Jon Olsen author page

ALL for ONE and ONE for ALL! I've seen plenty of crosswords play on this famous motto, including a similar interpretation and a rebus version, but I enjoyed this fresh take. It's easy to find phrases that contain both ONE and ALL, using a search string of *ONE*ALL* and then *ALL*ONE*, and there are plenty of options for both. It's clever to present a mix of them, though, so that solvers still have to figure out what goes where.

Jon did a great job of selecting colorful themers, too. FALLING ROCK ZONE is great. The RHONE VALLEY is gorgeous. And my favorite, SLY STONE. Er, SLY STALLONE. That's a beaut! Jim Horne animated the switching below; I find it oddly mesmerizing.

I wasn't quite as taken by the gridwork. Splitting a grid in half with a 9-letter central answer (PHONE CALL) often makes for a challenge. Jon did work in some great entries into the big corners, like SAFARIS, PRO SHOP, FANTASY, APOSTLE, DOLPHIN — more winners than not! — but there were prices to pay. I couldn't make myself believe that ONLAY was a thing, for example, and especially not crossing ON ALERT. I don't mind short duplications, but crossing them feels inelegant.

There wasn't any outrageous crossword glue, but some pairings like AMOI / OLA, SPYS / TMEN, ENE / ESE, and then the tough SORBO and NOMO … it's nothing to be a CROWER about. Breaking up those big corners, going up to a 74 or even 76 word puzzle, would have helped a ton.

One of the best aspects of blogging is forcing myself to go back and understand clues that made no sense. PRO SHOP has a problem if it's out of the woods? Wha … ?

Ah! Out of the woods, as in irons, woods, drivers. It's a bit tortured grammatically, but it's awesome.

And of course, you know what the three golf pros recommended everyone to use off the tee?

ONE wood for ALL!

(rimshot)

ADDED NOTE: The NYT app requires you to enter the "kooky" version of the answers, i.e. FONEING ROCK ZALL, in order to get counted as correct.

Oof, second day in a row that a constructor has been scooped. Different revealer, but essentially the same idea. This instance is tougher to swallow than yesterday's since the WSJ has a big solvership — more people will be scratching their heads today, wondering why this theme sounds so familiar.

Will has said that he doesn't care about other venues — the NYT is an ocean liner, ignoring what sailboats and yachts do. There may be only a small minority of solvers who do multiple puzzles a day, too. (I'm in that boat, but as you all know by now, I'm weird.)

I liked Jon's themer choices. In the other puzzle, I wondered if ROYAL BABY was a real thing. Yes, I know that kings and queens have babies just like the rest of us. (Although if I were king, I'd order my scientists to create a way to spawn or bud new royals. Needless to say, I'd be a terrible king.)

All of Jon's themers were well-chosen --four phrases I wouldn't bat an eye at in real life. This mechanical engineer says COBALT STEEL is a great one but understands that normal people may cock their heads. Infidels. The curse of normality!

The gridwork could have used some polishing. ROYAL NAVY splits things in half, an arrangement that often causes problems, due to those four biggish corners. (See: AJA / ANAT, IEST, OONA.) The middle can also be problematic; so many down answers have to work through multiple themers. (See: SYD / AEC / ECTO.)

The long bonuses made the gloopy bits easier to swallow, thankfully, CHEER UP / TOWN CAR, KLEENEX helping to ELEVATE the solving experience. It's not a trade-off I'd make, especially for an early-week puzzle where solvers might take one look at AEC and walk away. I understand the thought process though — if you have zero strong bonuses in your grid, that's no bueno either.

The revealer confused me — I was expecting a blue on top of another blue — but it does work. Ish. I'd have preferred simply BLUE as a revealer, assuming rejiggering theme choices for symmetry was possible.

★ Many moons ago, I submitted an EMOTICON puzzle to Will, using a double O rebus for EYES, an I for a NOSE, and a U for a MOUTH (the three squares on top of each other). It sort of looked like a HAPPY FACE if you cocked your head and squinted. And if I paid you ten dollars. Needless to say, Will politely rejected it.

OO

I

U

Yeah, that doesn't work.

Even having spent umpteen-fifty hours doing that, AND today receiving what seemed like hit-me-over-the-head hints in COLON HYPHEN and PARENTHESIS, I still got stuck like a duck in the center. The timer ticked away as I sweated, wondering why DOT DOT or COLON wasn't fitting at the start of 39-Across.

Delightful a-ha when I realized it was EYES! Clever double-interpretation, using COLON in one place and an EYES rebus in another.

Good gridwork, especially for a debut. I wasn't keen on A HAND NOICE (I think that's what Jake Peralta says on "Brooklyn Nine-Nine," stretching out the word "nice"?) or SSR, but that's not much for a grid with so many things going on.

(NO ICE makes more sense of course, as a different meaning of ["Neat"]. But I do love me some Jake Peralta.)

HORST was also a baffler, but I could more easily excuse that in the service of the center, a strong triplet in EYESORE / PIANO SEATS / PLYMOUTH.

There was even a little VIP ROOM and TIP JAR to spice things up.

I'm suffering from a touch of rebus fatigue, having seen so many of them, but I appreciate when a rebus does something fresh. For that great lightbulb moment when I finally broke open the center of the puzzle, I'm giving out something rare today: a POW! on a debut. Well done, Jon!