wonderful themeless...it shows.
I think this may have been my fastest Saturday solve ever... and it makes me regret my one hasty lookup (1D) since I bet I would have figured it out eventually.
I, too thought a "double albatross" surely had to refer to scoring OVER par by some particularly embarrassing amount. I'm surprised to learn that it's actually a good thing! 😆
I appreciate that the constructor notes mentioned this being, in their mind, more of a Monday or Tuesday difficulty. It was certainly one of my fastest Wednesday solves ever – the only slowdown being 38A. I knew the actor's name and could picture his face, but could only guess at the spelling.
@Suzanne for real? Thanks, despite doing these for the past few months, I didn't realize that particular daily quirk! Hopefully I'll be more prepared next time something feels off about a Thursday puzzle.
@SS I also had "ENDWAR" in there forever... I only finally changed it to the correct answer by solving 13D. I still like "ENDWAR" better. 😂
@David Goldfarb I guess I just can't picture how a rebus and/or numeral in the first square of those hypen clues would have made any sense at all, given that the numbers still had to be spelled out in the down direction
Exactly my thought. Yesterday was a joyless slog for me, which isn't my normal experience on a Friday. This morning I steadied myself for an hour-long Saturday grind, but after 10 minutes said out loud to my partner "this is going to be my fastest Saturday solve ever." Indeed it was—in fact it ended up being far less than half my average for a Saturday. I'll take it, but today's was much more of a Thursday/Friday difficulty. Cheers to the constructors for clever yet fair clues throughout, and some very entertaining ones as well. "Saturday difficulty" gripes aside (that part's on Will) this was a great puzzle.
@SP - same. I appreciated that the theme reveal was (for me at least) both necessary and motivating. It was a really rewarding puzzle overall, even if I may have felt the cluing on a few entries was substandard.
@Turing - yeah I definitely cocked my head at that pairing, trying to understand if it was intentionally risqué or if I was just juvenile 😂
Yes. This puzzle as a whole was so much fun, and I found all the puns so delightful, that I am willing to let this be the one and only time I complain about joggle in the comments.
@Puzzlemucker - whenever someone's comment tickles me just as much as the puzzle, I feel like half the time it's got your name on it. ☺️
@Lewis - I, too, had solved the entire puzzle without realizing the numbers appeared in order from 10 down to 1, not just occurring on the "down" clues. Once it was pointed out on Wordplay, my mind was blown! Any quibbles I had about one answer or another were forgiven, once I realized how complex of a task the constructor had set for himself!
@Puzzlemucker - I agree! "Still I Rise" instantly became my favorite Monday puzzle ever.
@Hugh - same here. I only recognized the name "Berle" after a lookup, and since I'd had "HIP" since very early on, I had no clue why my puzzle was still saying something was wrong. I checked every single across clue against my answers and thought "all of these are right!" I followed that with a thorough but non exhaustive check of most down clues and I was once again totally flummoxed as to what might be incorrect. I probably spent 8-10 minutes methodically checking every answer again before finally realizing 14D was the only one I even had a shred of doubt about. Still a very fun and satisfying puzzle!
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