Tuesday, May 7, 2024, Justin Werfel

Each of today's theme answers RINGSABELL in one way or another. WILLYLOMAN, as a door-to-door salesman, SANTACLAUS, in his role as Salvation Army front man, QUASIMODO, denizen and operative of Notre Dame de Paris, and IVANPAVLOV, if I recall correctly, famous for trigging salivation in dogs by trained association with bells. We also get a bonus theme answer in Charles Wilson PEALE, George Washington portraitist. 

There were no alarm bells for this solver. Entries from ACHES (1A: Really feels yesterday's workout, say") to AGERS (66A: "Golden ____ (retirees)) went right in, although the northwest section took a little longer than the rest as the echoes of ATWATER had almost completely died away in my brain. LUSAKA ("Capital of Zambia") could have been a trouble spot, but wasn't - I have the Across answers to THANK for that. Several C/APs that sounded good to me were "Field in Silicon Valley" (TECH), "Greets with acclaim" (HERALDS), and "Very basic stuff?" (LYE). Fun fill that appealed included QUANDARY, CHAR, CHIDES, and FLANNEL. It was great to see so many women in the grid: EDNA, CHER, EARTHA, OLGA, and even ELLA. :)

In reviewing the completed puzzle, I noticed that HAPPY appears just above IMSAD. Also, THANK and HATED appear in parallelish positions at the top and bottom of the grid most likely by chance, but it's always interesting to me to realize how often the mind works to establish patterns and meaning whether it exists or not. Feel free to chime in with thoughts of your own. :)

~Frannie.