Toooooooosday

Early-week favorite Lynn Lempel has put out another good puzzle in the Sun ("You Can Say That Again!"), but it didn't feel very early-weekish to me. It didn't help matters that one of the theme entries played on a term I wasn't familiar with: RIGHT BOWER is, apparently, the jack of the trump suit in euchre. This puzzle also made me sneeze within a minute of filling in ACHOO. Nice to see expressionist painter EMIL Nolde (click this link to see some of his work). Great fill (OFF DAYS, TORA BORA, FARM TEAMS, MUG SHOT, QUEEN BEE) and clues ("cause of some head-scratching" = LICE, "Arresting image?" = MUG SHOT), as we expect when we see Lynn's byline.

Drat! I could've shaved off about 20 seconds from Patrick Merrell's NYT if I'd actually checked the Across clue and entered I WON instead of I WIN. (Don't gloat, Ellen—I'll check the crossings at Stamford.) Anyway, I did like Pat's double-bird theme, but I liked the overall fill even better. POP ART, NIKITA, PARODY, HUBBA, PEZ, SPIKED—plenty of P's popping up peppily in Pat's puzzle.

Updated:

I enjoyed the LA Times -ILLO puzzle (by Rich Norris's alter ego "Lila Cherry"). I never knew who Chicago's Petrillo Bandshell (site of the Chicago Blues Festival) was named after, but it's "1940s-1950s American Federation of Musicians president James" PETRILLO.

Yes, I enjoyed that crossword, but I loved Bob Klahn's CrosSynergy puzzle. The theme's nothing special, really, but the fill is fantastic. If you normally skip the CrosSynergy puzzle, download this one and enjoy.

NYS 4:58
CS 3:28
NYT 3:19
LAT 2:52
Newsday 2:25
Tausig tba