Alex Silverman author page
1 puzzle by Alex Silverman
with Jeff Chen comments
| S | L | E | E | P | S | S | O | O | N | B | U | S | ||
| Y | E | L | L | O | W | S | U | B | M | A | R | I | N | E |
| S | H | E | S | L | E | A | V | I | N | G | H | O | M | E |
| T | I | M | E | A | U | S | S | I | E | T | A | S | ||
| G | R | R | Q | U | A | N | T | |||||||
| B | R | A | V | A | S | A | L | B | U | M | ||||
| M | U | R | A | L | U | V | U | L | A | F | A | B | ||
| W | H | E | N | I | M | S | I | X | T | Y | F | O | U | R |
| S | R | A | L | I | S | L | E | L | O | R | R | Y | ||
| T | E | R | R | A | G | E | R | M | A | N | ||||
| A | N | C | H | O | I | R | S | |||||||
| L | B | A | R | A | M | I | N | O | M | I | N | E | ||
| P | A | P | E | R | B | A | C | K | W | R | I | T | E | R |
| H | E | R | E | C | O | M | E | S | T | H | E | S | U | N |
| A | R | I | A | Y | E | S | H | O | N | O | R | S |
Debut! And what a debut. Jim and I had many discussions about this one, that fact alone making it a successful puzzle. Five Beatles songs — all 15 letters long — given a wacky interpretation, plus a kicker, the FOUR of WHEN IM SIXTY FOUR combined to form the FAB FOUR. Very cool idea.
Four grid-spanners are hard enough to do. I've commented many times on all the difficulties that arise with so many down entries that must interact with two or more grid-spanners. Including FIVE of them, two pairs each double-stacked, is an order of magnitude more difficult. It certainly provides a neat visual impact, akin to wide-open themeless puzzles. Amusing that this puzzle reminded me of another one, which just happened to have a double-stacked pair of grid-spanners ending in ALEX!
As Will mentioned, there are some compromises that the stacks force. For me, it was only really noticeable in the SE and NW corners where there's a concentration of gluey answers. And as to "Monday-like" answers, I think most anything is fair game — if the crossings are gettable. I LOVE the entry QUANT, for example, as it's both a memorable piece of finance lingo and inferable just by itself (it's slang for a "quantitative person").
LISLE crossing AVILA might be fair game in a themeless, but more a source of grumbling on a Monday.
This puzzle will likely play super strongly to the generation that grew up with the Beatles. I can certainly appreciate all the great feelings — it's like what the Simpsons or Monty Python do for me. Personally, not knowing SHES LEAVING HOME made me wonder if it would have been better to have just four themers (which would go along with FAB FOUR!), but I'm sure this song plays as well as the others to Beatles fans like Jim.
Memorable first puzzle; hoping to see more from Alex.