Max Lauring author page
3 puzzles by Max Lauring
with Jeff Chen comments
See the 12 answer words debuted by Max Lauring.
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Neat grid art, black squares forming sort of an orb in the middle, with the four SOLAR ECLIPSEd black squares orbiting around the perimeter. We've fixed up the grid and answers; see below if you're still confused.
Great touch to make the four special black squares the only loners, surrounded by seas of white. It's so difficult to uncover "letters within black squares" themes, that any factor like this can be so helpful. Even when I figured out 4-D must be SAY(S UN)CLE, I couldn't write SUN into that black square, so trying to piece together MISS(S UN)IVERSE was still tricky.
I also liked that Max made the effort to break SUN across phrases. Not easy to do with SUN — much easier to incorporate it into words like (SUN)NIS and DAT(SUN) — so PLAYER(S UN)ION is a great find.
Some Thursday-level vocab, no doubt. NES(SUN) DORMA could have been NES(S UN)D ORMA (or any string of random letters) to this opera novice. Thank goodness I've done enough crosswords to know that [Random town in Maine] must be ORONO!
ARACHNOID made me pause, not just because I heard my arachnaphobic wife's scream. Arachnid, sure. ARACHNOID ... is in the dictionary.
Speaking of animals, having one crosswordy ERNE might be fine. Not as much with EFTS, too.
It's tricky to grid around crossing themer pairs. Now multiply by that five! So it was great to get some bonuses in ALFA ROMEO. STAYS ALIVE.
Some incredibly difficult spots, especially since you're forced to keep the eclipsed SUNs in your mind during the solve. I also wondered why four SUNs? But I gave that a pass since it reminded me of the incredibly innovative book, The Three-Body Problem.
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ONE PERCENT is a catchphrase in today's world, income inequality headlined by Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. It's amusing — in a sad way — how out of touch they are.
I wouldn't go out of my way to include THE ULTRARICH in another crossword, partially because it has the power to raise hackles but also because it feels a touch arbitrary. Not as arbitrary as DYING BATTERY, though. Especially considering that 5% or 7% is also a dying battery.
LOWFAT MILK is much better; a fine phrase. I did enter TWO PERCENT immediately after uncovering this, though, which confused me as I went. One study of milk drinkers had 30% consuming two-percent, with one-percenters at only 10%.
I like UNFAVORABLE ODDS as a phrase. It didn't fit well in this puzzle, though. I can imagine a gambler using percentages instead of odds, but a bettor saying that 1% is UNFAVORABLE ODDS? Isn't 33% unfavorable while 1% is fuggedaboudit?
Interesting debut in ZADDY. I wasn't positive about KATZ's Deli since KATS felt plausible, but a SADDY hardly feels like it describes an "attractive, fashionable man." I'm glad to learn this term. Sadly, only SADDY can accurately be used in my hardly deli-cate household.
Fun concept to apply ONE PERCENT to four different walks of life. I wish they had all been as apt and powerful as the We are the 99% definition, though.
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Debut! Max and Benjamin give us PART ANIMAL themers today, a nice assortment of colorful phrases such as RAT TAIL, DOG EARS, SNAKE EYES … all of them containing a body PART! Full disclosure, I missed that last piece right after I solved it, so I got a nice a-ha moment when I realized the added connection between the themers.
PART ANIMAL … hmm. I like when a revealer is in the language, and I like it even better when it suddenly makes a theme clear. PART ANIMAL didn't fit either criterion. I would have preferred leaving that odd phrase out of the puzzle, leaving it up to the solver to figure out the nuance of the theme.
Curious layout. Typically you want to put as much space as you can between themers, so that would have meant shoving PIGEON TOES to the right, PIGGY BACK to the left, and adding a row of space between them. You'd also use more black squares on the sides of the puzzle to help separate the themers, allowing for smoother filling.
Max and Benjamin's layout did allow for some wide-open corners in the NW and SE, full of juicy fill like CALL IT, I MANAGE, STRUDEL, BEES KNEES … wait a second! BEES KNEES (and HAREBRAIN) were also themers! Huh. During my solve, I missed that.
Some solver I am!
I did hitch on HARE BRAIN, as it felt bizarre compared to "hare-brained." I'd have preferred to leave that out — maybe PIGEON TOES too, considering how much more common "pigeon-toed" is.
The theme is ridiculously dense, so that helps explain the OLIO of ELOI, INE, FIL, EAN, ERG, etc. EEK! Not smooth enough for a Monday puzzle. It's so important to keep Monday puzzle accessible to novice solvers — this trade-off didn't work for me. Along with the fact that I missed BEES KNEES and HARE BRAIN as part of the theme, I would have preferred a smaller set of themers, composed of only phrases in the language.
But overall, a neat idea, consistently using [animal] + [body part]. Although it felt too familiar at first — there have been a ton of animal-related puzzles in the past — the added layer of the body part was great. I always like uncovering a theme I can't quite remember.