Joseph Knecht

  Today veteran Neville Fogarty makes his 23rd visit to the Corner, appearing here for the first time on Saturday October 30, 2010, reviewed by C.C.   Two years later she interviewed him on Sep 21, 2012 , to provide us with a bit of background on this Jeopardy! and crossword wunderkind .  Today he presents  us with 4 themers that tell us that Breaking Up is Hard to Do 💔 Neil Sedaka's classic captures Neville's reveal perfectly ... 27D. Emotionally crushed, and an apt description of the circled elements [sorry YKW ] in this puzzle?: ALL BROKEN UP .  Note that these elements are not only BROKEN , but they're ALL UP .   For those of you who read Hebrew this will be a piece of cake ... 3D. Sport with teams of quadcopters: DRO NE SOC CER .  I DNK this sport but it's very clever and looks like a lot of fun .  This fill encapsulates our first broken element, which drones on and on [not unlike MOI from time to time 🙄]: Broken Record 7D. Period of the Peloponnesian Wars

    We welcome constructor Joe Hansen , who made his NYT debut on April 14, 2020 ; got another puzzle under his belt  there on October 12, 2020; and has also published in the WSJ -- now he's ready for the big time!  His theme for this puzzle ... DEPENDS ON HOW YOU SLICE IT ... and Joe swears by it in his reveal: 36A. Instruction before an oath, and a feature of 20-, 31-, 43-, and 54-Across: REPEAT AFTER ME . ... suggesting that the meanings of the fills for his punny theme clues depend on how they're parsed: 20A. Line dance that's actually a hustle?: CON GAME CONGA or CONGA ME CONGA . 31A. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner for Pacino?: ALS MEALS or ALS ME ALS .  A few years back there was an Al Pacino's Egyptian Pizza cafe not far from us.  They were the only place around where you could get Babaganush and Hummus on the side.  Alas they closed.  In researching this clue  I was delighted to find that they'd just moved up the road

Constructor and (funny) comedian Dan Caprera is visiting us for the third time, the last  on November 21, 2022 , reviewed by our beloved friend Boomer not long before he departed Minnesota for a sunnier clime.  Dan has also created three puzzles for that other newspaper, this one edited by Jeff Chen .  Today Dan has gotten himself into a bit of a sticky situation presenting us with a visual theme, consisting of 3 pairs of juxtaposed, stacked fill .  To make the theme easier the see, the top of each stack is equipped with "goggles", which I'm sure will raise the eyebrows of at least one solver.  The question is, without the reveal CAN YOU SEE THEM NOW? First themer pair: 16A. Rides in the sand: DUNE BUGGIES .   A dune buggy is a recreational motor vehicle with large wheels, and wide tires, designed for use on sand dunes, beaches, off road or desert recreation.  Oh and incidentally DUNE is also the title of a SCI-FI novel by Frank Herbert , which was recently made i