Keith Redwine author page
1 puzzle by Keith Redwine
with Jeff Chen comments
| B | B | O | A | R | D | A | U | S | B | S | E | A | ||
| B | A | M | B | O | O | M | P | H | H | A | N | S | ||
| E | L | I | C | I | T | P | R | I | V | A | T | E | S | |
| A | L | T | L | E | V | O | N | E | T | I | M | E | ||
| R | O | T | C | E | M | O | T | E | A | I | R | |||
| T | E | R | M | I | N | A | T | O | R | T | E | T | ||
| D | O | T | C | O | M | S | E | S | ||||||
| A | S | Y | M | M | E | T | R | Y | ||||||
| B | C | A | T | O | T | H | E | R | S | |||||
| M | A | L | A | E | S | T | H | E | T | I | C | S | ||
| A | R | A | I | N | T | H | E | B | A | R | A | B | ||
| I | N | S | I | D | E | R | R | K | O | U | S | E | ||
| L | A | K | E | E | R | I | E | E | L | A | P | S | E | |
| E | G | A | D | G | P | A | Y | E | L | L | E | R | ||
| D | E | N | Y | E | T | S | O | L | E | D |
Yet another debut! That make four days in a row, as well as four Thursdays in a row. New voices and new ideas are a great thing.
Love this particular idea, BLACK rebus squares helping to take away the perceived ASYMMETRY. (I've grayed out the rebus squares to better illustrate this point.) I saw this idea maybe seven years ago (in a different venue) and thought it was the coolest concept ever! Even though the novelty wasn't there for me this time, I still enjoyed the effect.
Some great entries, starting off with the themers. Particularly cool to get a BLACK box in the middle of a phrase, in THE BLACK KEYS. But even BLACK BEAR, which looks so close to BLACK BEARD (there's a crossword theme in there somewhere …), and the finance term IN THE BLACK are awfully fun.
Loved TERMINATOR in the fill, too. I hope this factoid — 100% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes — doesn't prompt crossword trolls to go give it negative ratings. Don't do it, people!
Some mid-length MAMMOTH, CARNAGE, SHINTO also added to the quality of my solve. A singular SCRUPLE was a bit odd, but it does have dictionary support.
Just a little too much crossword glue for my taste today. I didn't start noticing it until I hit SES / TET, but then I started picking up OLEO (which admittedly some people think is fine), MAL, ARA, MTS. Nothing cringeworthy, but as a whole, just up against my threshold.
Two great clues:
- [Needing salt, maybe] doesn't refer to seasoning, but salt for ICY snow conditions.
- Nice misdirect in [Shoots in the jungle], making it look like "shoots" is a verb, not a noun, for BAMBOO.