THURSDAY PUZZLE — Gosh, and just yesterday I was calling the Thursday puzzle abrasive. Today’s grid, by Matthew Sewell, is lively and bright from top to bottom and seemed like a much quicker solve than it was. I started with the CASTRO brother, which helped pop COAT into my mind at 1A, and that was enough to elevate my mood for the whole day, not just the time it took to plow through this puzzle. It’s the Kramer association more than anything.

I was frankly stunned to find out that we haven’t seen a grid from Mr. Sewell in over a year, because I think of him as a regular, which means that when we do run one of his constructions, I tend to remember it (and now I’m in an even better mood, because I looked back and realized that he’s behind one of my favorite Sundays).

Tricky Clues

I predict some resistance to the clue for a little bit of fluffy fill today at 26D, and you’re just going to have to take it up with WhatsAPP, because that’s the name of the company. Even the littlest entries today had some sparkle in the cluing — I liked BEAU, BEER, DEBT and SUE, and there are more. I do think Mr. Sewell got things a bit backward with his clue for MTV, but perhaps that was the joke.

I can’t overstate how much the trivia clues today delighted me, a factoid fanatic. There were so many! ITHACA, AENEAS, PACINO, ATTLEE and EDEN, NOT, VISHNU, ANUBIS — each clue had a little snippet of knowledge that provided significant added value. Sometimes I even prefer this kind of clue to a pun, although both are great.