Who doesn't enjoy flowers? Today we have eight of them around the four "walls" of the puzzle. Hence - WALLFLOWERS. And they are all given as indirect a clue as possible. My favorite is "Rainbow's end," which made me try to fit "pot of gold" into the six squares, but which turned out to be the last letter of Roy G. Biv's name, VIOLET. Another that misled me was "Subject of an annual festival in the Netherlands. I thought first of Koningsdag, which was just celebrated a few days ago, but that honors the king not the tulp, or TULIP. And speaking of the king, I did not know that the king of flower ..read more

Another interesting theme today. WIGGLEROOM (Space to maneuver, or a hint to five sets of circled letters in this puzzle) points us to the five rooms spelled out in descending wiggles of circled letters. It's quite pleasing the way all of them slip through cracks in the black squares.  With the theme being carried in circles, there are several triple-checked letters to deal with. This leads to a little more CAPN, ESAU, GMA, HGT, PSAT, ATO, YTD, TRE type fill than is maybe ideal, but the way those rooms fall through the grid is worth it. Especially as nothing is too egregious. And wi ..read more

Hah! I kinda love this theme. HUEANDCRY (Public uproar ...) is the revealer, and each theme answer is a color and a homonym for a synonym of cry. exempli gratia: BLUEWHALE (Marine creature that can weigh over 400,000 pounds). Hah! The other two are BLACKBALL (Bar from joining a private club, e.g.) and WHITEWINE (Chardonnay or pinot grigio, e.g.). Very nice. So... is today's clue for AREOLA another sign of the times? The clues for AREOLA used to be "Colored ring," "Dark circle," or "Iris part." Today it's "Ring surrounding a nipple." I mean... they're not wrong, ...  As I've said before ..read more

THE SOUNDS OF MUSIC Today, the grid is alive with the sound of music. Eight theme answers, all tied to music, and each taking a short dip at the end to leave vertical, as if on a scale, the notes of the musical scale, rising from bottom to top. It's a tiny bit of a shame that they could not rise from left to right, as one reads music, but one can't have everything, can one. In addition to the shaded notes, extra theme material plays out in the longer answers - ADORINGFANS (Groupies, e.g.), "Like musical mixes that overly emphasize bass notes" (BOTTOMHEAVY), "Autumn colors ... or an alternativ ..read more

What a great Turn this has been. Today's puzzle was a real challenge, appropriate for a Saturday. I definitely feel like the puzzles have gotten harder under Mr. Fagliano's editorship. I am hoping for Mr. Shortz's recovery as soon as possible of course, but bring on the challenge, say I! That being said, I was really unsure about the answer at 11D. It's an entirely acceptable Spanish word, and that's the way it's clued, but there are a whole host of connotations which feel like maybe it shouldn't be used. What do people think? And, now how about SQUIRCLE? I had never heard of this term before ..read more

If you're looking for fun fill and great clues, this puzzle is FULLOFIT! Oh, wait. I don't think that's what they meant by that answer. A super smooth and pretty quick solve for a Friday themeless. But I enjoyed it all the way. Let's start with those long across answers: 11A: Alternatives to booths, perhaps (MAILINBALLOTS) - I was really uncertain where this was going, and it was the last answer I got in the puzzle. It's very of the moment, naturally. 14A: Device for an on-line conversation? (TINCANTELEPHONE) - yes! So good. I love the sneaky use of the word "device" here. Sounds so electronic ..read more

Hooray! We're back on The Turn! I am fond of a straightforward themed puzzle, where it's well put together, and the theme is fun. But give me the tricksy puzzle with clever clues, and you've got a happy Colum. Today, I had no idea what was going on. I figured out with SIMONC-O-WELL and then SC-O-WL that I needed to skip over the circled squares, but why? And also, was I to leave those circles blank? We've had puzzles in the past where there were empty squares. I actually worked my way naturally down the east side of the grid until I got to the SE corner, where I found the revealer, slightly de ..read more

First off, what to heck is ABYSM? According to Professor Google, it's a "literary or poetic term for abyss." I cry foul. I mean, MAXIMUs seemed odd at 46D (and it violates the theme, covered more in the next paragraph), but ABYSs also seemed more correct. In any case, the theme of the puzzle is revealed at 62A: Feature of this puzzle's grid and the answers to the six starred clues (LATERALSYMMETRY). Which is to say, if you fold the grid in half down the line starting at 7D and ending at 64D, all the black squares would overlap. Also, all of the letters in the starred clues are symmetrical that ..read more

Well, it turns out it's really hard to come up with sentences where every word is only TWO letters long. I thought for maybe 30 seconds about writing the first paragraph that way, and got no further than "Hi, my..." But, Ms. Bowers has given us 5 sentences of this sort (one of which is split into two parts). Of course, the best by far is 16A: "Yuck! I've dated him before. Swipe left!" (OHNOEWHEISMYEX). The "Ew!" in there is so evocative. OKIFWEGOINONIT is impressive as well. The other three are SOISIT / UPTOME, DOASWEDO, and HIMAIMUP. It's fun to look at them in the grid because my brain want ..read more

On a Monday morning, it's nice when the puzzle gives a little bit of an uplift. I'm uncertain whether today's puzzle does that or not... The theme starts with 1A: Nonrenewable energy source ... and the start of an eight-step word ladder (COAL). There's a nice visual of the eight 4-letter words moving down diagonally from COOL to WOOL to WOOD to FOOD to FOND to FIND to 64A: Renewable energy source ... and the end of the word ladder (WIND). Along the way, we get the dour GLOBALWARMING and FOSSILFUEL and the hopeful GREENPOWER. But there's also 49A: Goes extinct (DIESOUT) and 37D: Botches badly ..read more