This web browser is not supported. Use Chrome, Edge, Safari, or Firefox for best results.

Jesse Eisenberg author page

1 puzzle by Jesse Eisenberg
with Jeff Chen comments

TotalDebutCollabs
12/15/20171
SunMonTueWedThuFriSat
0001000
ScrabDebutFresh
1.6549%
Jesse Eisenberg
Wed 2/15/2017
MEDICAHABRATS
ACURASARAAGUA
CHERRYPITSTONI
SOLPEISENEGAL
HEARDHAD
BUTTERFINGERS
CARESSALTOLIP
AMIDPGADIOR
SITSNAGSCOTTY
HEADOFLETTUCE
ALLDIETS
JARRETTENOPTA
AVOWEARSOFCORN
ZITIACAIFELON
ZAHNMOWNSEEYA

Such a cool idea to have celebs co-construct crosswords! Huge fan of Jesse's roles in "The Social Network" and "Now You See Me." And Patrick is a great partner for a debut collaboration — one of the top puzzlemakers out there.

This is one avant-garde snowman. I've seen HEAD OF LETTUCE and EARS OF CORN in food-like-body-parts crosswords before, maybe even BUTTERFINGERS too, but none of them related to snowmen. Points for … originality? Not sure I ever would have thought of sticking LETTUCE on this horror movie fiend. I can't decide if sticking CHERRY PITS under a snowman's arms is hilarious, or incredibly creepy.

No long bonus entries, but some nice mid-length fill in NFL TEAM, CUTOFFS (perhaps the snowman is a nevernude?) and DARWIN. And some rare letters worked in with care — in JAZZ / ZITI / ZAHN — spices things up.

Such a smooth grid, something Patrick excels at. It was so smooth that I would have liked some more bonus long fill in exchange for a little more crossword glue. Taking out the black square between AGOG and ELITE is one way to do that. Shifting the block above TACO to the right is another option. These changes would make filling harder of course, but as long as the final tally of gluey bits was still reasonable, I would have liked to see that trade-off.

I'd also like to have seen the body parts in more anatomical order, starting with HEAD, to EARS, to PITS, to FINGERS. That would be much tougher to do, since HEAD OF LETTUCE's length makes it unsuitable for row three, forcing all the themers to be shoved tighter together toward the center — and less spacing is almost always a constructor's bane. But I think it would still have been doable.

Some great clues spiced up the solve:

  • MACS are decidedly un-PC types — IBM-PC, that is.
  • Neat that STENO anagrams to NOTES!
  • The (hated, vile) Cowboys are an NFL TEAM, but the Indians are not. Neat use of "cowboys and Indians."
  • Absolutely love the DIOR and RIOT clues Jesse mentioned above.

Nice kick-off to what hopefully will be a long series of these celeb collabs!

XWord Info Home
XWord Info © 2007-2024, Jim Horne
50 ms