Deadline

Hi gang (and also relative newbies)! I'm back! I think? My computer is pretty much fixed, and the crossword clues are once again visible. They weren't for quite a while, and that made for rather more of a challenge than I was up for. Also, 2023 was a bad year for me. Broken hip, taking about a year to heal. Broken very expensive dental work, with very expensive redo still in the works. Anyway, this puzzle was not in my wheelhouse, since I didn't know ANY of the songs. But the theme was easily figure-outable (figurable-out?). And also quite enjoyable. The CODA/deaf cross wedded to the GIF/Slack cross kinda hit me in the face. Or made me stumble. Or something. But I eventually figured it out, and that made me feel good. It also makes me feel good to be back with my XWPs, and I hope going forward with old and new WPers.

I think I'm ready to start changing my puzzle-solving style. I've been doing the puzzle for several decades (since 1960, when I moved to NYC), and I've made a few changes. So have the powers that be at the NYT puzzle desk. What I mostly have to change, I think, is looking up things that I don't know and have to possible way of figuring out: things like pop music and stars, recent flicks and stars, catch phrases from those movies, catch phrases used by whatever-letter generation is being cited. Stuff like that. Just accept that I am a lot older now, and not interested in being particularly in tune with current culture. And that's okay. If I get used to it. I'll keep reminding myselfthat it's my puzzle. But I did love the no ICE stuff. These games/tricks/whatever you call them, are to me the best part of doing XWPs. (Also, they don't require a lot of walking.) Anyway, back to battling my landlord and cuddling my cat. Thanks all involved for a fun solve.

First, thanks to all who welcomed me back so graciously yesterday. I'm glad to be back. I think I've lost my rhythm because of the long hiatus. Today's puzzle took me longer both to solve and to spot the gimmick than in should have. As I was finishing, and as I (finally) filled in the revealer, I got about half the gimmick. I saw the reversed words and enjoyed the way they worked. What I didn't get or at least didn't see, was the juxtaposition of the paired entries. Didn't see it at all until I read Deb's explanation. Oh, well. the good part of the long hiatus is the archive: I can go back and do several puzzles a day as I continue to recuperate. I'll get my rhythm back pretty soon, I think. Anyway, I should have a fresh start. Fittingly, today is my birthday. I'm now 82. I've read that doing things like XWPs is good for the brains of the elderly. We'll see. Now, on to Wordle and Connections and a big cuddle with Lois. Again, thanks for the good wishes.

Hi all. I've been away from Wordplay for quite a while because of terrible computer problems and the fact that I become fatigued very quickly Barry A. sent me a couple of posts from yesterday's puzzle and inspired me to come and visit. He Leapy, Barry, Bessarabia. Also MOL and all the rest of the regulars, and the newbies too. Of late I've been having trouble with some puzzles because they seem to be in some very hip language. Of couse, I've never been able to remember what letter belongs to what gen. I'm a pre-boomer, age 83, and maybe I should try to keep up with the young'uns. Or not. Anyway, glad to see that most Wordplayers are sticking with it. I'll be back again soon.

Hi guys. I've been away for a while. Since I broke my hip a while back, I've had trouble sitting at my desk long enough to read/contribute to Wordplay. (Forget the phone. I can't type with my thumbs, and the screen is too msall for very much reading.)_ Anyway, today's puzzle was a delight and appealed to my overall snarkiness. Thanks to all.

I was in mid-composition when my comment disappeared. I don't know whether the partial will somehow appear, but I will try to reconstruct: I confess that I'm not up on pop culture, current slang, or sports. This made today's puzzle difficult for me. Gimmes: IWO JIMA AISLES SORBET Never-heard-ofs: SUSHI PIZZA (shudder!) TSWIZZLE SMH POKEBALL DOJA QBSACKS DONEZO Errors: MASS before MAVS ONESEC before INASEC I did have a moment of pride, followed by an "oops!" I instantly guessed that the "Grumpy" part 62A had to do with "Snow White." Alas, I entered SLEEPY instead of SNEEZY. I only corrected because I figured the second part of that disgusting-sounding fusion dish had to be PIZZA. Likewise, the last letter I ented before the "congrats" was the crossing of DONEZO and PIZZA. Before my long absense, my knowledge of pop culture and other current stuff (and sports) came from XWPs. While I was gone, new stuff came along. I hope I can catch up. (I'll never get sports.) Thanks to the lovely collaborators for the lovely collaboration. When can we expect another?

I'm surprised that so many people found this puzzle unusually easy. It took me a looooong time to get some of the entries. And I sure didn't know how to spell that greeting. Used the crosses, and still misspelled it. Ah, well. My computer started acting up again, and I couldn't get to WP yesterday. I looked and looked for links, but can't find any. I hope no one missed me. Or maybe I hope they did. The clue for NAIL is nothing short of brilliant. Made my (XWP) day! Didn't know MEGACON. I guessed at the CON part when I first got to the clue, but there are so many CONs out there with people dressed up in costumes, that I can't keep track. Toyed with MAGACON for a bit (thinking MAGazines, but had to rely on the crosses. Yes, CC, you stumped me. So when I finally got stuff, I rejoiced and felt smart and competent! Great puzzle. Thanks.

Welcome, welcome, welcome to our newest constructor. Hurry back with more of this level of excellence and humor. What's more it was really, really a challenge for me. And that's the way I like it.

This is the kind of wordplay that I love, so the puzzle was a very special treat for me. And there was a second, surprise treat -- all the wonderful tautologies contributed by the WP commenters. I shouldn't have been surprised, of course. I've been around these WPers long enough to have expected nothing less. Thanks to everyone for a fun break in an otherwise rather dull day.

Wow -- 279 comments! TL/DR. Well, skimmed. I knew I should have gone to the column and comments right after doing the puzzle this a.m. Now it's a bit too much after hobbling around trying to do some chores all day. I thought the theme worked beautifully. In fact, the whole puzzle came together smoothly. With one exception: The 65 square. I had no idea what "One of Islam's Five Pillars" could be, and I completely blanked on "Rudely 'welcome' the away team." I admit it; I revealed. Of course, once I saw that J I tumbled to "cheers and jeers," but it just took my brain a long time to think of it in the first place. Good themed debut. Thanks.

Sports. Oy. To say that I am unsportsed may be something of an understatement. So this was a slog, and ended with a complete misunderstanding, which I learned from the column. I got real proud of myself when I figured out the whole gimmick, which turned out to be wrong. I thought the first word of each theme entry would be the name of a player on the team in the second part. I figured there was someone named BROWN who played for a team called the BEARs. I thought there was someone named BLUE, who played for a team called the FLAMEs. Is there really a sports team called the FLAMEs? A sports player named GUARDIAN? So today I learned the names of some sports teams and thought I had learned the names of some players. Well, win some, lose some. I'm entering my ciomment without having read the comments that came in earlier. Busy. And I assume a lot of the earlier comments had to do with sporrts, at least tangentially, and I didn't think I could take any more.

What a sweet Valentine's Day puzzle! And just the right amount of difficulty to go with my morning coffee. Re 49A: When I was in high school (when dinosaurs roamed the earth), the only odd thing that was required for graduation (besides normal stuff like math and English etc.) was driver education. Well, it was in Detroit. Anyway, loved the puzzle, even though I had trouble remembering what CJ's last name was. And I had LOVE NESTS for the walk-up apartments. I'd rather go to a luxury apt in the sky. Now I'll have to do something special for my little furry valentine. Happy Valentine's Day to all.

Oh, Yes! This was a wonderful puzzle, totally on my wavelength. of the same thing here. And I love Wacky Woprdies, and their cousins. There's a lot of that kind of thing too. Thank you. Having spent several decades as an editor, and doing copy editing and marking up copy for the typesetters, this puzzle was just a joy. Thank you, young man. I look forward to moe of the same. But, of course, the typographical norms will have changed by the time you have graduated college. I hope you come up with the changes, and continue to bend them to your puzzling endevavors. Thanks for the fun!

What a delightful -- and promising! -- debut. We'll be looking for more puzzles from this very bright young man. I loved the cluing, and the ones that delighted me the most have already been mentioned by previous posters. I had a whole lot of difficulty remembering the space chimp's name. My mind kept going to Leika (sp?), but that was a dog, and American, not Soviet. Happy weekend all.

Gosh! 284 comments before I got here. Can't read them all. I sort of figured out the gimmick as I was solving, but something wouldn't let me enter the rebuses. It wasn't until I read the column that I saw the whole gimmick. Even then I wasn't able to put anything at all in the circled squares and I gave up. Defeat. I bow to the very clever, and infuriating, father-and-son Katzes. I look forward to another contribution from this pair. Thank you guys. I had fun.

Oh drat! I was mid-comment, with my typing taking forever to become visible. Then all of a sudden the screen went all over white, with a message that said that this tab had crashed and I was offered a "restore" button to get it back. Well, I did that, and got the page back, but I'm absolutely not gonna try to reconstruct my lost comment. Just let me say that I liked the puzzle, although my aging/failing eyes couldn't make out what the green thing up th middle was supposed to represent. Even when the puzzle was all filled, I couldn't see it, and couldn't see anything with the gray squares. But once I came here, all became clear. Both puzzles and Wordplay were a lot of fun. Thanks to all.