Anne Marie Crinnion author page

A new constructor got in touch with me a few months ago, asking about a puzzle based on DROP DOWN MENU, where themers ending in various drop-down menus literally drop down. Although it was a fine concept, I cautioned that Will Shortz is taking very few "turning" puzzles because they've become incredibly overdone.

Once again, it shows what I know!

Solid execution of the idea, Anne Marie and Eric choosing three colorful phrases. I'd happily give pluses to HIGH PROFILE, SCHOLARLY REVIEW, and STORE CREDIT if they were in a themeless I was evaluating. It's not easy to fill around intersecting themers, and wise deployment of black squares helped keep each of the three regions small enough to fill relatively smoothly. There's a tough piece of French vocab in MAI around the second themer's bend, but SPIDER-MAN's presence more than makes up for it.

Better yet, SPIDER-MAN's clue lends so much humor. [Noted web developer], indeed! I love that it didn't require a telltale question mark, so innocently pointing you to some JavaScript coder.

Same goes for [Hanging out, say]. Devilish way to describe clothes DRYING on a line.

It's odd to place the revealer as the third of four themers, though I can understand the rationale — shoving STORECRE/EDIT into a corner means that you can fill around it with less interconnection to the rest of the puzzle. That did allow for more bonus fill — VETO POWER, BIG GAME, DART GUN, even PARK IT — so I didn't mind the weirdness of an early revealer as much as I usually would.

There's not enough to distinguish this from the large body of turning puzzles, but the deft cluing touches and extras in the grid helped keep up my interest.

I was so stumped by "Name That Theme" today. That's not uncommon, but it's only a handful of times a year that I'm still bamboozled after hitting a revealer. And on a Monday, even more rare! Here's my embarrassing train (wreck) of thought as I overanalyzed:

• CHANGE LANES … doesn't that mean something in modern-day slang? (Yes, moving into someone else's bailiwick. Do yourself a favor and don't look it up on Urban Dictionary.)
• Do the answers CHANGE LANES somehow? Like they move up or down a row, in the middle of the answer? No ...
• Hmm. Ah, reading the full clue would help instead of TL;DR-ing it. Phonetic hint to the starts … what does ROADALIWAY mean?
• Maybe Aly pronounces her name "Allie" instead of "Ali"? Ah, "alley!"
• I think I've seen signs that say "road alleyway." That must be it.
• Wait. Is that right?
• Eat some chips and watch YouTube videos about building a home climbing wall while waiting for Jim Horne to call.
• Ask Jim, "I totally figured out this theme, did you?"
• Listen to his slightly baffled but concise explanation.
• Of course, I knew all along that it just meant "synonyms for a LANE = ROAD, ALLEY, or WAY." Duh!
• Double of course, CHANGE means "modify," as in "change into the word's homophone." Any idiot could figure that out!

I enjoyed having something twistier than usual to figure out on a Monday. I didn't pass the idiot test, but hopefully you did.

I also appreciated getting some great bonuses, SELL BY DATE, CARETAKER, INDONESIA, BLOODY MARY, wow! Perhaps too lofty a grid design, though, resulting in potentially unfair crossings MASADA / NAOH, RAISMAN / YSER, RAISMAN / MASADA. Generally, it's better to separate long bonuses more — shifting the CARETAKER long slot to the bottom would have likely facilitated smoother results.

Still, I enjoy giving Jim a good laugh, and I appreciated some great theme entries — RODE SHOTGUN and ALY RAISMAN seem so appropriate; her biceps are so impressive! — a Monday theme that tried to do something different.