Patrick Blindauer author page

★ I love letters-imagined-as-pictures themes, and I love ice cream. Given that PISTACHIO is my favorite flavor, how could I not give this one the POW!?

At first glance, there doesn't appear to be much theme material, since there are only two long entries. Not so! SINGLE, DOUBLE, TRIPLE, SCOOP, VANILLA, CHOCOLATE, PISTACHIO, OV, OOV, OOOV. Yes, they're mostly shorties, but placing any ten themers, no matter what length, creates so many problems.

Not only did Patrick figure out how to get the ice cream cones crossing the flavors, but he worked in so much beautiful fill. He kicked off the puzzle with triple-treat bang: ALFREDO GELATIN EDISON. With DECIMAL RABBLE COLUMBO ANOMALY in another corner — and the rest of the puzzle still to go — it was already a winner.

The only cherry on top would have been something to get rid of the pesky asymmetry. I'm not sure what you could do to balance OV, though. Patrick told me he wanted to put an actual cherry on top — a visual in the lone black square above OV. Oh, how I hope Joel and Sam and the digital team figure out how to do that!

A figurative AND a literal cherry on top? We'd be talking about Puzzle of the Year territory.

Bravo, sir! Patrick's been busy with a kid, so his NYT contributions have dropped off in the past few years. Here's hoping that he picks back up.

This puzzle belongs in the NYT's celeb series, and given a high ranking within it.

No wait, hear me out! Jill and I recently worked with an estate planner recommended to us by Sam. Everything was going normally until the planner asked us how we got his name.

"SAM DONALDSON?!" he said in a fanboy squee. "THE SAM DONALDSON?"

Then he got up and did a little happy dance. And screamed, "THAT GUY'S A ROCK STAR!"

He proceeded to tell us all about how Sam commands rooms, turning dull material like tax codes and legal loopholes into Vegas-like performances.

When he finished, Jill and I looked to each other in awe. It was like finding out your friend is secretly King of some not-so-small Polynesian island.

The celeb series works best when the featured person does a puzzle related to their profession or something they're well-known for. This one was perfect for a tax professor, the letters IRS reformed into the five other possible configurations. Solid wordplay.

Patrick and Sam did a great job selecting colorful themers, too, with all six possible combinations breaking the I R S sequence across at least two words. Perfect.

Not so perfect was some of the fill. Not a surprise, given the theme density. Stacking two themers in a theme-dense puzzle often makes the layout easier, but in today's case, I think it wasn't the right choice. Check out how GANGES RIVER sits atop TENNIS RACKET, for instance. With the black squares in the middle forcing a big NE corner, we get ERE and the audit-worthy SSR, just to start the puzzle.

Toss in SSTS EINE SRTA LBO (leveraged buyout), and I couldn't give it POW! consideration, no matter how fun the theme or its connection to Sam. Especially on a Monday — newb solvers shouldn't be forced to stare at both SSR and SSTS, wondering why crosswords hate normal people so much.

What a shame. Loved the concept, the themers, and the perfect timing / perfect person to pull it off. A bit more finesse and it woulda been a POW! contender.

Jeff and Jim Cross Words! We've decided to run this feature on days where we have differing viewpoints on a puzzle.

PANCAKEs! I like pancakes. I like syrup. Three PANCAKEs, two syrups down the sides, what's not to like?

It is an interesting visual, but I spent a lot of time thinking about why this one didn't hit me very strongly. Not badly, just not very strongly. I did think the repetition of PANCAKE with three different definitions was fun. There haven't been very many repeated word puzzles in the NYT's history.

Was it the floatingness of the PANCAKEs, hovering above each other? Or the PAT of butter soaring sky-high like a UFO? With the PLATE at bunker level?

The syrup running down the sides was a nice touch. AUNT JEMIMA came immediately to mind. Not so much with HUNGRY JACK, though. I'm ashamed to say that I initially wrote in SIMPLE JACK. (That's the role within a role Ben Stiller plays in "Tropic Thunder." Ahem.)

And no syrup on top of the PANCAKEs? I would have loved to see the syrup brands starting from the top middle of the highest PANCAKE, then making a turn as they ran down the side. It'd have made AUNT JEMIMA look bizarre with AUNT running right to left before JEMIMA flowing down. But this is a Wednesday puzzle! Some craziness would have been great.

Overall, I thought it was a fun visual concept that didn't quite hit with its execution.

What a great first impression! Love the visual of that "long and winding road" wending its way through the grid, separating it into two pieces.

I think this is just a tribute puzzle, listing out an assortment of Beatles songs, though? I strained for a long time to figure out what connected the themers — were they all car-related, which would tie to the hidden DRIVE MY CAR (see below)? Nope. Maybe all songs that talk about wandering? Nope.

Hmm, a shame. This ended up feeling way too loose, simply whatever six (seven, actually) Beatles songs could fit.

There are some technical merits. I did like many of the finds Patrick used to hide the DRIVE MY CAR letters. How could CLE be Harrison's successor? It's CLE(V)ELAND! The African antelope does some work today, hiding the back end of CLEVELAND. MELAN(C)HOLY was another neat discovery.

Others didn't work nearly as well for me, though. It took me forever to find the final R in DRIVE MY CAR because NEWS worked reasonably well for [Old movie theater lead-ins]. NEWS can be plural, right?

And other letters didn't go all the way through, like the Y of ABBAC(Y) dead-ending in the path. That's fine since it ran into a corner of the wall, but it's not nearly as fun as CLE(V)ELAND.

There were also a ton of compromises in the grid. I stopped counting after getting a bunch of SST, ETATS, AMO, LTRS, GDS, DRT, IMONA, etc., but it felt like they were strewn all over the puzzle. Granted, the construction is difficult — a bunch of long answers must be used, adjacent to the straightaways of the path — but when you fill those with stuff like GALLANTS, it's a suboptimal solving experience.

Patrick is one of the most creative constructors out there, and I loved the artistic value of the grid. Unique, fun, beautiful. I had many problems with the execution, though.

Such a cool idea to have celebs co-construct crosswords! Huge fan of Jesse's roles in "The Social Network" and "Now You See Me." And Patrick is a great partner for a debut collaboration — one of the top puzzlemakers out there.

This is one avant-garde snowman. I've seen HEAD OF LETTUCE and EARS OF CORN in food-like-body-parts crosswords before, maybe even BUTTERFINGERS too, but none of them related to snowmen. Points for … originality? Not sure I ever would have thought of sticking LETTUCE on this horror movie fiend. I can't decide if sticking CHERRY PITS under a snowman's arms is hilarious, or incredibly creepy.

No long bonus entries, but some nice mid-length fill in NFL TEAM, CUTOFFS (perhaps the snowman is a nevernude?) and DARWIN. And some rare letters worked in with care — in JAZZ / ZITI / ZAHN — spices things up.

Such a smooth grid, something Patrick excels at. It was so smooth that I would have liked some more bonus long fill in exchange for a little more crossword glue. Taking out the black square between AGOG and ELITE is one way to do that. Shifting the block above TACO to the right is another option. These changes would make filling harder of course, but as long as the final tally of gluey bits was still reasonable, I would have liked to see that trade-off.

I'd also like to have seen the body parts in more anatomical order, starting with HEAD, to EARS, to PITS, to FINGERS. That would be much tougher to do, since HEAD OF LETTUCE's length makes it unsuitable for row three, forcing all the themers to be shoved tighter together toward the center — and less spacing is almost always a constructor's bane. But I think it would still have been doable.

Some great clues spiced up the solve:

• MACS are decidedly un-PC types — IBM-PC, that is.
• Neat that STENO anagrams to NOTES!
• The (hated, vile) Cowboys are an NFL TEAM, but the Indians are not. Neat use of "cowboys and Indians."
• Absolutely love the DIOR and RIOT clues Jesse mentioned above.

Nice kick-off to what hopefully will be a long series of these celeb collabs!

PITCH IMPERFECT an apt title, hinting at advertising pitches with one word anagrammed. Some really fun results, DON'T SQUEEZE THE RICH MAN (Charmin) bringing up an image of a protesting Warren Buffett. A queen shouting THIS DUBS (Bud's) FOR YOU, the order to OBEY YOUR T-SHIRT (thirst), etc. = also funny. THE FABRIC OF OUR VEILS wasn't as amusing to me, and YOU DESERVE A BAKER TODAY didn't do a lot either. Humor is so subjective.

Interesting that Patrick chose two McDonald's slogans: "We love to see you smile" and "You deserve a break today." With so many well-known taglines out there, I thought that was odd. It would have been awesome to get all McDonald's slogans, or all fast-food, which would have made for a super-tight theme. But it is hard to find slogans with an anagrammable word that still parses as a sentence, so a wide diversity would have been fine too.

Patrick gives us a few nice bonuses in long fill, NICE SHOT, and NAILED IT really singing in symmetrical spots. He otherwise sticks to mostly single-word entries (which tend to be more neutral than assets), but he does well with EXACTITUDE, the modern UNFRIENDED, ESCAPISM, and the delicious CANNELLONI. JEOPARDOUS is … a word. I can't imagine using it in lieu of "risky" or "perilous" though.

There's more gluey bits than I'm used to seeing in a Blindauer puzzle — I have a feeling it's due to the challenge of a 140-word Sunday puzzle; so tough to execute on cleanly. I've come to expect a little glue here and there from any Sunday puzzle, but it's nice if it doesn't come from the same areas: ERES, SEI, RIEN, DREI (deeper foreign words). AERO, ENDO, SNO (prefixes/suffixes). ERNO, IVOR, MURESAN (esoteric names). The concentrations made it tough for me to ignore everything.

Great clue for PEDESTAL, [Bust supporter] making fun of all the "bra" clues in crosswords. And I loved [Gray matter?] for BOTANY — think about the crossword-friendly Asa Gray!

A few rocky spots, but generally an entertaining result.

Fastball straight down the middle, a tried and true theme type but executed well. Initialisms have been done over and over again, so I think it's important to add another level of complexity to gain interest. Patrick uses a nice revealer, PANDA parsed as P AND A, to tie together four themers starting with P and A. This was familiar to me, since Mel Taub regularly constructs "Puns and Anagrams," also known as PANDA, so there wasn't much of a surprise factor.

I liked how clean the puzzle was. There were few, if any, moments where I slowed down to note gluey bits. Exactly what I'd expect from a veteran constructor with Patrick's chops. Even going back over it with a fine-toothed comb, all I could see in addition to the aforementioned IT HOT was SSNS, and I personally think that's a fine answer, as it's such a common abbreviation in high usage for HR and tax filing purpose. So smooth, like butter.

I could have used a little more snazz in the fill, though. I loved UNLEADED because of its clue referring to decaf coffee — what a colorful use of the English language — but there wasn't as much snappy material as I would have liked. BASE PATH is probably the best piece of fill in the grid, but its clue left me shrugging. "Separate" certainly can take the meaning of "a big space separated first and second base," but the clue felt like a real stretch. A BASE PATH connecting first and second feels accurate, a BASE PATH separating first and second feels like the wordplay / misdirection was awfully strained. It's too bad, it's such a nice entry in the grid.

I enjoy when constructors go for interlock. It's pretty neat how Patrick intersected PARK AVENUE and PARTY ANIMAL — and not at a dead-easy crossing like the A starting the second word, which will already be present given the theme. I didn't notice the interlock until I had finished, and it definitely added a little bit to my appreciation. Based on some comments over the years, I think Will values interlock more than I do, but still, it's kind of a neat little feature.

Contest week! Jim and I decided to keep everything quiet until the contest is over, including the grid solutions. I doubt we'd give anything away by publishing all the clues and answers, but this method better preserves the mystery.

Speaking of mysteries, this week is an appropriate time for me to delve into some of my favorite cryptological mysteries throughout history. None of these write-ups have anything to do with the contest, I promise (I'll put up a post summarizing how I solved it afterward, assuming I solve it). I simply like sharing my obsession with unsolved coded puzzles throughout history. And my posts will need to get shorter anyway, as a certain 13-day-old little dictator has grown quite strong. Won't be long until she starts pounding a shoe against a podium.

CICADA 3301

I only ran across Cicada 3301 a few months ago, as I was researching a topic for a book I'm mulling over. It's such a mysterious project that I'm not even sure how to describe it. Part puzzle, part sleuthing operation, part recruitment tool — but no one has a definitive answer for who's even behind it. Not even whether the goals of the organization are for good or for chaos.

Back in 2012, an enigmatic set of posts were released to lure in the cryptanalysts throughout the world. It looked like a "puzzle hunt" in the vein of The Game at Stanford or The MIT Mystery Hunt, but it came with connotations of higher-level consequences. Imagine a real live version of The Matrix, if you will, where Cicada 3301 was searching for Neo.

And the level of difficulty of the puzzles! I enjoy puzzle-solving, but when it starts to involve higher-level cryptanalysis, I find myself well out of my league. Simple Caesar shifts, Vigeneres, usage of primes in security keys, yes, but much of Cicada 3301 went well beyond. To make it even more interesting, whoever is behind Cicada 3301 wove in references from literature and philosophy, eliminating people who are one-track-minded hard-core programmers, looking instead for well-rounded individuals able to pull information from numerous areas of knowledge.

Some have claimed to have solved it, but reports are varied. I eagerly await an announcement of the "winner," except that whoever Neo is, he/she will likely remain as covert after discovery as the entire Cicada 3301 organization.

Thus ends our exploration of cryptological mysteries throughout history.

Contest week! Jim and I decided to keep everything quiet until the contest is over, including the grid solutions. I doubt we'd give anything away by publishing all the clues and answers, but this method better preserves the mystery.

Speaking of mysteries, this week is an appropriate time for me to delve into some of my favorite cryptological mysteries throughout history. None of these write-ups have anything to do with the contest, I promise (I'll put up a post summarizing how I solved it afterward, assuming I solve it). I simply like sharing my obsession with unsolved coded puzzles throughout history. And my posts will need to get shorter anyway, as a certain 12-day-old little dictator has initiated me into a CIA-level interrogation program involving roughly 0.75 hours of sleep per night. There ... are ... FOUR ... lights!

KRYPTOS

A lot of people have issues with the CIA and its operations, but one thing I think they did well was to create Kryptos, a sculpture incorporating a still unsolved problem in cryptography. I read about this in WIRED magazine a few years back, and I thought it was some sort of hoax — it was part of an issue-long puzzle contest, after all. But no, Kryptos is real, and only three parts of it have been cracked after 24 years.

Before learning about Kryptos, my interest in cryptology was only surface-level, mostly doing shallow reading about topics like the Enigma machines of WWII. But the article inspired me to go learn how Vigenère ciphers work, as well as to research other common encoding schemes which sculptor Jim Sanborn might have incorporated. If I had read this article earlier in life, perhaps I might have chosen computer science instead of mechanical engineering and American studies. I wonder how many young people it could inspire to go into tech and computer careers.

And I can't wait until the fourth piece gets cracked. It's so impressive that someone created a puzzle so difficult that the last part has eluded everyone. The title of "Best Code-breaker in the World" is still up for grabs.

Contest week! Jim and I decided to keep everything quiet until the contest is over, including the grid solutions. I doubt we'd give anything away by publishing all the clues and answers, but this method better preserves the mystery.

Speaking of mysteries, this week is an appropriate time for me to delve into some of my favorite cryptological mysteries throughout history. None of these write-ups have anything to do with the contest, I promise (I'll put up a post summarizing how I solved it afterward, assuming I solve it). I simply like sharing my obsession with unsolved coded puzzles throughout history. And my posts will need to get shorter anyway, as a certain 11-day-old little dictator is screeching a long speech lauding the benefits of an autocratic society.

THE WOW! SIGNAL

Who among us hasn't wondered who else is out there? I've followed SETI for a long time, especially interested in the SETI at home project. Talk about a cool use of crowdsourcing. (As an aside, a friend of mine is behind another awesome crowdsourcing project, "Fold It," a computer game designed to get millions of people working on complex protein folding problems through the use of a game where contestants earn "points.") I constantly have to resist the urge to put SETI as fill in my crosswords, as I realize it's not something most people are familiar with.

So when I read about the "Wow! signal" a few months ago while researching for a book, I couldn't believe it wasn't more well known. A potential signal from outer space? A real-life "Contact" type of mystery! My wife and I just watched the new "Cosmos" narrated by Neil Degrasse Tyson, and given the grandeur of the known universe, it's inspiring to believe that perhaps the Wow! signal might have been a true artifact from another culture thousands of light-years away.

Was it a true signal, one of our own artifacts caromed off the atmosphere, some sort of hoax, or something else? It's unlikely we'll ever know. But along with the rest of the SETI believers out there, I eagerly await new results.

Contest week! Jim and I decided to keep everything quiet until the contest is over, including the grid solutions. I doubt we'd give anything away by publishing all the clues and answers, but this method better preserves the mystery.

Speaking of mysteries, this week is an appropriate time for me to delve into some of my favorite cryptological mysteries throughout history. None of these write-ups have anything to do with the contest, I promise (I'll put up a post summarizing how I solved it afterward, assuming I solve it). I simply like sharing my obsession with unsolved coded puzzles throughout history. And my posts will need to get shorter anyway, as a certain ten-day-old little dictator is just sneering at my offer to pay her a thousand dollars if she just stops crying.

THE BEALE CIPHERS

I was around 10 years old when my dad let me pick out any book on a trip to a local bookstore. Being the oddity I was, I selected Paul Hoffman's "Archimedes' Revenge," continuing my road toward true nerdhood (Granted, it does have a cool cover. Then again, one of its subtitles is "The Joys and Perils of Mathematics.") A chapter on The Beale Ciphers caught my attention in particular, what with the story of shadowy people and three coded maps leading to a fortune in buried treasure.

To make it even more interesting, after much (purported) work, one of the ciphers was solved! It employed a relatively simple code, using the Declaration of Independence as a key. That one leap of logic (no idea on how anyone would make that leap though) allowed the second message to unfold. I imagined myself back in that age, participating in the mad scramble of what might or might not have been a set of hints to finding a real treasure.

Are the Beale Ciphers real, or the work or a genius who figured out a way to make a bundle by creating an aura of mystery and tantalizing riches just out of your fingertips? Stories even link Edgar Allan Poe, the master of literary terror (if you've never read "The Cask of Amontillado" it's a must), to the ciphers. The evidence seems not to be conclusive, so it remains an enigma to this day. I feel a little bad for all the people of Bedford County who have endured decades of treasure-hungry prospectors of digging up their land. But if I were in Virginia, I'd be tempted to buy a pickaxe.

Contest week! Jim and I decided to keep everything quiet until the contest is over, including the grid solutions. I doubt we'd give anything away by publishing all the clues and answers, but this method better preserves the mystery.

Speaking of mysteries, this week is an appropriate time for me to delve into some of my favorite cryptological mysteries throughout history. None of these write-ups have anything to do with the contest, I promise (I'll put up a post summarizing how I solved it afterward, assuming I solve it). I simply like sharing my obsession with unsolved coded puzzles throughout history. And my posts will need to get shorter anyway, as a certain nine-day-old little dictator has launched chemical weapons against me (mustard gas, of course — other new parents, you'll know what I mean).

THE SHUGBOROUGH INSCRIPTION

As a kid, I was entranced by the quest for the lost ark of the covenant in "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom." As a teenager, "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" captured my fancy once again by making me wonder if the Holy Grail indeed was discoverable. Tales of Indy doing his research and putting together esoteric bits of information to crack hidden codes throughout history made me want to become an archaeologist. (My first ever college class was in Archaeology 101. My eyes opened wide when Dr. John Rick walked in with a scruffy beard, lecturing in the same style as Dr. Indiana Jones — I think he got a kick out of doing that year after year. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I had followed him to an ancient Inca dig rather than working for the department of astronomy that first summer.)

As an adult, I flew through "The Da Vinci Code" along with the rest of the world back in the early 2000's — the Holy Grail rears its possibility yet again. The mystery of the Grail has been bandied about for centuries, and so many people have done a nice job with fictionalizing the stories behind it. But who knew there was an actual code built into a monument in England, possibly encoding the secret location of the actual Holy Grail (if it actually exists)?

Even more compelling is the simple nature of the code. With just ten letters set into a particular pattern, plus lore surrounding the Priory of Sion's involvement, the Shugborough Inscription begs for an a-ha codebreaking moment. Yet in over two centuries, no one has figured out the true meaning. Is the secret still with the Priory, protecting the location of the holy artifact? Or is it an inside joke perpetrated by the builders, or is there some other explanation?

If there is a true answer, it has not been made known to the public. Even if it is some clever scheme to encourage tourism to this one town in England, this site is on my list of must-see places.

Contest week! Jim and I decided to keep everything quiet until the contest is over, including the grid solutions. I doubt we'd give anything away by publishing all the clues and answers, but this method better preserves the mystery.

Speaking of mysteries, this week is an appropriate time for me to delve into some of my favorite cryptological mysteries throughout history. None of these write-ups have anything to do with the contest, I promise (I'll put up a post summarizing how I solved it afterward, assuming I solve it). I simply like sharing my obsession with unsolved coded puzzles throughout history. And my posts will need to get shorter anyway, as a certain eight-day-old little dictator is giving me the stink-eye.

THE VOYNICH MANUSCRIPT

I love that one of my interests connects me to like-minded folks all the way back in the 15th century. Filled with curious drawings as well as cryptext, the Voynich manuscript was thought to be created during the Renaissance. It's been over a century since Polish book dealer Wilfrid Voynich unearthed it, but it still remains largely uncracked, despite the best minds all over the world to uncover its secrets.

And what secrets! Imagine what might have been discovered during that amazing part of history. From what we know, it likely covers topics from herbal medicine to astronomy to biology to even pharmaceuticals. Perhaps everything buried within the text of the Voynich manuscript has already been rediscovered by modern science, or has already been rendered obsolete. But what if the coded information contains, say, an easy way to prevent cataracts, bringing gigantic quality of life improvements applicable to those all over the third world suffering from the affliction?

What makes the Voynich manuscript especially compelling to me is that the C14 dating puts it definitively in the early 15th century — whether or not it contains useful information, it is definitely not a 20th century hoax. Sure, it could be full of failed attempts at alchemy or backwards medical treatments like the use of lead, but the possibilities are endless. Who'll be the first to learn the true messages straight from the best scientists and thinkers of the Renaissance? It makes me want to visit Yale for even a fleeting chance to inspect the original manuscript.

★ So much fun, I didn't want the puzzle to end. Given my short atten — something shiny! — I tend to bog down on Sunday puzzles. Not today. I thought I knew what to expect from the title, but I didn't expect nearly so much entertainment from these clever spoonerisms of celeb names. BEER GOGGLES to GERE BOGGLES is pure gold. Strong base phrase, laugh-inducing kooky result; it doesn't get much better than that.

Sometimes I'm guilty of wanting Sunday puzzles to do too much. I have to remember that I'm not the average NYT solver. So many people leave the NYT Magazine out on the kitchen table, working on the puzzle over hours or even days (by themselves or with friends), and if the theme is too tricky or intricate (a "puzzle more for constructors than solvers"), it's not satisfying if they don't grok it. This puzzle is a fastball straight down the middle for that demographic; a known theme type, not too difficult, with a high degree of solving satisfaction. Even a couple of chuckles.

And check out how well-executed it is. Nine themers is good theme density, and there's a lot of strong fill. I wouldn't expect any less from these two veterans. I like how they break convention a bit. Note how the first themers are in row four? That's unusual, since putting themers in row three is the norm (that helps maximize spacing between theme entries). But they take good advantage of this arrangement in the NE and SW corners. Look at the juicy stuff: WASHRAG, AT PEACE, and the crazy GETSANA = GETS AN A. Now that's using your seven-letter spaces wisely. And a big thumbs-up to SPY-FI. I don't know if that's a term in common use, but I'm going to start using it.

Just like most Sunday NYT puzzles, it had a couple of rough spots. ALY/KIEL tripped me up pretty good, for example. AVY/KIEV sounded just as good, by gum! And as much as I liked OH HAPPY DAY! it caused a high level of fill constraints. Check out the pile-up of UOMO / UNHIP / RPTS / ORA / ANS. Perhaps another piece of long fill would have produced a smoother region. Or a set of cheater squares could have been employed to smooth things out. The rest of the puzzle is relatively smooth, so this concentration of glue stuck out a bit for me.

Finally, one of the nicest a-ha moments in a while. I could not for the life of me what [Polo grounds?] was talking about. I knew some trickery was happening because of the giveaway question mark, but it would not come until I had almost all the crossing answers. Great big headslap when I realized it was all about the (Marco) "Polo grounds." Beautiful stuff.

It's rare for a NYT weekday puzzle to have a title, and this one was not only necessary but a perfect description. What a great theme concept, the middle letter of each across entry modified, thus given a CHANGE OF HEART. Patrick is one of the few constructors out there that pushes the boundaries like this. Even if the puzzle wasn't to your taste, I'd find it hard to deny that this one will be remembered. Trying out crazy new things is great for the crossword art form.

I stumbled upon the effectiveness of the "downs-only" approach once I figured out what was going on, but my solve of 20+ minutes makes Joon's sub-5 that much more awe-inspiring. I struggled mightily with the G of GERARDO, eventually guessing BERARDO. It would have been fantastic if the across entries could only have been one possible (wrong) thing, as that would have given some measure of "checking" each square, but to even achieve this level of what Patrick did is pretty incredible.

Frankly, I have no idea how he did it. The constraint of each across entry having to possibly be a different but equally valid word seems so constraining. It's a bit easier in that he's gone up to 84 words, thus being able to use shorter word lengths. But even then, to find such gems as TAKES PART / TAKE APART and FIREWATER / FIRE EATER is impressive. A quick software program to sort through a word list to find appropriate pairs could help there, but when you extend this constraint to the entire puzzle — wow, what an undertaking!

Finally, I find it so neat to hear about the collaboration and support Will and Patrick both mention. Will could have easily have said that Lollapuzzoola is a competitor to his ACPT so he'd prefer not to plug it, but he went out of his way to help publicize it to the enormous NYT audience. The thing I like best about the great majority of the crossword community is its exhibition of uplifting, positive qualities, and this exemplifies it to a tee.

I've already gushed about the brilliance of PB, so allow me to tell a story about the awesome and funny ACM. Two years ago I finally worked up the courage to go to the ACPT, overcoming my nerves about going to a place where I hardly knew anyone. I got to the hotel and went down to the lobby, expecting to have to use my old trick of pretending I had important texts on my cell phone so I didn't look like that guy who can't even get the dog to play with him. But within minutes, ACM introduced herself and instantly, I had a friend to hang out with. I have so much fondness for the way she noticed the awkward guy in the corner and took steps to make him feel welcome. A lot of warmth in my heart for ACM.

Back to the puzzle, a fun Tuesday offering. I appreciate the fact that the theme is so consistent, a vowel progression of M?C, all with the same hard K sound. Consistency brings elegance, and I wouldn't expect anything less from these two professionals. I'm glad they decided to strip down their more dense version — constructors, take note of how thoughtfully they made their decision, trying out the more dense version but ultimately following the "less is more" philosophy (although five theme answers is still a lot!). Plus, doing so allowed them to incorporate some really nice fill including BASILISK, CAR SALES, JOSHUA, and a nice little CURTSY. More importantly, look how clean the fill is. When your worst piece of fill is IF AT, that's a clear win.

As Will mentioned, a lot of vowel progressions have been done before, so it's difficult to get acceptances unless there's some new twist included. I like the brainstorming that PB and ACM did, and although it didn't result in anything groundbreaking, maybe it will inspire someone else to do something completely new with a vowel progression.

Finally, I really appreciate ACM's comments about Scrabbly letters. Too often constructors get sucked in by the siren song of the pangram (including me, sad to say). Yes, it's kind of a cool feat because it's difficult to do cleanly, but it's mostly cool from the constructor's standpoint and not the solver's. Incorporating J,Q,X,Z's does spice up the puzzle (K's and V's to a lesser extent, IMO), but only if by doing so the puzzle fill doesn't suffer overall. Nice job of that today.

I had to stop myself from squealing when I first met superstar constructor Patrick Blindauer at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament two years ago. We had a funny exchange of glances when his Puzzle 5 (usually the hardest of the tourney) was announced and people groaned, anticipating the combination of pleasure and pain. He's known for his devilishly hard masterpieces.

Patrick brings us a word ladder puzzle with a twist. Nice to see the progression go from a logical start to conclusion, WARM BLOODED to COLD HEARTED. Also nice that he found five snazzy phrases in which to incorporate the ladder. Slight deduction for CARD being a part of another word when WARM, WARD, CORD, and COLD are separate, because it's more elegant if all the theme entries work exactly the same. Consistency is one of the criteria many people use in judging a set of theme answers.

Look at the very high theme density: 11/13/15/13/11. It's hard enough to incorporate five shorter theme answers, and Patrick raises the difficulty level by choosing long entries. Note how he chose a 15-letter entry across the middle. Although it might seem like a central 9 or 11 would be easier, that would actually make the construction more difficult because the center row would need to have black squares at its ends. That arrangement breaks up the grid in a way which is hard to deal with in terms of overall black square placement. Try it if you're curious.

The high theme density requires there to be many vertical answers which cross two themers. The result is that virtually every subsection is constrained multiple times, making the filling process challenging. Most everywhere the fill is pretty good, although Robb NEN feels like an ORT (leftover bit). All in all a nice job considering the tough constraints.