Charles Nelson Reilly

Horrible puzzle. So bad. I wish I could get my time back.

No YodaSpeak here, just hats off to one of the most fun, yet edifying puzzles of the year. Of course I knew the names of each song and punched them into all the spaces without any knowledge of the theme. And then found myself totally baffled when the puzzle fell apart. Nothing was making sense. So I concentrated and used the force to find the theme. It was like a miniature Star Wars, with me as Luke Crossworder.

Anything to get me away from thinking about the country is good. I liked this tricky puzzle. Fun theme and cluing was clever. Especially love the reference to the Velvet Fog TORME. And I remember 15 years ago when Gochujang was impossible to find in Sunset Park Brooklyn. Now they have a bunch of flavors.

Especially compared to the other puzzles this week, this one was kinda fun. That’s not saying much though. Many of the clues felt a bit unimaginative but I liked some of them. The theme wasn’t bad. My engineering classes in college definitely benefited from some grade inflation after it was determined that everyone failed the class. Victor Borge’s Inflationary Language also comes to mind. “You look twoderful threenight.”

I appreciate the trick, it helped me immensely when I finally understood what was happening. But I still think the clues should take into account the fill words that serve as misdirection. For example “Selecting for a jury or almost ready to bury” is IMPANELING or IMPALING. Otherwise the words IMPALING, SEATTLE, FARGONE, etc have no meaning in the context of the puzzle.

This puzzle was not good. It wasn’t that difficult, just not much fun. And especially disappointing for a Thursday.

I never sausage a sinewy Tuesday, but I chewed through it thoroughly and only googled ASHMAN to make sure that was right. Audrey II would surely have appreciated such a fleshy puzzle.

Like many others, I tried to make it a rebus, and spent probably 20 min going through every answer before removing the rebus and getting the music. I spent yesterday evening listening to all my favorite Sondheim tunes in honor of the puzzle. It was a nice break from all the Grateful Dead I’ve been listening to in the wake of Bob Weir’s passing. I wonder what the Venn diagram would look like between Deadheads and Heimheads? Count me as one.

An otherwise breezy Monday puzzle with a fun theme made me say UHOH in the left center section. I don’t play Minecraft, am not familiar with AMANA as a kitchen appliance brand, and have never heard the word YABBER in my life. This puzzle should have been a Tuesday. Kiss my BOOTY.

Nice way to celebrate New Year’s Drey! I realized I had forgotten the rules. Great cluing with HALFDOLLAR and AHAB.

Naticked at 6D/18A, I’m a jazz fan and play alto sax, HIRT rings a bell but it’s obscure enough to need a more common clue for REOS, like “Certain Speedwagons.” PTUI is kinda ridiculous, there’s some good stuff here but altogether not a huge fan of this puzz. Yesterday’s with the cigar theme was much more fun.

Great puzz! “If there’s a bustle in your HEDGEROW don’t be alarmed now!” - Robert Plant

Good puzzle but felt like a Tues or even Weds. Figured it out in about triple my usual Monday TIME. ACIDTABS was a fun answer. I think it took longer because I just played a show at Union Pool after coming home this morning at 5am from a show in Philly and was taking the R train home while solving.

Lots of fun, some tricky cluing. Never thought I’d see Sylvan ESSO in a crossword!

My original comment from an hour ago never appeared, to add insult to injury. Got naticked with HIRT and REOS. Would have been more fair if REOS was clued as “Certain Speedwagons.” Wasn’t a fan of this puzz, it was a (cereal) killer. I liked yesterday’s cigar puzzle a lot more.

Tricky! I know it’s debatable but I don’t consider TAMALES to be Tex-Mex, which to me is more like the kind of food offered at Taco Bell, tacos with lettuce tomato and shredded cheddar. I live in a neighborhood with a large Latino and Mexican community and tamales are ubiquitous here. The mole ones are my weakness. Oaxaquenos are amazing. Appreciated all the music-related clues. Big ups to MAMACASS, the Gertrude Stein of 60s LA.

The puns that weren’t part of the clothing theme were better than the real groaners that were, like NAPA, PANE, etc. Also liked the misdirection with Nadal making me think of LOVE in terms of tennis. Appreciated some of the educational clues.

I liked this one, I finished it very quickly, or so I thought. I couldn’t get it to solve. I was convinced that OMELETE was the correct spelling and that somehow there were 24 Canadian provinces, number 23 of which was PEI. That seemed like a lot of provinces but in the throes of desperation, I was convinced I was right. Canada has been in the news a lot and I figured this was topical. I never read the column before the solve, but in this case I had to look it up and to my chagrin it was the Greek letter PSI, not Prince Edward Island. This puzzle reminded me of the STAR puzzle from 3/19 where LOST ARTS and REST AREA played a role. Seemed a little too soon to do a puzzle so similar. But I still had fun with this!

Wow first time in a long while that I found Thursday easier than Wednesday! I wish I could still drink whiskey NEAT. My esophagus won’t take it anymore, so I have to add lots of ICE to water it down. This puzzle could have easily been political which I would have welcomed. I expect that this Saturday lots of people will be shouting “NO ICE” in the streets!

Wasn’t crazy about this one. Clues, fill and theme all felt a little anticlimactic after being enticed by such a colorful grid. I did like VIVE LE ROI though.

Fun and breezy for a Wednesday. Loved the ATARI clue. Always up for a rebus.

“I love it when a crossword comes together.” - Hannibal Smith Unfortunately, this one was a bit too clunky for me, Hannibal. A few impenetrable Naticks. I had to look up DAVIDHO and SNORRI. But as a musician, I appreciated the theme. What would really be clever is if these SIDENOTES spelled out the ATEAM theme.

Awesome puzzle. It took me 62 minutes to wrap my head around it, but when it finally clicked, everything fell into place quickly. I was about to start looking up the proper nouns, but the crosses kept me going! Masterful work. Stacks upon stacks of great clues. Difficult but very rewarding.

Fun theme! Enjoyed the double Thursdays this week. I was sure JODHPURS was wrong since I’d never heard of them and was getting ready to try to figure out that quadrant when suddenly the congrats came up! Might celebrate with a RYE Manhattan. Good thing about those small whiskey nips is that you can keep em in your U!

Nice and light, just what I needed this morning.

This one was a lot of fun, but I was distracted by my cat who has been going to the litter box about every 5 minutes the past couple days. I took him to the vet but they couldn’t find anything wrong, so now we’re just waiting for lab tests. I was doing this puzzle not fully focused and ended up spending quintuple my average time. It did help relax me though.

One of those puzzles where I struggle for 44 minutes thinking I’ll never finish until suddenly the music comes on. I was tempted to do a lookup but glad I held out and solved with brute force. It’s more satisfying that way. The puns were okay. I did love CATSCAN and TURTLESHELL because they were kinda edgy, but the other two were CRINGE (the answer I kept coming back to before realizing it was SO LAME). I wish for once ADE would be clued as “Nigerian musician King Sunny.”

The new BEETLEJUICE movie is pretty impressive, heartily recommended. I’m usually not into sequels but this one’s an exception. Also cool to see AFROBEAT in here as well, love the Kuti family, and Seun came to Prospect Park Brooklyn a few months ago for an astounding show but there’s so much beyond that. Lots of proper nouns but luckily I knew almost all of them. Fun Halloween puzzle!

This puzzle wasn’t a HIT for me. Much of it felt uninspired and the cluing was a bit clunky. I think the main issue is my own fault: I dislike Harry Potter. As a musician, it made me cringe to see it spelled as FLIER. I’ve never seen it spelled that way. Surely there was a better way to clue that word.

Some amazing clues here, especially ATOM, MAR and MIRROR. Other clues were iffy. PEEPHOLE’s clue should have had a “?” at the end, IMO. The theme itself was okay. But how can you have STEELY in there and not reference Dan in the clue? That’s just absurd.

Fun theme and some great clues with EAR, HELPME, BOOS, MAMA, HARDG and EWE. I liked the clue for PEEWEE but also found myself wishing it was Herman-related. KGB was also a missed opportunity IMO and could have been a great historical clue instead of another TV reference. Like “Komitet Gosudarstvenoy Bezopasnosti, if you were Russian through it?” PUN intended!

I C what you did there!

Fangs for the awesome puzz! Loved the puns. Have been blood-thirsty for a Halloween theme. Keep em comin! PS: Does anyone have a favorite Halloween themed puzzle from the archives that I should try?

I was born and bread for a puzzle like this. Loved the theme. The rest of it didn’t stump me much and I got the solve in about 12 minutes. I keep going back and forth about the clue for DERAIL needing to be “Force off track” since it’s usually a transitive verb. But I guess it can be intransitive too. It just felt slightly a rye.

There could have been a great theme here. Like maybe involving the phrase “body double.” As it is, this one was awkward and clunky. A lot of it was absurdly easy but then cluing LAY as “Ballad” was very Fri/Sat and tripped me up for a long time. Not a fan.

Fun puzzle. I originally thought this would be some kind of rebus because I was certain the answer would be GRILLMASTER. Wasted a bit of time on that. Ended up about average time for a Weds puzzle. Having visited Rome about 2 years ago, THESPANISHSTEPS came pretty quickly. Enjoyed an incredible sunset at the top on my last night there sipping a bottle of Aperol Spritz. Can’t wait to return. Of course I forgot the name of the Church.

Nice puzz. 15A reminded me of the always apt Gil Scott-Heron spoken word “Work for Peace.” The military and the monetary Get together whenever they think it’s necessary They turn our brothers and sisters into mercenaries They are turning the planet into a cemetary Use the media as intermediaries They are determined to keep the citizens secondary <a href="https://youtu.be/IgZDDW-NXDE" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/IgZDDW-NXDE</a>

Fun puzz! A little weird to have OK and OKAY in the same grid but I’m sure weirder things have happened. SONDHEIM was a genius who was not only a great musical composer but a great composer and lyricist period. As a songwriter I draw a lot of inspo from his work. My three faves are Company (check out the DA Pennebaker doc if you haven’t), Pacific Overtures, and Sweeney Todd. Company is probably number one since it’s basically the story of my life. But seeing Pacific Overtures with George Takei 1.5 times in 2017 was a bucket list item.

Excellent puzzle, felt just right for a Weds, even though my time was 10 min slower than average. Great to see ASCII in there, UMP and SGTPEPPER should have been clued as abbr, didn’t know about OPENERA but was able to solve with the crosses, instead of PLANT I had SHILL for a while which took me a long time to delete. I always think of Chiun from Remo Williams saying, “You move like a pregnant YAK.”

Awesome puzzle, but I made a big goof and totally misread the clue about 2001. I was reading it like it was supposed to be the only character that was introduced in the last 30 minutes of the movie, so I knew it couldn’t be DAVE, since he was introduced earlier. So I foolishly settled for DOVE because I thought maybe I had forgotten that there was a DOVE at the end in the weird room with DAVE. I finally figured it out after spending 10 min trying to figure out where my mistake was. Doh! Hal would have SCORNed me.

Trickiest Thursday in a while. Besides the theme, the cluing presented many pitfalls. There were so few ways to get a foothold. Took me 91 minutes and had to look up a few proper nouns. For “Is behind” I had LAGS and stubbornly held onto it for way too long. I had LITTLEWHITELIES for the theme answer even though it made no sense and spent so long trying to suss out how that was going to figure into the fill. When I figured out NOODLE I knew something else was going on and I had already been at it for about 45 min at that point. Once I got the theme, things began to fall into place but the bottom center still took another 10 min. But it was all worth it. Great puzzle. This week has been pretty wild. Monday was the easiest puzzle I’ve ever solved and got a personal best. Tuesday was average. Then Weds and Thurs were real endeavors.