Joseph Knecht

Today's puzzle is courtesy of Trent H. Evans , a veteran of 9 NYT puzzles and two LAT puzzles, the first reviewed by Husker on May 2, 2020 .  Trent is a clinical psychologist , has his own puzzle site cleverly titled Grid Therapy , and as it happens lives in Catonsville, MD , about 7 miles down the Baltimore Beltway from our home.  I must confess that I've been reviewing so many simple "scrambled word puzzles" lately, that I was initially stumped by Trent's theme.  I actually considered popping down I 695 to his office for a little "grid therapy", but then realized that Medicare probably doesn't cover that rare syndrome "Puzzled by theme analysis". But in response to my SOS to the Blogging team I promptly received the correct diagnosis for my cruciverbal confusion.  It resulted from a failure to read the reveal fill correctly, which should be parsed as COME ON DOWN and not COME ON DOWN .  Just like the question "Really?" used...

Welcome to Jumble Thursday .  I can't wait to see what OwenKL does with this one. Our constructor today is actress Ella Dershowitz , who says on her website that "When I'm not acting I make crossword puzzles ..." (including 4 previously for the LA Times).  Here's Husker's review of her first outing on Saturday, May 7, 2022 .  Her web site is definitely worth checking out. Today Ella takes us on a brief tour of New Eng land in the Fall with following themers: 17A. *Office meeting spot: WATE R COOL ER . The WATER COOLER as a valuable locus for the exchange of business information has long been recognized.  It's function is so important that during the pandemic it had to be replaced by the VIRTUAL water cooler . Before the Pandemic During the Pandemic - the Virtual Water Cooler 24A. *Time for a cold one, facetiously: BEE R O'CLO CK .  You can use this app to tell you exactly how many hh:mm:ss it is until quitting time .  If you can't wait that...

  Today's veteran constructors Rebecca Goldstein and Rafael Musa (19 & 4 LAT puzzles respectively including today's) present us with another scrambled word game.  Their theme appears at first to be a bit of a downer, so to clear that up right away, let's start with the reveal ...  62A. "This doesn't feel right," and what can be said about some letters in the answers to the starred clues?: THE VIBES ARE OFF .   This phrase generally connotes that the speaker is sensing BAD VIBES , or an EDGY feeling of unease (e.g. see 69A ).  Quite honestly when this reviewer realized this he panicked and started looking around for an antidote.  So to calm everyone down we'll start with some GOOD VIBES ...   ... from master vibraphonist Gary Barton leading a quintet by Argentine composer Astor Piazzolla .  Now that we've relaxed a bit we can see that reveal doesn't really h...