Wendy L. Brandes 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 aced "Name That Theme" today! 7-Down, long revealer clue … easy! CUTTING THE DECK.

Wait, that doesn't fit. CUT!

Let's redeal. Clearly, it has to be SHUFFLING THE DECK.

Would you believe BURNING THE TOP CARD?

There's a term in poker called the "big blind" — appropriate for me today.

I enjoyed the visual of CUTTING THE CARDS cutting through types of cards: PICTURE card, GIFT card, NOTE card, DANCE card, CREDIT card. It's so difficult to get so many themers to intersect each other.

It's a shame that the first Across themer is the least recognizable; Merriam-Webster defining PICTURE card as a Britishism for a FACE card. Something like CAT SCRATCH FEVER might have sharpened the a-ha moment.

Any time you weave five themers through a backbone revealer, there are bound to be challenges in the intersection regions. The strains showed right away at the first crossing, with LYIN / LAC (and LIS not far away). I also paused at GINO crossing XIANG, but thankfully my ancestors didn't have to come haunt me when N felt like the most likely letter.

Well done overall, though, the grid not showing much more stress after that.

Typically, something like PRESORTED feels less like a bonus than a necessity. Finding something that would work in that ridiculously constrained slot is a triumph, though, and there's also a bit of an echo back to the notion of "cards."

CUTTING THE DECK isn't as strong as CUT THE DECK (oops, I meant CARDS) since the cutting action is so brief, but it served its purpose as a 15-letter revealer, aptly slicing different types of cards. I enjoyed the visual even more after we took some liberties to colorize it below.

Three outstanding feature entries with clues elevating them even further:

1. I fall for the cab(ernet) misdirect every time, but I still love it. Pulling a three-dollar cab out of my fridge isn't quite as inspiring as getting something from a WINE RACK.
2. EXIT INTERVIEW is a stellar phrase. Repurposing "canned lines" — playing on lines you might give the interviewer after being canned — is wickedly clever.
3. Seattle is chock full of hipsters and posers. They're usually saying cannabis-related things, but when they pose for pics, they say CHEESE. Then get hungry and order cheese from Uber Eats.

I also appreciated the effort to make the neutral CHECKED INTO stand out. Fun to think of two completely different CHECKED INTO meanings: registering at a hotel or investigating a UFO sighting.

68-word constructions are so tough to get both clean and colorful. If it's not some wastage in SESAMES, ECONOMIC, OUTYELLS, it's ORTs of ENTO EPS TSE WPA. The gridding challenge can make constructors BE SORE, all right.

Interesting to learn about DORIS MILLER. Didn't know him (or that he was a man), but he's definitely crossworthy, as the first African American to earn the Navy Cross. Such an impressive profile in courage.

GRETA THUNBERG, an audacious way to seed a themeless. Her direct manner of speaking to world leaders caused all sorts of debate, some even claiming she was doing more harm than good, her approach furthering the divisions of our fractured political landscape. No matter what you think of her, a Time Person of the Year is crossworthy.

She could spark debate in the crossworld, as well. As much as I admire her efforts to change the world, I don't necessarily want my crossword to be world-changing. I much more appreciate the diversions, the humor, the sparks of joy coming from a clue like [Toy associated with France] — a toy POODLE, that is.

I'd just as soon had the fun-to-say NOT BAD AT ALL headline the puzzle, with GRETA or THUNBERG somewhere else in the grid.

I'd seen a few of the clues before — [Labor leader?] for DOULA, and [Perfect score … or half of one] for TEN — but their wordplay still made me smile. I especially like the latter, with its dual riff on the word "score."

There was enough to enjoy in this grid, some rarely-seen entries like ONE BEDROOM and LEASE TO OWN, along with snazzy JUICE BAR and GAME TIME. GRETA THUNBERG's unfortunate length — 13 letter entries force all sorts of gridding constraints right off the bat — makes it difficult to incorporate a lot of other strong, long material, though.

Still, solid debut. And it was fun to see a few Agardian touches, like his love for the WNBA seen in the clue for Rebecca LOBO.