SIX-PACK

Eric Berlin, of Milford, Conn., is an assistant publisher at Penny Publications, a puzzle magazine company, and the creator of Puzzlesnacks, a website for kids. He is the author of The Puzzling World of Winston Breen (Penguin) and two sequels.

When he started constructing, Eric says, "My goal was to sell exactly one puzzle to The New York Times, just to say I did it." That was almost 20 years and more than 40 Times crosswords ago.

A couple of years ago, I decided to start each day by looking at the Merriam-Webster "Word of the Day" and trying to come up with a Twitter-sized puzzle based on that word. Nothing fancy: An anagram, a quickie little grid puzzle, some little NPR-style bit of wordplay. It was a fun mental exercise, and after some time, I began to wonder if I might turn these little puzzles into some kind of book. That didn't happen... but those puzzles did break out of Twitter in other ways. The Jelly Roll variety crossword I had in the NYT a couple of weeks ago was directly inspired by one of those daily puzzles, and so was today's crossword. Much thanks to the M-W person who chose EPHEMERAL for the Word of the Day back in May of last year.

I don't do the Twitter puzzles every day anymore, but I will still take a daily peek at the Word of the Day. If I can come up with an idea reasonably quickly, I'll throw something together. You'll see those puzzles a few times each week on Twitter at @puzzlereric.

Eric! His "Winston Breen" series has been out for over a decade now, yet my daughter's elementary school library still has a copy of the set. That's a testament to how fun they are. Fans of puzzles should pick up a copy!

I enjoy the "mash-up" theme genre, and I appreciate that Eric featured so many multi-worders. EPH(EMERAL)DS and HAM(MERING)UE are fine, but GILGAMESH + GAME SHOW = GILGAMESHOW shines. There's something about the space in GAME SHOW that makes the discovery stand out. AIREDALE + RED ALERT = AIREDALERT is excellent, too.

These findings might feel incredibly impressive to non-tech-oriented folks since they appear hard to uncover. That isn't the case since a strong wordlist will contain all of the component entries, and a simple program can uncover lots of possibilities.

Conversely, I've heard some complaints from techie solvers, who say that these types of puzzles reek of computer-assistance. That strikes me as odd; like complaining that a book feels like it was written on a computer, not a legal pad. Of course, constructors should use all the time-saving tools they can in their quest to make the best puzzle possible.

Even with computer assistance, a Sunday 140-word puzzle is no walk in the park, and a 136-worder like today's is a Herculean task. There's not quite a deluge of gluey bits today — about 18, including AREST, IRISE, DECI, ENES — but today's puzzle could have been a smooth, elegant 140-worder. Maybe even POW! material.

I understand the allure of the challenge, though, constructors wanting to tackle something seemingly impossible. Tough to resist sometimes.

Even with the rough edges, the array of fun finds was enough to keep my interest over the entire solve, which isn't the case on most Sundays this past year.