Xan Vongsathorn author page

COIN / FLIPS, pointing to "Schrödinger" squares that can be either H or T, with equal validity. There was another one riffing on this four years ago — my memory is long, so, unfortunately, I recalled it immediately. But I'm an oddity. I think four years is long enough to wait before echoing the same idea.

One thing I liked a lot about Xan's execution: a couple of great finds that use a funny change in spacing. At first, I couldn't figure out what the heck a TIT LIST was (admit it, you had the same thought I did). No, it's a TITLIST, as in a sports champion! Both could eliminate you, in a way.

And HEAT RAY / TEA TRAY was a neat find, both of them carrying something that might burn. That's a real stretch to include both answers, but there's something curiously awesome about the kooky connection.

I also enjoyed HIP / HOP and TIP / TOP. Not sure I would have ever thought of "breaking records" to link the two ("breaking" is slang for a dance style within HIP / HOP).

And TA TA / HA HA as an "interjection heard upon breaking up"? I had to think about that for a while, but I admire the creativity. TA TA = saying bye after breaking up with a partner, and HA HA = breaking up, as in laughing.

I usually want Schrödingers to have a clue that's spot-on for both entries. [Yearning] as both WISTFUL and WISHFUL is a perfect example of that. HIPSTER vs. TIPSTER is on the other side of the coin (wah wah), as [One in the know] is much more a TIPSTER than a HIPSTER. (We have a ton of HIPSTERs in Seattle, and a majority of them are doofuses.)

But Xan forced me to rethink my criteria — at first, I thought most of his pairings were way too much of a stretch. But heck, I admire his out-of-the-box thinking. Feels like he's created something innovative and ground-breaking. Not much higher of a compliment I can pay.

I really enjoyed this solve. I don't think rebuses as a genre are completely trite or tired yet — there is a reason that Will spaces out his rebus puzzles these days though. So I do think that it's important to push the boundaries a bit. I like what Xan has done here, using MIXED (NUT)S as a rationale for six rebus squares, each one containing a unique permutation of the letters N, U, and T.

Some of those sequences are easy to work in. There's a ton of phrases incorporating *TUN*, for example. But UTN? TNU? NTU? Those are much more difficult. I really liked the assortment of strong phrases Xan picked out, from DOW(NTU)RN to SP(UTN)IK to OU(TNUM)BER to WE(TNU)RSE.

I felt slightly uncomfortable at the [Milk maid?] clue for WETNURSE, BTW. I'm not sure why that is. At first glance perhaps it seems like it could be a fun bit of wordplay around a common phrase? But it didn't sit quite right with me, perhaps feeling a bit too off-color for the NYT.

I'm impressed with Xan's gridwork. Aside from the start, where I never know if I should love or hate YEGG, and the awkward ETCHA, I appreciated that I kept on going and going without hitching over gluey bits. All the cleanliness, with even GO VIRAL, ARCHWAY, TAP WATER, DEVIL RAY, etc. worked in = admirable job.

I might have even given it the POW if it hadn't been for the aforementioned items, plus one aspect I usually care nothing about: the number of black squares. That in itself is meaningless to me, but there are two issues in the way Xan lays out his grid: 1.) the choked off feeling from subsection to subsection, and 2.) the visual impact of all those chunks of black. Those two central crosses do a number on the feng shui of the grid.

But overall, I appreciate the fact that Xan pushes the rebus genre a little here with a well-executed grid which gave me a very pleasurable solve. And that [Break down in tears?] clue was gold. I didn't understand it even after filling in RIP UP, but I loved that headslap moment of realizing that "tears" meant "rips," not "salty discharge."