Andrea Carla Michaels author page

★ Such fun connections, three people we might SEE in three different walks of COURT life — wide range of meanings, from a tennis court to a royal court to a legal court. I appreciated that this wasn't an ordinary "what connects these seemingly disparate elements" theme, taking it one step further by employing specific celebrities to further obfuscate the concept.

If only the revealer had been COURT DISASTER, and the names had been JOHN MCENROE, KING LEOPOLD II, and SAMUEL ALITO! Ha ha, I cannot be serious!

For two of the three, at least.

Order in the court, settle down, Jeff!

Themers of 13 and 14 letters are such a pain to work with. Those bulbous Utah blocks are one way to build around the 13s ... it might have been possible to do without them, removing all three black squares after OLDE and blocking out the E of OLDE. That is a much harder arrangement, though, with fewer choices for the long Down in that corner.

Delightful long Downs in CLOWN CAR and EVIL EYES — such fun injected into a Monday solve. CHIMES IN isn't as strong, but it's more a complete phrase than some other "add-a-preposition" entries.

Well done to finish with only one noticeable ding in I HAD. An extra black square could have helped smooth it out down there, but 44 black squares is already well above average, nearly pushing the grid past a block party.

It's awkward to think of seeing a tennis player in court, not on the court, but the next-level concept courted me in the end. POW!

★ What a great take on the "what connects these things?" genre! The mainstream approach would employ phrases like FROZEN PIZZA, GREAT NEWS, and ICE ICE BABY, tied together by DELIVER THE GOODS (with a clue alluding to the last words of each phrase). That's adequate, though it wouldn't deliver a strong aha for "things that can be delivered." Using all movies helps makes this memorable.

I did wonder at first, why movies? Yes, DELIVERANCE is a movie, so it kinda sorta makes sense to have the other themers be movies. It was a little strange, though, that BROADCAST NEWS and ROSEMARY'S BABY can be delivered, whereas you could hardly order a MYSTIC PIZZA from—

Thankfully, someone in the theater shushed that annoying guy so everyone else could sit back and enjoy the solve. Clean grid, superbly newb-friendly, with a theme that's both interesting and ties to one of the constructors' main interests?

Two thumbs up.

Last night, I LACKED CONFIDENCE as I attempted to get my kids to eat something besides MAC AND CHEESE, so I put on some AC/DC. "Back in Black" pumped me up when I was a kid (for mathletic competitions, but whatever), so maybe it'd make for PEACHES AND CREAM all night long?

I should have TRACKED CHANGES in my list before Big Balls started playing.

Neat to include BACKGROUND CHECK; a sly nod to BACK IN BLACK fans. A shame that black-clad Batman hasn't done a BACK IN DC BLACK spoof album yet. He does a lot of dirty deeds. Dirt cheap.

I appreciated that SACRED COW led things off since CRACK / BACK / JACK would have felt too rhyme-y.

I failed at "Name That Theme" today, but in the best way possible. I couldn't see AC and DC while solving, and when I hit ACDC, I was thunderstruck. Great decision not to circle the letters (sorry, ACME!).

Consistency is usually a blessing, but I was distracted by always having AC in the first word, and DC split across the phrase. It turns out that it's impossible to do otherwise — what words are going to start with DC, except DC COMICS, DC UNITED, etc.? I'd almost rather have A C D C spread out, like in ARCHDUCHESS, but that either requires telltale circles or makes this a mid-week solve, since it'd be much harder to find those letters.

Acme and Kevin need to popularize an AC/KC band! Think of all the theme entries containing consecutive *ACKC* …

I'm GELID on having both COOL and COLD (and GELID in a Monday grid), but solid gridwork otherwise. I bet newb solvers won't get shot down in flames today.

Congrats to Leslie, who got married a month ago!

Leslie and Acme have puzzle-making DOWN TO A SCIENCE! I loved their last collaboration, and this one was almost as fun. This person of science enjoyed how PHYSICAL, SOCIAL, and EARTH were well-hidden at the ends of phrases. Orienting the themers vertically was perfect, too, placing those thematic words DOWN low in the grid.

Such beautiful phrases! Perhaps ANNUAL PHYSICAL isn't snazzy, but ever since I turned 50 this year, I've changed my mindset about dreading my annual. I have such little control over so many aspects of my life, that I'm eager to see how more exercise than ever (what else has there been to do?), will affect my bloodwork.

That said, I'll look forward to returning to retro ICE CREAM SOCIALs some post-pandemic day (instead of gorging frozen treats after my kids go to bed, then blaming Santa for the thievery).

If only psychiatric science had been included today, for my kids' sake.

Some A+ cluing work. It can be difficult to write fresh clues for humdrum words like LIAR and EDIT — especially for a Monday, when puzzles need to be newb-accessible. "Make-up specialist" might go over some folks' heads, but I won't make up excuses for this bit of brilliance. And the telltale question mark does its job well in [One way to reduce one's sentence?] — as in shortening something verbose.

(Jim Horne, who's already flagged my post as too long, is playing Oscars walk-off music.)

It's tough for me to POW! any puzzle that has a whiff of a "words that can precede X" theme, but this one came close. With so few oopsy MESSUPS in gridwork, this could have won out in many other weeks.

If VERMONTANA is half as eye-popping as a VERMONSTER sundae, I'd gladly search for Green Mountain Treasure!

I treasured learning why VERMONT is called the Green Mountain State. Turns out that VERMONT comes from vert + mont, the French words for green + mountain. Hey, wait a minute! MONTANA derives from the Spanish word … for mountains! Neat extra layer to make the already cool MONT overlap even more memorable.

TRISTATE AREA aptly describes three states. I wondered, though, if it gets adequately at overlapping letters. Revealers like CROSSING STATE LINES or BORDER DISPUTES would have felt much more on point.

I love it when a puzzle kicks off with amusing wordplay. Deleting two minor letters from "Raiders of the Lost Ark" to make NOAH a "rider of the lost ark" gave me such a smile.

But that paled in comparison to the ROOMBAS clue! I'm a sucker for cats riding ROOMBAS, so that was a delightful two hours of binge-watching YouTube videos.

Some of the themers weren't as impressive as others, especially when they involved only a single letter of overlap (IOWALABAMA and MONTANALASKA). I enjoyed a previous puzzle more since it presented the singular best in CATegory. (In the category of cat ROOMBAS, it's clearly Frodo's chariot.) Enough amusement elsewhere in the grid to keep up my interest, though.

Repeated trigrams? They must spell something! Okay … OKE ANI THI WOR CHI? Not OKE!

First letters? OAH ... oh, crud.

Middles or finals? KNHOH nuh oh.

EIIRI, that's eerie.

At least I amuse myself.

There are thousands of entries that contain repeated trigrams separated by at least once space. Custom coding can turn them all up, or a simpler RegEx search can do the same thing. I did enjoy that WORDSWORTH was featured in a wordplayish theme. It's fun to say CHINCHILLA, too, such chi-chi sounds.

Given how many possibilities there are, it'd have been great to have some extra element like the repeated letters spelling something, a revealer giving justification for these particular trigrams, or at least a couple of fresher theme answers. Maybe some DOUBLE DRIBBLED fun, or GRUESOME TWOSOMES?

Still, a smooth Monday solving experience.

ADDED NOTE: The HEADline should have been "Jeff oblivious, misses obvious theme." Glad I read Zach and ACME's for context — I would never have figured that out on my own!

Here's the RegEx that finds words that repeat the first three letters later on.

Hey, this isn't the correct progression! It's race to the hospital, be told that it's false labor, go home, rush back hours later, no progress, walk around the hospital for two hours at 2:30 am trying to induce labor, return home, pass out, dash back …

That might not all fit in a crossword.

Christina and I both have two little kids, so it was super fun to solve this one with her stories in mind. LABOR, PUSH, DELIVERY make for a tidy theme.

Unlike the actual childbirth process.

I appreciated that LABOR was disguised, pointing more toward general work with LABOR DAY. And such a colorful phrase in LABOR DAY WEEKEND.

PUSH THE ENVELOPE also performed some obfuscation, since it's an idiom. Great phrase selection, again.

I had an inkling what was going on by now, and DELIVERY SERVICE sealed the deal. Signed, sealed, delivered, "Name That Tune" was mine! It'd have been great to get more misdirection, but that's tough with a DELIVERY ___ phrase. Maybe DELIVERY ROUTE could have been slightly better, since I've heard DELIVERY SERVICE punnily described as in Ob/Gyn's job?

Only four themers, but the fact that they're grid-spanners does bring up some challenges. The tricky areas are usually the west and east sections, where so many adjacent Down answers have to thread through the middle two themers. I'm impressed that they escaped with only ENO and WVA in the east.

Getting these regions solidly filled, though, often locks things in, removing precious flexibility elsewhere. While I love SORE EYES, having to accept some ELEM isn't ideal. The opposite location is super-clean, but TARGETED isn't that interesting a bonus.

I feel blessed to have the opportunity to get to know a lot of constructors, and that enhanced my solving experience today. It gave this childbirth puzzle more meaning to me, even more than the last one.

★ If I can Name That Theme in one entry, I'll usually wonder what's the point of doing the rest of the puzzle. After hitting CURDS AND WHEY, I figured it had to be either WHEY homophones or "things that nursery rhyme characters ate." After uncovering AI WEI WEI, it was clear which.

To my surprise, I loved the rest of the puzzle! Acme's first three themers alone would have felt boring, since this theme has been done before (many times across different venues), but adding in AI WEI WEI helps, and ZIMBABWE is a stroke of genius. I'd have never thought there could be five different WAYs (ha) to spell that sound, all in fine words / phrases.

I did hitch on AI WEIWEI, a tough name to piece together. I'm sure there will be grumblings that he's not "Monday-accessible," and I'd usually be right there. The theme does help with the final WEI, at least. And all the crosses are unambiguous and fair. Still, polling a bunch of my (highly educated, well-traveled) friends, some of whom are Taiwanese or Chinese, only one had heard of him.

The fill was hardly a SNOOZE. It's easy enough to impress with long downs, and THE ALAMO and WIIMOTES do just that, but it's the mid-length material that dazzled. I loved starting with ABACUS, especially with that fun clue. I don't expect to see clever wordplay on a Monday, much less something that doesn't require a telltale question mark. [Something you can count on] is both entertaining and accessible.

Following that with WATUSI, ENTRÉE, IAMBIC, EL NINO, BOGART, AZORES, LADY DI, DAY SPA = top-notch work. Doing all that with only minor ATTN IOC ISR makes it even more impressive.

This isn't rocket science but more a matter of careful layout, adjustments based on testing different skeletons of black squares, and heavy, heavy iterating. Acme / Doug did it extremely well today, helping prove my case that even with five themers, nearly every crossword should be held to this highest standard.

If you like Doug's work, BTW, maybe check out *cough cough, shameless self-promotion* one of his latest releases.

Let's make a deal: if you can Name That Theme in three guesses, I'll tell you another CLASSIC GAME SHOW that fits the pattern of being a conversational line.

What, no takers? I double dare you! How can you not want to press your luck? People are funny.

(Chuck Barris would have gonged me two paragraphs ago.)

As a latchkey kid, I was raised by game shows, so I love this concept. It didn't hit as strongly as I would have liked, though, as CLASSIC GAME SHOW didn't pack much of a wordplay punch. I brainstormed for a while, thinking about using REALITY TV or GSN somehow, but I couldn't make anything work.

I wonder if no revealer would have been better, perhaps making the clues kookier, somehow tying them to a game show-esque situation in real life.

ACME (Andrea Carla Michaels) is one of the funniest and friendliest crossworld people. I wish her gridwork was cleaner — I'd have asked for revisions in some corners — but it's great to see her bring something of her life that she deeply cares about into today's crossword.

And I did enjoy some SKOSH and REVERE.

Although there were some technical difficulties, this child of the 80s still loved the concept. I bet I could go a long time, saying nothing but TV show titles. It would be an amazing race.

Such high marks for technical excellence! I usually find some aspects to nit-pick in both Acme and Kevin's layouts and gridwork, but not today. Themers positioned perfectly, even shifting ANKLE BOOT to the left to avoid an awkward letter pattern where BAGEL sits. (??G?K is terrible, so the shift avoids that problem.)

Almost every Monday puzzle should contain exactly what this one does: super-smooth short fill (minor UNE and odd A AND M aside), a few long bonuses (REDBIRDS, DOG SAT, NO CUTS!, and that's DOES LAPS, not DOE SLAPS), along with fine grid flow. I might have tried for a little less segmentation between the upper right corner and the diagonal swath, but that's more a wish list item, not a problem.

Sometimes constructors accuse me of holding them to too high a standard; five themers necessarily come with trade-offs. That might be the case with hard constraints — extra Xs or funny letter patterns — but in general, if you're not executing to today's standard, you have to work harder.

Well done, Acme and Kevin — I wonder if there's some interesting synergy here between your two construction styles?

So why no POW!? Because if I were the editor, I wouldn't have selected this one. Not because of any political sort of reason, but because I want puzzles to delight. Uplift. Create a temporary bubble of happiness in people's lives. While I can admire the technical merit, riffing on YOU'RE FIRED during a time of generational-record unemployment feels cruel.

I admire the clever hiding of CAN, AXE, SACK, and BOOT's meanings. Such a downer, though. I get that some folks will celebrate the irony of Trump's "firing," but that delight is more gas pouring onto our national dumpster fire.

Now look who's a downer! I'll leave you with cute deer instead. No slapping, I promise.

Constructors are sneaky. Ever wonder why the word SMILE has appeared in about 150 Shortz-era crosswords, while FROWN is stuck at 14? Subtle influencing through theme choices and grid fill nudges solvers' moods without them even knowing. The fools!

Huh? It's because SMILE is packed with common letters, while FROWN contains harder-to-work-with F and W?

:-(

Uplifting, a puzzle all about TOPs and PEAKs (although, HEIGHT doesn't fit as well). Apt theme for Andrea Carla Michaels (née Eisenberg), who goes by the moniker Acme!

Who doesn't love the ACME CORPORATION, too, what with its Iron Carrots and Earthquake Pills. Well, there's Wile E. Coyote ... who has wily worked WILE 71 times into the NYT crossword!

I'm curious what percentage of solvers will notice the theme today. Some don't even know that there are themes, period, and if there's no revealer to point to what's going on … will some think that this is an Alex TREBEK tribute puzzle, one of the BIG SHOTS in the game show world, eliciting PEAK PERFORMANCES from mere mortals, riding his jet-propelled unicycle on stage.

Maybe COVID isolation is getting to me.

A puzzle with four grid-spanners can be hairy, especially at the ends of the two middle themers. Exhibit A: the south region, with ESSEN / MBE. N???I is a rough pattern, with few valid options, so that restricts flexibility. Perhaps switching HEIGHT OF FASHION and TOP OF THE MORNING would have helped since ING is a friendlier ending to work with than ION (five-letter words ending with O aren't as common as those ending with N).

Alan and Acme could have made their lives easier by picking shorter themers, like PEAK CONDITION, TOP OF THE LINE, etc., but I appreciated that they went full 15 since that puts all ACME synonyms at the top of the puzzle. (Mirror symmetry would have allowed them to use APEX PREDATOR at the top, though.)

A couple of trade-offs, some smoothing they could have done (AERO, ACAB, ERG, etc.) but overall, a reasonable Monday offering, if not top of the line.

Not all "add-a-letter" puzzles need a revealer — something to explain why the letter is being added — but they often help elevate a concept. Jim Horne and I were chatting in our weekly discussion of the puzzles, brainstorming what could be fun for today's. After many failed ideas, we decided it was a waste of time. F that, man!

Hey … F THAT, indeed!

Amusing results for half the themers, FRISKY BUSINESS the big winner. The image of kitties sitting around in business suits is priceless. FRANK AMATEUR is entertaining, and it's even better in the context of FRANK Costanza and Festivus.

FRACK AND RUIN … too close to reality, considering the environmental / economic debate around fracking. Will Shortz tries to stay away from politics, so I'm surprised to see this one pass muster.

FRIGHTFUL OWNER is another big yikes. Maybe it's not a problem if you've never had a scary landlord, but that power imbalance is no laughing matter.

I did appreciate the consistency of 1.) always adding an F to an R word, and 2.) always doing it at the beginning of a phrase. Perhaps alternates like (generating computer code to discover other possibilities … stand by …) FROCKED THE BOAT? FRIDGE LINE? FRAIL SPLITTER?

Today's themers are harder to work with than yesterday's because the longer lengths make for gridding awkwardness, but any time you have just four themers, there's no reason that there should be so much AEROS ICERS SSGTS ATA MME RDS SSS. More black squares separating themers 1 / 2 and 3 / 4 would have helped — there are too many separating themers 2 / 3, so they could have been redeployed.

Overall though, any humor is so valuable these days, so FRISKY BUSINESS made up for a lot.

MC: It's time to play … Name That Theme!

MC: WAVES HELLO …

MC: SURF THE NET …

Ooh, ooh! Surfing terms!

MC: Seriously? You think "surfing terms" would include the word SURF? SHELLS OUT CASH …

A SHELL is a type of rowing boat! Things that you see on the water!

MC: Terrible guess. PALMS CARDS …

(crickets)

things that Gilligan used in inept attempts to get off the Island?

MC: Talk about inept. How are you so atrocious at this game? No! The answer is BEACHFRONT.

(crickets)

Wha … ? Each word can be preceded by BEACH? Ah! Like BEACH WAVES. That's a thing. Isn't it?

MC: No.

Then how does it work?

(crickets)

MC: Let's go to commercial break.

The theme is "things seen at a beach," but the revealer didn't work well for me. I'd have preferred simply BEACH. Maybe GILLIGAN'S ISLAND. What can I say, I'm a sucker for SHELL-based technology.

I did appreciate the imagery Alan and Acme spurred into my head. In a time where the closest I can get to PALMS is people's Hawaiian Zoom backgrounds, I loved being transported to a tropical Eden. Helped make up for the revealer being flat, and the partialish feel of several grid entries, like IS DUE, ONE ARM, and PET TRICKS.

It blows my mind that BOGGLES THE MIND wasn't the revealer. That's okay, I don't mind.

Even though I've seen a lot of Jedi MIND tricks and anagramming themes over the years, I kept an open mind while solving. I enjoyed how elegantly the circled letters progressed, an orderly procession marching along the puzzle's diagonal. Neat!

Well, until I started thinking about it.

What, Jeff overthink something? You don't say.

What kind of twisted mind CHANGES ONES MIND in such a regimented fashion? If I were making this puzzle, I'd, of course, start with my usual DIMNess, then I'd follow with INDM falling off the grid because I think outside the box dammit, and continue with D M ___ I ___ N broken up after losing my mind.

However, as a diehard Trekker (not Trekkie—puh-lease!) I'd absolutely end with a MIND melded backward in LEONARD NIMOY. That's the sort of mind(bleep) I love experiencing. That's some Admiral-level meta-ness, that is.

So many Star Trek episodes featured the red shirt, that poor ensign you knew was going to bite it. Dude was going to wade right into the alien ILEDE ICAL swamp and then disintegrate.

It turns out everything we need to know about construction we can learn from Star Trek. The problem always came when Kirk told everyone to spread out in this giant, unknown area. When you try to explore swaths with EMAIL ME and BIG MOMMA stirring up alien quicksand … you better say oh hell no and beam your ass right back up.

There's an interesting nugget of a concept here, CHANGED ONES MIND having a lot of potential. I enjoyed the theme phrases Acme and Victor chose — FIND MY IPHONE is contemporary, and it seems to be a highly-used app — but the execution of theme and gridwork wasn't as mindful as a Monday puzzle ought to be.

I never saw the twist coming, Scrooge being THE DEVIL Bob Crachit knew, but his wife — MRS CRATCH — being THE DEVIL he didn't. Reminds me of how Malaysia recently put out a PSA telling wives to not nag their husbands during COVID-19 lockdown.

Like Malaysia, I'll now apologize.

I researched SATAN for a crossword years ago but ultimately decided that focusing on THE DEVIL was too much of a downer. I want my crosswords to be heavenly, not six (million) feet under. I'm also a complete wuss when it comes to all things supernatural. He (or She, in the case of Mrs. Cratch) Who Shall Not Be Named, begone!

At first, I thought it would be more fun if THE DEVIL were revealed in a more clever way. Putting his (or her) name in shaded letters is like painting a giant pentagram on your forehead with the blood of a still-bleating goat. After some thought though, I appreciated SPEAK OF THE DEVIL, because it's exactly what Andrea and Brian (dare to) do. Better them than me!

To be safe, I left all the themers blank in my puzzle, so H(oS)WSNBN will be less likely to hear his name invoked and thus follow me into the bathroom in the middle of the night when I get up to pee. Take that, BEELZEBUB!

Aargh, I said his name! Now I'll have to hold it in as I pull the sheets up over my head and hide.

You think I'm joking.

Andrea and Brian went one step further by crossing LUTHERAN with THE DEVIL. Throw in ALEXA, who knows the meaning of life, and you've got yourself an excellent joke setup. The devil, a Lutheran, and Alexa walk into a bar ...

An odd choice to headline old Scratch and his various nicknames, but it works as a theme. Less devilish fill would have been better for a Monday though, AEON FLUX crossing ECOLE possibly tripping up solvers. And KOLN's clue, [City involving crazy trivia that no one would know] reminded me of last week's April Fool's Day puzzle.

Suddenly I'm hungry for a bagel. With a fried goose egg in it! Surely that must be the recipe for a nothing burger?

What a great way to celebrate Women's History Month; a full week of female constructors. Kicking it off is our good friend Acme, delivering a theme that's certainly not ZIPPO. (Or maybe it is? Ha!) I couldn't remember who ZERO MOSTEL was, but at least his first name was easy to piece together.

In the spirit of the week, I enjoyed seeing some females sprinkled into the grid. SABRINA, LORI Loughlin (crossing TORI Spelling!), and of course, Queen ELSA, who my daughter emulates at every opportunity, with her not-at-all irritating nails-on-chalkboard drive-me-insane song that plays every time Tess presses the damn button on her dress WHY WOULD ANYONE MAKE SUCH A TORTURE DEVICE COSTUME THAT A 5-YEAR-OLD CAN ACTIVATE?

Ahem. Speaking of names, there are quite a few today, bordering on making the puzzle feel like a trivia contest. For example, I'm an NBA fan, but LAMAR / ODOM doesn't seem crossworthy. I wouldn't group him as part of the NOTHING theme, but he certainly isn't going to make the Hall of Fame.

Speaking of sports, Greg LEMOND gets so many kudos for being the first male Tour winner from the U.S., but I love the story of Marianne Martin. Pretty awesome.

The gridwork had a decent balance of color and cleanliness. I love SNAP OUT OF IT, I MANAGE, HIP HOP, GRANITE — almost enough to outweigh the ARAP, ELAL, JRR, TAS stuff, as well as the unpleasant connotations brought up by the word SYMPATHIZER. (The two dictionaries I checked listed "Nazi sympathizer" and "communist sympathizer" as examples.)

It's not as Monday smooth as it should be, but it's close.

Overall, a solid start to women constructors week … hardly all for naught!

Yak yak yak … yak! Four colorful words describing a person (or in this case, a crossword) who runs his/her/its mouth makes for an interesting Monday puzzle. BLATHERSKITE stood out, such a curious word, something a cranky old man might say.

Okay, I admit it, I'm that cranky old man.

Masterful gridwork today, ACME peppering the puzzle with strong bonuses. Just two long entries in CREVICES and LECTURES — both fine, albeit not outstanding — but check out the sizzle she injected into her mid-length fill. MALAWI, SAHARA, THWART with its delightful THW start, TRASHY! Cap it off with NAME IT and SEZ WHO. The mid-length fill stands head and shoulders above the average Monday puzzle.

ACME used a clever constructors' trick in her grid layout. Look at the SE corner — it's fairly well connected to the rest of the puzzle, three different points allowing for entrance / egress, which allows for passable solving flow. But when you drop in the last three themers, you can construct the SE corner in near isolation!

It's a great balance — enough solving flow, while also making for easy construction. You can try out pairs of words where LECTURES and CREVICES sit, and once you settle on two that you like (and that test out well), you can work on the grid in three separate pieces. Divide and conquer!

With just a bit of SHLEP (I'm used to "schlep") and ATIE, it's such a clean overall product; so accessible for newbs.

Tying the theme clues aptly together amused me enough to give some POW! consideration. If there had been a turnabout punchline to the joke — some funny entry like ENOUGH ALREADY at the end — that would have been as satisfying as storming up to that one annoying person who's loudly talking on his phone, so no one in the coffee shop can work and DOING A HULK SMASH!

You know you want to. Said the cranky old man.

The colorful LEOPARD PRINT makes its second appearance this month! I'm sorely tempted to expand my wardrobe, much to my wife's chagrin.

Mathematics has an entire subcategory of study called "packing problems." It's not just theoretical, either — there are important applied problems related to shipping, molecular structure, and of course, packing one's bags for a trip. And let's not forget crossword construction!

Packing four theme entries into a 15x15 puzzle is boring. There are so many ways it can be done; way too much flexibility. But when you up that to five or six or even seven themers, that's when constructors crack their knuckles in anticipation of a Herculean challenge.

When a puzzle packs in a ridiculous number of theme answers in an elegant way, it's something you want to study. Delight at. Clap for. It's like the feeling you get upon finally solving a "fit these pieces into a frame" brainteaser. Check out the elegance of the packing puzzle on the right, for example.

When the ultra-high density is enabled by blunt force, though …

I don't mind when constructors take on personal challenges, if the resulting grid sings for solvers. And sometimes a high-density packing can have a wow effect — I heard some praise for Bruce Haight's SS puzzle, for instance.

But when there's so much to turn off newer solvers — AGA TSE NEAP ERE UNI etc. — the degraded solving experience makes IT SO not worth it.

Now, I did like some things — YOWZA was fun, as was MOOCH (huge "Mutts" fan here). I also appreciated that Kevin and Acme made an attempt to elevate the overdone "initialisms" genre. If there had been a reason to include seven LPS, perhaps some band named LP7 or whatever, I'd have said it was justified.

But the ultra-high density approach, replete with such a high amount of crossword glue, doesn't make for a good gateway puzzle for newer solvers.

ADDED NOTE: reader Jeff Doyle-Horney points out that there's an eighth themer — a young dog from SoCal at 23 Down. Ha!

DJ's SPINNIN' = phrases with D's replaced with J's. GRAVE JIGGERS made me out-and-out belly laugh. What an image that evokes!

HOOVER JAM also entertained, given the change of HOOVER from the name to the vacuum-related noun.

The others didn't do much for me, but humor is subjective. Hopefully, others were more entertained.

Nice touch that Tony and Acme chose phrases that didn't contain any other D's. It would have been inelegant for a simple letter substitution puzzle to have a stray D inside one of the theme phrases.

It's not easy to work so many Js into a single puzzle. Eight of them is no joke! But given that this is such a basic concept, I needed something more to keep up my interest. Here are some possible ways:

• Bonuses in the fill. There's DON JUAN, but not much else.
• Clean as a whistle gridwork? Nope, too much crossword glue. I stopped counting at 10 infractions. Adding / rejiggering black squares, to increase the word count from 138 to 140, could have helped.
• Clever wordplay clues. None that stood out.
• Extra layer of theme. At first I thought there was a neat extra: all the new Js form a circle ... like a record that's being spun! That would have been a solid addition. Alas, no. (Maybe it's a Dali-esque record?)

All in all, some decent theme answers, but I wish there had been something more to enliven my solving experience.

However, it's important to remember that I'm far from an average solver. There's something to be said for occasionally throwing a softball. Many people I know delight in being able to just complete a Sunday NYT crossword, so this could be right up their alleys.

★ I love playing the "can I guess the theme" game on Mondays. A perfect early-week theme is obfuscated until the very end, where a revealer gives me a delightful a-ha moment. My observations through my solve today, along with timestamps:

1:24 — NIGHT-NIGHT. Theme is doubled words? Hmm, that'd be boring.

2:05 — WHITE WEDDING!

(singing) It's a nice day to … START AGAIN!

Oops, gotta get back to it.

2:16 — NIGHT / WHITE … rhymers with different spellings?

2:58 — MUSHROOM BALL? Let's put the theme game aside and figure out WTF a MUSHROOM BALL is.

(down the internet rabbit hole) Wow, those look delicious!

3:31 — Scratching my head. How could these three themers possibly be related?

4:24 — Hit the revealer, CAP AND GOWN.

4:26 — Wha ... ?

4:32 — Uh ... buh?

4:37 — More head scratching.

4:46 — Re-read the clue for the fourth time. Still nonsensical.

5:05 — Jeff is getting angry!

5:31 — AHA! Happy dance! NIGHT cap, WHITE cap, MUSHROOM cap. NIGHT gown, WEDDING gown, BALL GOWN!

Great twist on the "both words can precede X" theme type. Fortuitous findings — I wouldn't have believed it possible. Huge kudos.

And great gridwork too. Enough bonuses in SUNSCREEN, OBNOXIOUS, COPYCAT, DATASET. Not much crossword glue in ETH MATA SNO. This is the way to execute on a Monday grid, folks. Don't be afraid to go up to the max of 78 words. Don't try for anything flashy. Focus on a clean, smooth grid, and work in a couple of strong bonuses. Pro stuff right here.

POW! Congrats on joining the club, Leslie, and looking forward to more from both of you!

★ Now, this is what I call a gateway puzzle! Interesting and easy to comprehend theme + nice extras + smooth fill = oh so accessible to newer solvers. I'd happily give this one to people just getting started doing the NYT crossword.

I've seen the JACKS theme done in other venues, but I couldn't find it in the NYT archives. Plus, the HIJACKS — or HI, JACKS! — revealer is so much fun. It elevates the concept from the other implementations I've seen.

Hopefully, you aren't doing this crossword on a plane, though …

I had a slight pause with Jack RUBY, given his notorious place in history. But I couldn't find any other JACKs whose last names are so easily disguisable. Like Brian, I might have gone with Jack FROST — Jack SPARROW is a fictional character so there's no perfect consistency with Jack LONDON and Jack BLACK anyway — perhaps FROST / NIXON as a fourth themer?

Ultimately though, I respect their theme set choice. Plus, who doesn't like RUBY SLIPPERS!

I like what Brian and Andrea did with the grid. It's at 78 words, the max allowable, but they still managed to work in LATIN LOVER, EXTRA EXTRA, SURE CAN, ATHLETE, without making the grid feel chock full of short answers or too sectioned off.

Superb work. It's nearly everything I want out of a Monday puzzle.

Welcome to LAUGH AT MYSELF (LAM-poon) week! I thought I'd try something different, as methinks I've been taking myself too seriously, and that might be hindering my ability to enjoy. And what are crosswords, if not to be enjoyed?

MAKE / LOVE / NOT / WAR start theme phrases today — what a fun hidden phrase! Beautiful themer choices in MAKE IT SNAPPY and LOVE POTION.

I sheepishly admit I put in 70S instead of 60S. So much for being an educated solver! Petty Jeff (PJ) would have whined about how it wasn't fair. But realistically, that one's on me. I mean, come on! The 70s, Jeff? Been watching too much "That 70s Show," have you?

(sheepish nod)

Hmm, what would PJ say about the technical issues? He'd wonder about the phrases ONE TO GO (seems like a partial) and PLAN BS (don't you just have one PLAN B, then you move to PLAN C, PLAN D, etc.)?

But ... bah! Why dwell on these minor issues in an otherwise well-constructed puzzle?

How about CHINK? Okay, I've been called a chink many a time. But, this week's Jeff says that the phrase "chink in one's armor" is a fine phrase. I'm choosing to look the other way.

Love, love, love the SHAMPOO clue. It didn't get me into a lather at all!

If there's one thing today's Jeff and PJ agree upon, it's that we would have preferred a more specific entry for 6 — maybe 6 PACK or 6 GUNS — but either one of us should have been able to identify the 60S from MAKE LOVE NOT WAR, no crossing necessary.

Overall, a fun hidden message that's right on point. Given the country's rocky state of affairs, we could all use a little more love.

I'm enjoying trying out a different perspective. This is the perfect puzzle to kick off a week of making love, not war, on crosswords!

FIGHT CLUB! Now that was a movie that surprised and delighted me, in oddly unexpected ways. Acme plays on it today, hiding fighting words at the starts of phrases. KICK and PUNCH … them's fighting words!

Don't groan. You knew I was going to say it.

BITE and SCRATCH weren't as apt for me, as they don't seem very FIGHT CLUB to me. Man, that movie was violent! BITE and SCRATCH seem more appropriate for a Three Stooges routine.

Of the themers, I liked PUNCH BOWL best, because it hides the meaning of PUNCH completely ... unless you're Tyler Durden, in which case you might actually punch a PUNCH BOWL. Talk about anger management issues.

KICKSTART also hid the KICK meaning a little, since "kickstarting" a project goes away from a kick starter on a motorcycle. You do sort of kick a motorcycle's kick starter, though.

BITE and SCRATCH don't hide their meanings at all within BITE VALVE and SCRATCH AND SNIFF. You bite a BITE VALVE to get water to throw. So again, I wasn't a fan of these two themer choices.

THROW is in the fill? I'd have greatly preferred to keep it out, especially since THROW is much more Durden-esque than SCRATCH. (Hmm, THROW RUG?)

A couple of blips in the fill, noticeably ARTE, OBLA, OFA right off the top. I think the latter two could have been avoided by spacing out the themers more. Putting KICK START in row five (instead of row four) would have allowed for a couple of black squares separating BITE VALVE and KICK START, allowing them to play more nicely together.

EOSIN is such a toughie. Normally I don't classify anything as "not Monday material" — if the crossings are fair, what's the harm in forcing solvers to learn one new thing? But even having a pharma background, EOSIN feels like it could elicit an "I have to know trivia to do crosswords?" response from newbies. No Bueno!

All in all, a good memory jog to a movie I enjoyed. Some missteps in execution, though.

Neat bit of trivia: the Shortz era began with a great tribute to ROY G. BIV, the colors of the rainbow, in order. This theme concept has been revisited many a time — such great crossword fodder.

It is, however, difficult to fit in all seven colors into a 15x15 grid. (The average number of themers is about five these days.) Michael and Acme accomplish it today, and also stick in RAINBOW as a revealer. Impressive to work in eight themers, fairly smoothly.

Excellent use of interlock, INDIGO GIRLS crossing BLUEBIRDS, and YELLOW LIGHT crossing VIOLET RAY. In some cases, constructors use this sort of interlock to show off, more for themselves than for the solver. But here, it's almost necessary, to squeeze everything in. I highlighted the themers below, to demonstrate how tight a fit it is.

Oh, if it hadn't been for VIOLET RAY — all the other themers are so colorful (ha ha). What a curious grid entry. (I usually see SHRINKING VIOLET for this theme type.) It was interesting to learn about this antique piece of medical equipment, but electrotherapy seems so barbaric.

It's tough for a science nerd like me to see all the colors spread out willy-nilly, instead of in proper ROY G. BIV order. I'm not entirely sure it could have been done without more compromises (LIII, ITI, ACS — I ASEA you), but here's one case where I would have been okay with a higher price to pay in order to get proper color order.

THINGS NEED TO BE PROPER, SHOUTED THE OCD DORK!

My poor kids.

Hear me out. Put RED TAPE in row 3, all the way to the left. ORANGE PEEL all the way to the right, in row 4 or 5. Keep alternating until you reach RAINBOW, down in row 13. Or take out RAINBOW if you need to.

Heck, even if you needed to go asymmetrical, I'd accept that. ANYTHING TO ACHIEVE ORDER! THE WILLY-NILLINESS IS SO DISTRACTING!

I should probably find them a therapist sooner rather than later.

But overall, still an impressive feat to fit eight themers in. If in a disorderly fashion.

I've definitely heard the phrase STILL WATERS RUN DEEP before ... but I embarrassingly had to look up what it exactly meant. Apparently "a quiet or placid manner may conceal a more passionate nature." Huh!

To me, a "maxim hidden at the starts of theme phrases" puzzle is best when there's a revealer that describes the maxim in a snazzy way. SAW is too generic for my taste. Problem is, I can't think of a colorful phrase that describes STILL WATERS RUN DEEP.

Heck, I can't even think of a non-snazzy way of describing it, besides just saying STILL WATERS RUN DEEP! Perhaps MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE?

(Doubly embarrassed that I just quoted the "Transformers" theme song.)

Anyhoo, good choices for theme answers. Funny to imagine older people say I'm STILL KICKING! And DEEP THOUGHTS was one of my favorite segments back when I watched SNL.

WATERS DOWN and RUN ERRANDS didn't pop as much — about as exciting as RUNning errands. But they work fine. There's not much you can do with WATERS as a starting word.

I'm curious if switching the maxim to final words would have been better? That would have put ETHEL WATERS into play. AND ... if you ran the themers vertically, you could bury the maxim at the bottoms of the theme phrases … making them RUN DEEP!

Okay, maybe I still don't totally get what the maxim means.

Good gridwork for a Monday. ORLON is a toughie, but I think it's worth the price of SMOLDERS next to an AIR KISS.

I wasn't as much a fan of STOOD IN intersecting ALL IN — feels inelegant to have the crossing dupe — and I didn't care for ESSES … I wonder if black squares at the end of AMASS and the start of ESSES could have cleaned things up.

All in all, a cleanly-executed maxim theme, the saying well-hidden at the start of the themers until the revealer told me what was going on. I just wish the revealer had more pop … perhaps not the best maxim to build a puzzle around.