Juliana Tringali Golden author page

READY TO GO is a rhetorical question in my household, as the kids meet that criterion once in a never. Good thing Juliana and Wendy didn't have to hide BACKPACK, STUFFIES, and STICKY CRAP in themers!

Great finds, KEYS across WHISKEY SOUR is a textbook example of how to do "hidden words" right. Most editors are particular about this theme type — it's been done so many times that something like BARREL OF MONKEYS doesn't cut it anymore. That's especially true when the target word is short, like ID. Although there are many options like PETRI DISH and CHILI DOG, TAXI DRIVER is a solid choice.

CASH is … what? Right, the green stuff that stores used to accept. Since the pandemic drove me into extended hermitdom, I still wish for THOMAS KYD to appear in today's lineup. About this, I do not kyd.

Neat for this ABC see so much CHINESE fill in the grid. I'm so envious of Gene Luen Yang, whose American Born CHINESE was brilliant. He has so much pull now that he got in touch with Supercell, who makes his family's favorite games, and they gave him the go-ahead to write a series of Clash Royale graphic novels. My order is already placed.

(Dragon Hoops is also fantastic. If anyone knows Gene, please let him know that I would gladly be his unpaid goblin underling.)

There's too much ERTE ESA KBS (usually seen as kB) POV etc., for a TUE solving experience, but these things can happen when a central 9 divides the grid into halves. Most importantly, I enjoyed the quality of finds, the rationale for the "hidden words" concept, and the chuckle I got out of CASH.

I'm embarrassed to say I finished with a wrong letter — one that I couldn't figure out, even after knowing it was wrong. RTES probably meet in Montreal. And being a pop culture idiot, QTEEN could be a drag show term I didn't know, for a young contestant?

Well, it should be!

(Is it offensive for a non-drag queen to call a participant a QUEEN, by the way? My brother laughs when I call him a banana, but I doubt he'd laugh if a non-Asian person did.)

I enjoyed uncovering the rebuses in today's debut. WEATHER BALLOON makes for a nice visual, with the rebused words inside balloon-like circles. I was slightly confused because I uncovered ICE first — since when does ICE qualify as WEATHER? — but the rest fit perfectly.

I didn't notice at first that the four balloons exhibit crossword symmetry. There's a debate among constructors whether rebus symmetry is an asset or a liability. On the one hand, it lends elegance to the presentation, mimicking crossword symmetry. It also makes the solve much easier, which is important when running a rebus puzzle on a Wednesday. Some folks who top out at Wednesday difficulty may never have run into a rebus before, so assistance could be most welcome.

However, symmetry creates unwelcome construction constraints, forcing trade-offs. The most unfortunate ones involve the quality of themers. TEAR ASUNDER is a nice entry, but it doesn't split SUN across two words, like E PLURIBUS UNUM or MONKEYS UNCLE does.

Similarly, I bet that without the symmetry requirement, ICE could have turned into the more weather-like SNOW, in ITS NO W ONDER crossing GOES NOWHERE.

I appreciated some of the bonus touches; HOTEL BAR a highlight. RECLINER is comforting, too, and even IN A SENSE could qualify as snazzy ... okay, maybe in a sense. Helped balance out some inelegant entries like ANAG, YOO, PEES, LAN, SEN. ANAG(ram) is the only one that badly stuck out — or should I say, that sock tutu?

Fun debut, with an apt visual element. Four rebus squares, with a grid-spanning revealer, is a difficult way to debut, but Juliana did well.