Ashish Vengsarkar author page

★ Brilliant. Lowercase m looking like r + n smashed together? That's a strong concept in itself. Combining this with the perfect revealer — FROM STEM TO STERN — makes it a constructor's gem. Praise the benevolent Crucivera, goddess of crosswords, for her magnificent gift!

Excellent theme phrases, too. It'd be all too easy to use dictionary definitions that are unsatisfying to uncover, like if [Burns] had been the clue for OVERCOOKS IN THE OVEN. I'd be happy to get SPINNING WHEEL or BRASS SECTION in a themeless, and WHAT A GOOD BOY AM I is straight out of a nursery rhyme.

SCOTTISH POET did feel like an ODD SOCK compared to the others. Is GERMAN COMPOSER crossworthy? How about SOUTHEASTERN BOXER? I'd have preferred a sizzling (pun intended) phrase like GOES UP IN SMOKE for [Bums?].

Not easy to deal with 12-letter themers in the middle, surrounding a 13-letter middle entry. We try to avoid "cheater squares" whenever possible, but adding black squares at the U of USTA and S of ORES can enhance visual appeal. Yes, it's subjective, but pyramid blocks can be so eye-catching.

People ask me all the time what editors are looking for. It's a tough question to answer since most editors say they know it when they see it. If I had to put some words to it, I'd use fresh, interesting, surprising, indescribable ideas. This one hits all of those criteria and more.

Fantastic seed concept; some awesome finds where dropping a letter out of a country forms a drastically different word or phrase. I've played around with this theme genre many a time, and I've also explored dozens of country themes, but I've never noticed that NORWAY minus R = NO WAY. No way that I should have missed that!

PANAMA - A = PAN AM is also excellent. Having to add in that space makes it so interesting.

I have seen SURINAME - I = SURNAME and RWANDA - R = WANDA, so those weren't as interesting. NIGER - N = IGER didn't attract my attention, either, since I find it difficult to keep my media execs straight. BENIN - N = BE-IN … been a long time since the BE-IN days.

My biggest issue with this execution: I didn't understand why I needed to drop the missing letters. A puzzle's revealer should give clear rationale for a tricky Thursday concept. CROSS COUNTRY implies that two countries cross, and they do — but why should the crossing letter be missing?

I'd love to brainstorm on this idea, aiming for some revealer that creates an a-ha moment. We Trekkers might point to "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country," which I could connect to "solvers need to ‘discover' the countries." Maybe something like "hallowed ground" or "free country" or "birth of a nation"? None of these work perfectly, but I would have enjoyed pushing to see if something brilliant emerged.

Additionally, why R I N A? I wondered if it was meant to point to another country, IRAN, but "randomgramming" is not good practice. Even if it did produce IRAN using a reasonable ordering, it'd need an additional revealer to help solvers make a secondary a-ha.

Love the basic premise, and it would have been great fun to try to develop the cool finds into something POW!-worthy.

Neat interlock! It's so rare to get a grid-spanning theme answer run vertically, the full length of the center column, and nearly unheard of to have six (!) long themers interlock through it. This is usually impossible because of symmetry requirements — interlocking one themer is easy, but getting a pair to snap into place takes some good fortune. Getting three pairs involves selling your soulf to Crucivera, the goddess of crosswords. Impressive feat, one that I don't remember ever before achieved.

It's not a stunt construction, either, one that's done to please the constructor more than the solver. If you can achieve interlocks, that's practical, allowing you to free up valuable grid real estate for cleaner short fill and more colorful bonuses.

Ashish could have run YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TOOTH horizontally across the middle, but it'd be nearly impossible to get something as awesome as JIM MORRISON and the famous anagram MR MOJO RISIN in symmetrical spots. Such a pleasure to encounter so much colorful fill.

I'm not hot on sub-140 word Sunday constructions, because they often require trade-offs in color, cleanliness, or both. Starting off with ESPO EDDA SMA isn't great, and quickly tacking on BURS (burrs?) ALD DDE … there's so much greatness going on around the middle of the grid, I'd have loved to see the perimeter smoothed out by deploying a few more black squares. So much potential for a gold medal grid today, but I'd still call it a silver.

As Ashish said, this is a simple sound change puzzle, but almost any tried-and-true theme type can still shine if done well. These themes live and die on the humor they generate, and a magician's BURDEN OF POOF made me laugh. As a mechanical engineer, I smiled at GOOP DYNAMICS. TAMING OF THE SHOO reminded me of when Tess gets annoyed at Jake and I have to ask her to rein it in. The only one that didn't do much for me was PENELOPE COOS, so 6 out of 7 is a great hit rate.

Solid example of a Sunday puzzle that aims at the broad solving population — not trying to be too tricky — and does it mostly well.

Ashish is back! I always enjoyed catching up with him at the ACPT, both of us having spent a lot of time and lost many life-years to the startup world. I appreciate his scientific viewpoints, and that sure came through today. Fun idea, the puzzle (and the universe) coming in with a BIG BANG and going out with a WHIMPER. What a nice find, those matching 7s.

Fun to get a progression of PAST to PRESENT to FUTURE, too. I especially liked how the words progressed from left to right. What a nice find in NET PRESENT VALUE.

What, you don't know NPV? Rubbing my hands together as I prepare to launch into a delightful discussion of payback period, internal rate of return, NPV—

Ah. The National Public Vote has been tallied, with 99.99% voting against.

I thought I was well-read in physics, but PENZIAS was new to me. I debated if PENSIAS / PRES was stronger, but ultimately decided that Crucivera, the goddess of crosswords, would favor a rare letter.

(I'd say this is an unfair crossing, but I fear her wrath. Off to go make a sacrifice to atone for my blasphemous thinking …)

The TS ELIOT clue struck me as imprecise. TS ELIOT penned WHIMPER? He did pen many words, including WHIMPER, but he more penned The Hollow Men.

There's so much packed into the puzzle that it's no surprise to get so much ARN(old?), BBL, PCBS, SES, SLO, ULM. That's too much for one puzzle, so I might have asked to cut out TS ELIOT and PENZIAS. BIG BANG and WHIMPER, along with the PAST, PRESENT, and FUTURE phrases, make for a solid enough puzzle.

Ashish has made some awesome mind-benders in the PAST; I'm hoping his FUTURE brings more.