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Jill Denny notes:

This is a very nice puzzle whose theme just happens to touch on two of my worst nightmares: ALMONDS and being lost at sea. RIP, Captains AHAB and SMITH. Captain BLIGH, I can't tell from your wikipedia entry whether you deserved the mutiny or not, though kudos on your extraordinary navigational skills. President LINCOLN, for you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning. To the rest of you gents — KIRK, NEMO, CRUNCH, and HOOK — thanks for lightening the mood.

Setting aside my weird dislikes, this was a smooth, enjoyable, straightforward Sunday puzzle. Minimal glue, some lively fill, good feng shui in the grid, a happy medium in cluing difficulty — it hit the spot. A few answers that stuck with me:

• AFROS. Simply because they are beautiful.
• FOVEA. The fovea is why stars appear dimmer when you stare straight at them.
• GLOAMING. The first time I first saw this word was in a review of "The Blue Room", in which Nicole Kidman appeared nude on stage. A critic described the moment as "two fried eggs in the gloaming". Ugh. Remind me never to become an actress.

– puzzle by Tom McCoy

Jill Denny notes:

The Marx Brothers, the Three Stooges, Abbott & Costello, and Laurel & Hardy are interchangeable in my world. On a good day, I can distinguish between Groucho Marx (cigar, caterpillar brows) and the Three Stooges (untrammeled idiocy), but beyond that, I'm lost. To me, "Who's On First" is a Rainman reference. V-E-R-N, Vern! Also, how is that there are more than three stooges in the Three Stooges?

While not the ideal audience for Mr. Stulberg's puzzle, I can certainly appreciate its merits.

• First, the theme is RAD, even though the joke is only vaguely familiar to me. Placing the bases as if on a baseball diamond would have taken it to the next level, though that construction would have been a bear.
• Second, it's clued to a difficult level, giving the brain an excellent workout. Ambiguity and misdirection abound, and I ERRED frequently. How many possible answers exist for 1a. [In]? Or for 10d. [Peg]? My brain was sweating by the end.
• Third, it includes LYNX, which is my back-up spirit animal (after shark). Rowr.

– puzzle by Jacob Stulberg

Jill Denny notes:

Jeff and I often catch up over dinner by comparing notes about the daily crossword (note to self: is this why people keep refusing our dinner party invitations?). More often than not, we settle out at roughly the same difficulty level, but a few clues can quickly tip the scales in one person's favor. Baseball, engineering, sci-fi, comedy, jazz ... Denny out, Chen in. Fashion, hip-hop, movies, politics, or French, and I'm all over it.

No surprise that this puzzle resonated more in my brain folds than in Jeff's, what with SKRILLEX, CHOCOLAT, PENA, and LOEWE. And if you're going to include a baseball player, PETE ROSE is one of the few names I recognize. While not easy-peasy, this was a pleasingly smooth grid for me. My only stumble was in the SW corner, with the unfamiliar LIGETI stacked on top of ADUNIT (a hillbilly's answer to "Whodunit?").

Jeff, Jim, and I have had several conversations about differences in crossword opinion, most recently after I confessed my ignorance of comedians of the black-and-white movie era. After reading my post, Jim sent me an email professing a very gentle Canadian outrage that I had lumped together the Marx Brothers with the Three Stooges. He went on to write:

"This kind of cultural disconnect is what makes crossword commentary so interesting to me. It uncovers the hidden assumptions we don't know we have about what is aesthetically pleasing or not, and what is surely common knowledge or not. It also puts crossword editors into an impossible situation. You can't please everyone (so I've heard) but I wonder how possible it is to delight a significant percentage of your crossword audience."

It's those moments of delight that keep me coming back to crosswords, and I believe that Jeff and Jim would say the same thing. Two moments of delight from this puzzle:

• I loved learning LUTRINE. My goal is to use it in an email at work by the end of the month.
• A very special nod to VONNEGUT, a proud Hoosier. This is only his third appearance in the Shortz era. Happy to see his name, sad that he is gone. One of the greats.

– puzzle by James Mulhern