Greg Johnson author page

The final day of the CUJO (Cracking Up Jim Horne with Overthinking) show!

Jeff: Greg debuted only one great long entry, but what a delight. FLOOR WAX is excellent in its own right — the rare letter X helps it shine — and since most everyone knows what it is, you can give it a devilish clue. [Coat placed on the ground] made me think of the old-school concept of a man placing a coat over a mud puddle for a lady to step over. That's A+ deception.

Jim: But ...

Jeff: Oh no. It's contagious!

Jim: ... a FLOOR isn't called "the ground." Would you say you're polishing "the ground" inside your house?

Jeff: No, no, no! Stop before you --

Jim: Maybe I'm missing something. I bet there could be an alternate definition of FLOOR, perhaps archaic --

Jeff: Too late. Resistance is futile. Jim has been assimilated.

I appreciated how Greg chose a few other marquee answers in that vein. BETA TEST has been floating around crosswords for a while now, so it's not as fresh as FLOOR WAX, but when you give it a clue like [Screen that keeps out bugs?], it becomes radiant all over again.

And while PGA TOUR is nothing new in the crossworld, how magnificent a clue; taking advantage of what we see too often in politics these days. [Group whose lies are much discussed on TV] had to be (insert your hated political sect here). "Lies" are golfers' terms for how the ball sits up in the grass. Fantastic, not having to use a telltale question mark in the clue.

I'm not a fan of sectioned puzzles, so while the black squares lend a pretty, clock-like appearance to the grid, I wasn't hot on solving five mini-puzzles, getting stuck in two of them. Thankfully, there was enough strong material — ROAST PIG, PUMP IRON, O SOLE MIO — to help make up for the blander long entries and the bits of ANE, CIRC, EGAL, LBO, SNO, ERINS.

Seeding a themeless grid with a 15-letter entry is risky. It often means that the rest of your puzzle isn't going to have room for as much liveliness as a themeless typically needs. If you're going to do this, you have to make sure that 15 is sizzling — like IT JUST AIN'T RIGHT. I love its colloquial feel.

With just one long seed, you can flow out from it, without worrying about any other constraints. It's way tougher to seed a puzzle with two 15s since that starts constraining the grid mightily. I wonder if ORGANIC MATERIAL was a compromise, something that happened to fit toward the end of filling. I liked it as an entry, especially given its clue referencing recent discovery on Mars, but "organic matter" sounds much better to my ear.

A couple of great clues elevated my solving experience:

• DOG TOYS is already a solid entry. Misleading with "chewable but not meant to be eaten"? Brilliant! I pondered various types of chewable vitamins and pills before the light came on.
• [Peabrain?] befuddled me ... until I realized that it was talking about a man who used peas in his study of genetics, Gregor MENDEL. Groan! (in a good way)

There were a few clues that took my solving experience down a notch, though:

• DST is a nonreligious observance? Aren't thousands of other things nonreligious observances, too? It's like cluing it as [Three letters].
• DAR as the Spanish verb for "to give" = yikes.
• People say "I made a RES for dinner tonight"?

And finally, one that I glossed over, unable to understand it. After two days of consideration, I finally got it. Well worth the work!

• MISADD means to add incorrectly. How is it [Totally screw up?]. Think "total-ly," as in "related to a total."

GHOST GUNS ... it's a descriptive term and no doubt colorful. But given the gun problem we have in the US, it's not something I want to be reminded of during my 15 minutes of escapism.

There wasn't enough snazz overall for my taste, REHEARSAL, IS IT SAFE, OUTDATED more neutral than assets. Thankfully, that feature of IT JUST AINT RIGHT had a big impact.

ADDED NOTE: Reader Eric Soderstrom mentioned that RES is used in the reservation sense in Anthony Bourdain's "Kitchen Confidential." So the anwer to my question above is yes!

I wanted to love this puzzle! Organic chemistry was one of my favorite subjects in college, and I've even done two puzzles similar to this, one around water and one around benzene.

I enjoyed the METHANE, CARBON DIOXIDE, and AMMONIA molecules floating in the grid. That was neat!

But why these particular molecules? Just because AMMONIA and METHANE are symmetrical lengths?

Why not H2O, which most people will know much more readily than AMMONIA (NH3)?

And why is OHO in the SW? It feels weird for water to be present, but not acknowledged.

ADDED NOTE: astute reader David Malik pointed out that I must have not had my C₈H₁₀N₄O₂ (caffeine) yet, since H2O = HOH, not OHO. D'oh!

And don't get me started on bond angles. The angles in an AMMONIA molecule aren't 90 degrees, but 106.7 because … okay, you've stopped listening. For good reason. Man, am I annoyingly picky about chemistry puzzles!

I don't mind a bit of ETO OBI AERO GTS kind of short stuff in the service of a densely-packed theme. But when you risk something as bizarre as MALAR, that might be the one thing that sticks into solvers' minds.

At least the annoyingly picky ones.

Now, the NE was more my speed. A J and an X worked seamlessly in, without any gluey short stuff, and a HOT WAX to boot? Yes! That's the type of gridwork that I expect out of a NYT puzzle.

(Was I the only one to be highly amused by WITH CHEESE looking like WITCH CHEESE? Someone explain to me why that makes me laugh so much.)

I do appreciate the effort to work in some beautiful organic chemistry into a puzzle. I wish the execution had been equally as beautiful.

Or that I was less OCD about chemistry puzzles. Sigh.

As a kid, I spent many hours, many days, many weeks, poring over "D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths." I love Greek mythology. I mean, I REALLY love Greek mythology. So it was fun to see the legend of the MINOTAUR featured in today's puzzle.

I like that Greg was able to work in quite a bit about the myth. One compelling feature of this story for me was the THREAD that ARIADNE gave THESEUS, which helped him find his way back through the LABYRINTH. I still picture with fascination a hero winding his way through the world's most complicated maze, a ball of thread in one hand, a sword at the ready in the other.

And with all the constraints, I liked that Greg managed to keep everything pretty clean. There's an A DAY and an ITS AT, plus RINSERS to accompany LOADERS, but given how much theme is worked in, that's really not much at all. KING MINOS did come easily for me thankfully, since that ABIDJAN / KING MINOS crossing would be rough for someone not familiar with the legend. THESEUS or the MINOTAUR, yes, those are names I think the NYT solving population really ought to know. KING MINOS is pushing it, so I would have liked to see fair crossings on all of those letters.

Wondering about ABIDJAN, listed in Wikipedia as the second-largest French-speaking city? Will and Frank and I had a long exchange about that, deciding that the "metropolitan area" definition of city is better here than "administrative city center." Seems odd to say that Paris has only two million residents, yeah? So although some reliable sources say differently due to their implied definition of "city," the best order seemed to be 1.) Paris, 2.) Kinshasa, 3.) Abidjan.

Overall, I wish there was a better visual representation of the legend — it's too bad Greg's original was just too different from the crossword mold. And the poor MINOTAUR, penned into a single square like a cow.

Finally, great clue for LEGOS. Getting all of the Greek mythology was a treat in itself, but to get the misdirection of thinking about which kids might stick together in a playroom was another highlight.

★ Delightful offering from Greg today, a listing of seven common games, all with seven letters, thus GAME SEVEN. Fun interpretation of a timely phrase. I always loved Reggie Jackson's "Mr. October" moniker. I only get called "Mr. Denny," as in "Dr. and Mr. Denny." Harrumph.

What most impressed me was how smooth Greg managed to get this puzzle. I think Mondays ought to be accessible to newcomers — not necessarily easy, though. That's a big difference. I didn't see any little bits that an outsider would scratch their head at, and that's such an huge accomplishment in a Monday puzzle. Extremely tough to achieve, as so often a constructor must rely on a little glue to hold the grid together.

Some people are going to cry foul at OKAPIS, and I agree that it's a tough entry to figure out. But as much as I think the Monday puzzle should be accessible, I don't want it to be palp, either. Each of the crossings is fair, and it reminds me of a story about a guy I met in El Salvador. He was from South Africa and had recently traveled to America for the first time. When I asked him what the highlight of trip was, he said "seeing those funny animals, with the cute little noses, and the fuzzy tails… you know..." (He couldn't pull the name out after five minutes of trying, and it took me forever to figure out to what he was referring.) I'm sure OKAPIS are as well-known to him as SQUIRRELS are to us. I like Monday crosswords that expand one's world view, as long as they do so in a fair way.

I wondered why the six themers around the perimeter weren't all the way on the edge. Seems to me that would be a more elegant way to execute this idea. I can see that the V of REVERSI is much easier to use in the ????V? pattern than the horribly constrained ?????V pattern though. I almost always prefer themers in elegant spots, but if it's a choice between elegant spots or clean fill, I'll almost always opt for the latter.

Interesting idea, well executed. So hard to make those 7x3 chunks smooth, but Greg did it six times around the perimeter with nary a hiccup.

Just a few months ago, my wife pointed out the word BLUNDERBUSS, saying it would make the seed for a nice crossword. We never got any further than that, so it's impressive to see Greg's discovery. Four fun words, symmetrically paired, all starting with a synonym for "error"? That's crossword gold.

For only his third NYT puzzle, Greg has gotten up the learning curve extremely fast. Monday puzzles are so challenging to construct, because the best ones not only avoid rough crossings and esoteric entries, but also steer away from those inelegant partials, pluralized names, excessive initialisms, etc. And look what Greg's achieved today. There's an ASST here, an ABA there, but it's all minor dings within a smooth body. He's even managed to work in two pretty good long entries, GAME TABLE and CAMERA MAN, which can be tough to do using this "pinwheel" arrangement of themers.

Perhaps the only subsection that could have used a tiny bit of cleanup is the SE — because it's not heavily constrained, it shouldn't be hard to redo that to remove SKEE and AERO. I do like that [___-Ball] can make life easier for a starting solver, but I don't think it's a terribly elegant answer.

Amazing that Greg found these four entries. I especially like that etymologies of BLUNDER-, BUMBLE-, and BOBBLE- are different enough from the "error" meaning that it hides the theme a little, giving the solver a chance to discover this nice a-ha. It would have been perfect if STUMBLEBUM didn't already refer to as "A person regarded as blundering or inept." But again, that's quite a minor issue.

Nice touch with the symmetrically placed "bonus entries," SORRY, MY BAD, KLUTZ. I hadn't noticed them; nice to see those Easter eggs!

Good showing from Greg, only his second NYT puzzle. Some really nice debut entries plus a good number of tough clues made for a good hard Saturday workout. I loved seeing ZOO EXHIBITS along with its deceptive clue [One often behind bars], making me think about criminal repeat offenders. Gave me a nice smile when I finally uncovered it.

Greg brings us an unusual grid, in that the NW and SE are segmented off from the rest of the puzzle, only one entrance into those sections apiece. Typically I like to see more flow within a themeless grid — I was able to work my way into the SE fairly easily, but the difficulty of that NW section and its only entry, ZOO EXHIBIT, made it fell like a mini-puzzle I had to solve after the rest of the puzzle. Not ideal, but I'm sure many will have no problems getting into those closed-off sections.

But really, really nice job on those closed-off areas. A 6x6 region will by nature be tough to fill cleanly, as there's no short entries available to glue everything together. Greg had to work with a 6/6/6/6/5 crossing a 6/6/6/5/5 section, which is no small feat. And he comes out beautifully, nary a bad entry in either section. Some will point out YTD as not so hot, but being on two Finance Committees for local non-profits, I loved seeing it. The SE was even prettier, another Z worked smoothly in, along with SYDNEY and its good bit of trivia.

What, you thought Greenland was a continent? Ha ha ha! Only silly billys and uneducated boors and certain crossword analysts who sit on Finance Committees would think that. Ha ha ha!

Not a huge fan of certain entries like RENTABLE and ALTERANT which certainly are words, but feel like they just take up space in a themeless grid. But those parts of the grid (8x3 stack intersecting another 8x3 stack) makes it very difficult to fill both cleanly and with snazz. As with all themelesses, there are trade-off: the wide-open NE and SW corners make the beautiful NW and SE corners possible.

Nice work from Greg today, four common (warning, pun alert) bye-lines (groan), with two bonus ones in the north and south, and a revealer in the middle as the kicker. Impressive theme density for a debut puzzle.

DO SVIDANIYA: normally I grouse about tough/esoteric entries in a Monday puzzle, but I really liked this one (and it wouldn't keep me from giving this puzzle to a newbie to try). Bringing back images of Dolph Lundgren and his Cold War movie kin, DO SVIDANIYA was familiar enough I should have been able to get it right off the D. But DAS VEDANYA, DOS VEDANIA, DAS VIDALIA (I like onions, so sue me) later, I finally limped into the correct spelling. Thank goodness all the crosses were fair!

As Greg mentioned, one issue with the grid is its segmentation. Notice that by adding a single set of black squares, you could split the grid into three parts. It's not a big deal since the puzzle flowed reasonably well, but ideally grids are wide-open enough that they don't feel like separate mini-puzzles. It's a much bigger issue for a themeless or a hard Thursday, where it can be very frustrating if there's only one way into a closed-off area, and the solver can't manage to break in through the only possible route.

A nit to pick: for consistency's sake I would have liked each theme answer clued to a name associated with the specified nationality. Not sure what you'd use for SEE YA LATER (Jake? Bubba? Jeff is always good.) but TATA could have been "Cheerio, Wentworth Mortimer Biggleston the Third!" And because CIAO felt like a dupe of ARRIVEDERCI, it might have also been fun to just have one bonus answer, TATA, as (appropriately) the very last answer.

Mondays are so tough to create because the constructor can't depend on a couple of ugly entries to make his/her grid work. After all, it's not really fair to expect the Monday solver to know an ERNE or an OLEO or an AGHA outright, especially if they're crossed. So very nice work from Greg today, delivering a smooth grid with just a handful of the usual suspects plus some good stuff like SKI SLOPES and SINGLET. A nice debut.