Alfred Neumann
San Francisco
This was such a fun puzzle. Enjoyable from start to finish!
I thoroughly enjoyed this one. The woodworking puns sparkled, and aside from 1 or 2 awkward spots the words and clues were different and refreshing. Maybe the clues were in my wheelhouse but it felt more like a Tuesday than a Wednesday.
Wow. My first pass yielded maybe 6 gimmes and I had to really work at the rest. This is what I want in a Saturday puzzle! A lucky guess unlocked a previously empty NW corner but I struggled everywhere and had to backtrack many times. Only complaint was 25A which really didn’t need a “proper name” clue.
Some fun clues in here but overall too many esoteric cultural trivia questions for my liking. Only made it through with a few lucky guesses.
@Rich in Atlanta It looks like the across answers are meant to be formed entirely by answering the down clues. This yields another clue, in which each letter of the answer is assigned a number (eg. W is 1, A is 2, …) Each number is used exactly twice which is another aid. Then those letters go in the central square to get the hidden message. I only sussed this from the xwordinfo solved grid! Curiously the app archive version has all the centre letters blacked.
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