Johan Vass author page

Grid art! I squinted as hard, and the spirit of St. Nick allowed me a Christmas tree for Dec. 25^th. It's not nearly as tree-like as other grid art, unfortunately. Jim Horne mentioned that it looked more like an old-timey phone, not unlike the one that old man Potter used in his plot against George Bailey, eh, Jim (and Johan) Scrooge?!

I kid. My weekly conversations with Jim have been highlights of this pandemic era. We had a lot to discuss today, both of us enjoying SHORTS WEATHER as a great entry, but why feature it in a wintertime puzzle?

GOD FORBID and SLEEVELESS DRESS both stood out as well, the latter doing an impressive job of both being an evocative entry and a constructor-friendly one, placed wisely at the bottom row. Those Ss and Es are so flexible.

Both of us did feel like old men, saying OMG to OH EM GEE. Jim was going to mark that as "bogus" for our word list, but apparently, it's a thing.

We debated if OOH I'M SCARED felt like an asset or not, too. I started by saying it needs a SO between I'M and SCARED, at which point Jim burst into laughter over my ridiculousness.

I had heard of ELENA DELLE DONNE, definitely crossworthy with her two WNBA MVP titles. I sweated each crossing, though, questioning whether or not DEVIATOR was an actual word (it is in the dictionary) and trying to recall if the physics unit was DYNES or DYNOS.

Merry SHORTS WEATHER for those who celebrate!

★ I love the audacity, stacking a whole lot of HAY around a hidden NEEDLE. I've considered doing something similar with a DOGPILE, but any time you get more than three themers piled atop each other, you're begging for pain. To get six (!) HAYs with a NEEDLE in the middle — without that many fill compromises around them! — is amazing.

(If only there were a famous SHAYNE ...)

When I got to IT'S A LOST CAUSE, I thought it might refer to "losing one's marbles," and the grid looked vaguely like a pachinko machine. That could have been cool! Then, the black squares lent a Tetris-like appearance. I finally figured out the concept and mused that the HAYstack looked like a falling Jenga tower. The games we play!

Although it doesn't look like a traditional haystack, the literal stack of HAY is eye-popping.

IT'S A LOST CAUSE is such a punnily apt phrase for this concept. GRASPING / AT STRAWS is almost as good since HAY can be described as straw-like in appearance. This concept could have felt like a one-trick pony, but Johan did such a great job turning up punnily-related phrases.

Fantastic job with the cluing. I ticked off half a dozen skillful pieces of wordplay, so important to help in holding solvers' interest. [Subway fare] is outstanding, misdirecting innocently to tokens or money. That's Subway, the fast-food chain, and their FOOTLONG sandwiches.

I'm often not a fan of debut short fill, but there's something so kooky about MM HMM — can't decide if I love or hate it. I admire how it has no vowels, though, while OUI has no consonants. Excellent "clue echo."

Not everything worked perfectly, but I admired that a debut constructor shot for the stars. These kinds of brave ideas are what the NYT Sunday needs.