Sunday, May 25, 2025, Dylan Schiff

TRAVEL BUG

If you have been going to the A.C.P.T. for many years, you will understand me when I tell you that this puzzle gave me a little P.T.S.D. from an infamous Puzzle Five that used the idea of recombinant D.N.A. as a theme. In that puzzle, however, there were no helpful, color-coded circles to guide you. Sigh...

But that was then, this is now, and here, the combination of rebuses and WORMHOLES that work in both the Across and Down clues are really quite a lovely achievement, and an unusually complex Sunday theme. Beautiful, really. Not that that Puzzle Five wasn't also beautiful... probably...

I will not give theme examples today, but instead will leave it to you to untangle it all. I am reviewing, after all, not providing answers.

And speaking of reviewing, do I NEEDTO question whether the inclusion of CATHETER (Angioplasty tube) passes the "Sunday Morning Test?" Or is that test now OBSOLETE? And I suppose SODOM is ok because it's biblical... but then we can't just fill the grids with nothing but TREACLE. Gotta elicit a GAH or two with a little OLE POP. 

OK, enough of that. What about EMUOIL (Wellness product derived from an Australian bird)? Who knew?

SOLID puzzle. I DIG it.

- Horace