Katie Livengood author page

All this time I've been sitting on my laurels, thinking that Jill Denny and I would be the most prolific married couple constructing pair (we have two more accepted, in the queue for publication). Ruh-roh. Enter the newlywed Livengoods (congrats!), a good bet to become a force in constructing power. Today they bring us a clever juxtaposition, with A FISH OUT OF WATER tied to the actual fishng process: BAIT, CAST, BITE, REEL. Not being a fisherman, I was a little confused why you need to bite the fish before reeling it in. Fishing is much more violent than I imagined.

Excellent grid work, with no less than eight pieces of long fill. Note how the long downs are spread out across the width of the puzzle (i.e., TOUCAN SAM hardly interacts with POLICE VAN)? That's a beautiful way to do it, as one set won't affect the next too much. Good spacing and little overlap makes it much easier to achieve clean fill.

Interesting, that NE corner. The rest of the puzzle is so clean and lively, that POOLE stuck out for me. It's absolutely reasonable to put in a not well-known entry into a Monday puzzle (as long as the crossings are fair), but POOLE strikes me as one of those entries that might not be crossworthy. Perhaps if it had been clued to something historically relevant? This is a good example of trade-offs. TOUCAN SAM is such a nice answer. When it and COLORCAST are fixed into place though, sometimes a POOLE-ish answer is required.

I like seeing a glimpse of the constructor's lives in a puzzle, and it was fun to see ASSET clued with a bschool definition (Ian's starting at Drexel in the fall). Learning how to properly record depreciation and amortization in an accounting ledger... less fun. Sorry, man. It gets better.

Bring it on, Livengoods! Dr. and Mr. Denny are in the trenches, working away.