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There's discussion of getting a dog in our household, which usually gets shut down when I say that whatever poop the kids don't pick up will magically GO FETCHed to their bedsides. Appropriate that MESS and KISMET made appearances in the grid.

Such a great clue to freshen up MESS! We don't have Spaghetti Sunday since our kids won't touch anything blighted by even a molecule of red sauce (insert dramatic snubbing-face here), but I can only imagine the cleanup.

Nice work in disguising the FETCHed items. BALL is difficult to deballify, but BALL OF FIRE is much more obfuscating than SOCCER BALL or the like. It's a great phrase, too. STICK TO IT is particularly well camouflaged since the noun STICK changes into a verb. I also appreciated that newsPAPER wasn't immediately apparent, hidden by a subtle PAPER TRAIL.

I loved that BEAGLES crossed GO FETCH. This wouldn't typically be possible with a standard all-horizontal-themers layout. It's such a great bonus; excellent reason to use the "windmill" pattern.

No symmetrical partner for BEAGLES, though? A quick perusal of dog breeds turned up SHIH TZU. That Z might have created some SNAFUS, however, and SNAFUS is a great bonus entry. Hardly a FAULT in the gridwork.

I told a friend that Will Shortz isn't taking many "hidden words" puzzles these days, but he is still interested in "how are these words related?" concepts. This is a simple example of that genre, but it's effective.

C.C. and her husband Boomer have unEARTHed a fun theme, synonyms or nicknames for UNDERGROUND transit systems. What a shame that EARTH wasn't at 4-Across, so the four themers would have literally been beneath it!

Begging for recognition of my genius isn't beneath me.

But that clue for EARTH truly is genius; our planet a literal "habitat for humanity."

We've had many a synonyms for hoagie sandwiches theme — this one felt unique. A search for *SUBWAY* did turn up a puzzle from 2007, but I appreciated that Boomer and C.C. incorporated the only possible addition to elevate theirs. It wouldn't have occurred to me to use the London TUBE along with SUBWAY, METRO, and UNDERGROUND. Scanning through Wikipedia's list of metro systems didn't help either.

How many Monday solvers will miss the theme completely, because there's no overt revealer that explains everything at a second-grade level? Something like SUBTERRANEAN would have done that, but it's not at all playful.

Perhaps using EARTH, with a clue like [The starts of W-, X-, Y-, and Z-Across move below this]?

Awwww-kward!

DOWN BELOW? Nah.

LOWER LEVEL? Bah.

Maybe no revealer is best, after all.

Solid debut puzzle for Boomer. Here's hoping for more from the crossword couple — it's so neat to see two people working together on something they love.

My brother sent his kids to a private school where they were the token minorities. Every year, they were asked to present their cultural heritage for Chinese New Year. Every time, Alex and I would cackle as we plotted all the crazy things we'd have the kids tell their classmates about the SPRING FESTIVAL. It usually involved Taiwanese people administering resounding slaps in the butt.

There is a "gong" in "gong xi fa cai," after all.

I didn't think I was going to enjoy this puzzle. I don't like being forced to learn (except when it involves spanking clueless folks). To my surprise, I loved picking up SOLLAL, NOWRUZ, and SONGKRAN.

Part of the reason was that C.C. went out of her way to make the crosses not only fair but obvious, so those three new words appeared as if by magic. That's a complicated task, and C.C. accomplished it perfectly.

The more significant part was that these three terms echoed SPRING FESTIVAL and ROSH HASHANAH, building me a larger world view of new year celebrations. It made me feel more connected across the globe, at a time when I badly could use any sense of community possible.

The grid wasn't as connected as the theme, unfortunately, chopped up into nine mini-puzzles. Part of the issue is that an even-numbered width (14) creates challenges in mirror layouts, making it harder to place black squares in certain middle locations, and I know, you stopped listening to my technical mumblings back in the Year of the Ass.

Now don't worry, this gong stick isn't going to hurt … much …

(okay, it will)

★ AWED is a perfect 1-Across for this delight. Money is a common theme in crosswords (except for constructor pay, i.e. micropennies per hour), so you have to add an extra element to make yours stand out. That's exactly what C.C. did today, in three different ways.

1. Fresh themers. I'd never heard of ERIC YUAN, but there's no doubt that the founder of Zoom has currency (sorry) during the pandemic. PRESS POUND is a phrase that I've heard thousands of times, yet it's new to the NYT crossword.
2. International flair. Many cruciverbalists stay Eurocentric with their themes. I love that aside from the British POUND, C.C. globetrotted to use the Brazilian REAL, Korean WON, South African RAND, Chinese YUAN. I hear a lot of solver griping if constructors dip into monetary units such as the Albanian LEK or Romanian LEU, and that's understandable. The BRIC countries are economic powerhouses, though, and their currencies carry weight.
3. International flair, part two. There are so many dull ways to clue STARS, but [Quintet on a Chinese flag] is not one of them. These touches in so many clues and entries — INDIAN Ocean, GHANA, VILLA as a Mediterranean estate — furthers the worldly feel.

Accessible wordplay in many clues, sadly uncommon for early-week puzzles. TOUCAN playing on "big bill" lets even newer solvers groan at its punniness.

ATLAS shows us another type of clue we don't often see in early-week puzzles, giving a piece of information that at first confuses and even causes consternation, but then the light bulb clicks on. There is no Atlas Ocean, but there is an Atlantic.

C.C. did exactly what she needed, to make an old-hat theme stand out. Along with excellent gridwork as is her usual — spicing things up with EYELINERS, LABRADOR, NAKED LIES, and so meticulously keeping her short glue to only EPS — another POW! for C.C. is easy money.

★ I've done a lot of work with colors in crosswords, and I'm kicking myself for never coming up with today's theme. It's so perfect, four examples of two-word foods whose second words are pluralized colors. I've even used HASH BROWNS in a previous color puzzle. How could this have not occurred to me?

(Might have something to do with my eating habits. Given that my lunches are "whatever the kids refuse to eat, mixed into a bowl, it's mostly grays.)

What's most impressive about this theme is its tightness. I could hardly believe that there were four perfect examples of common foods/ingredients fitting this pattern, and I couldn't think of a single other one. Sure, there are variations like VALENCIA ORANGES or MIXED GREENS, but no other color worked. That tightness makes for such elegance.

I'm a huge fan of mirror symmetry, partially because it allows for bizarre sets of themer lengths. Thank Crucivera, the goddess of crosswords, for her benevolence in gifting constructors with this option! Some silently curse her because they don't like mirror aesthetics, but I say a pox on them!

(Mostly because I'm petrified of invoking Crucivera's wrath.)

SPORCLE and PLACEBO! Excellent use of mid-length slots; so important in a layout that doesn't feature any long extras. I'd personally remove the black square between ERICA and PERE to generate a pair of long bonuses, but I can see how some solvers might mistake those lengthy slots as theme related.

I did pause at STRATI. One stratus cloud, two … stratuseses? STRATI is technically correct, plus it allows meteorologists to say things like "Those are cirri-ously wispy clouds!"

(Now accepting proposals for Jeff's punishment. The more painful and ironic, the better. --Crucivera)

C.C.! Been months since we've seen her byline, so it's great to get her back. She has a knack for coming up with interesting themes and colorful fill.

I had a tough time with "Name That Theme" today, partially because I couldn't remember which clues were starred. That's one problem with mixed horizontal/vertical themers — was AIRSPEED involved somehow? Take a SPEED … is that something the kids say these days? OK Boomer, take a speed!

Solid set of TAKE A ___ words: take a TRIP, a CUT, a DIVE, a SEAT, and a HIT. I appreciated how C.C. remained consistent, never diving into "Take the ___" or "take ___" phrases.

There are a ton of TAKE A ___ phrases — searching TAKEA* turned up dozens of hits. (I took a hint, not boring you by taking a swing at naming them all.) There's nothing wrong with a lack of tightness in a theme set, but it's not as elegant to some of us more obsessive sorts.

Loved seeing MALARKEY, considering it's one of Joe Biden's favorite words. DERIDED was apt, too, given how much Biden gets derided about it. Along with RADIANT, I enjoyed the bonuses. Usually, editors prize multi-word long fill, but today, one-worders were better since they helped minimize the confusion about what is theme and what is not.

Look at where some of the short offenders lie: SST is near the crossing of COUNTY SEAT and POODLE CUT. AHAT at the intersection of INFIELD HIT and LOCAL DIVE. C.C. is right — macro gridwork is often easier if you can fill cleanly around intersecting themers — but that can be a big if.

I'd have preferred fewer themers since it was bound to be not a tight set anyway. It was fun to get fun theme phrases like POODLE CUT and LOCAL DIVE, though.

Appropriate puzzle for the year 2020! It's a shame that it wasn't run on the first day of the year — there's something so pleasing about the idea of riffing on 1/1/2020. I'd seen a couple of these before — a game score, the TV show, a ratio, eyesight measurement, and a year — inside tricky crossword clues (easily found with our clue search tool), but never thought to aggregate them like this.

I didn't feel a strong a-ha impact, since some of the themers felt askew. VISUAL ACUITY is the general term for how sharp one's eyesight is, so [20/20, e.g.] doesn't quite work ... let's call that one 30/20 vision.

20/20 as a NEWS … show, right? Huh? You say that Wikipedia allows for a "newsmagazine" to be a television program? Back in my day, magazines were glossy, hand-delivered, and the Sears catalog came in the mail! Get off my lawn, you darn kids!

RATIO works, but it echoes 20/20 as a visual measurement, and also the news show.

Fine, newsmagazine, you stinkin' kids!

Solid grid, as with all of C.C.'s products. Bonuses like WHAT A SHAME and ALL FIRED UP help keep a solver's attention if the theme isn't doing it for them. I also enjoyed some LO MEIN, VASSAR, CAPRIS, DAWDLE, all giving the puzzle a bit of style.

OMBRE is a toughie, but it's no doubt in use. Hey, if Khloe Kardashian is doing it, so will I! Oh, you need hair? Rats, no OMBRE for this hombre.

Fun to imagine other possibilities riffing on the number 2020, especially when you can use any mathematical symbol. Reminds me of the game Krypto, my favorite as a kid. How about a theme using operators to get to the entry's Across number! For example, (20)*2+0! = 41-Across! Think of how many people would love that!

Right, just me.

I love the potential of this puzzle. Can't you see some poor kid, clapping his hands and jumping up and down as his dad gets home from work, saying, "Jake, I got you something! It's so much fun; you're going to love this MARBLE … rye!"

Disclaimer: I've never done that before.

Disclaimer to the disclaimer: it was a marble statue of me laughing at his despondent reaction.

SOB STORY, indeed.

Instead of technical analysis — the gridwork on a C.C. product is always strong, with little glue and some strong bonuses — I spent the time dreaming up ways to torture my kids.

Did I say torture? I meant tease, of course!

In a torturous sort of way.

Hey Tess! I brought you a …

• RATTLE … SNAKE! Bwa ha ha!
• TOP … sirloin! Tee hee hee!
• PET … peeve! Cackle cackle!
• BALL … gown! Ha ha ha … wait, what?

Now I have to buy my princess-obsessed daughter a matching tiara. Thanks a lot, C.C. and Tom.

More importantly, thanks a lot for the much-needed source of humor as I attempt to stave off insanity in this, my eighth week of self-isolation. Serenity now.

MALADIES is right! I had the toughest time figuring out the trick. I tried rebusizing MA and MAD, word laddering MAD to MAS to whatever, MAs sitting outside the grid, etc. Even when I got to the revealer, NO MAS, I wondered where the missing MASs were. It took a good hard headdesk to realize that it meant "no MAs," i.e., MAs are missing from 11 entries.

Phew, it made me want to cry MAMA!

Some of the finds were delightful, the longer ones in particular. MALADIES to LADIES is brilliant, as are MADE FACES to DEFACES and MALINGER to LINGER. We've fixed up all the answers in the full listing (below), although visually putting the MAs into the grid felt against the spirit of the puzzle. Sorry if you're still looking for them!

My favorite was WEBMASTER to WEBSTER — I love those surprising finds — but with this already confusing presentation, it was hard to see and easy to forget. I had to scan through all the answers a few times to remember what and where it was.

The mix of MAs missing from starts and middles made it such a difficult solve. On the one hand, I like the trickiness. On the other, it wasn't satisfying, and it made me dread how much work there would be to fix up the answers and explain precisely what was going on.

Making the solve even harder were a few clues that didn't make immediate sense. For example, [One-up, say] for DRAW. When I couldn't immediately understand that "one-up" was a sportsy way of saying "the score is tied at one-one," I figured it might be part of the theme. DRAMAW? MADRAW? Is "mad raw" something the kids say these days?

All in all, I enjoyed the concept but found myself brainstorming ways of improving the presentation. I enjoy getting my constructor's brain churning, so I appreciated having something to chew on.

Friday is often my favorite day of the NYT crossword week, since Fridays can be chock full of clever, gettable, wordplay clues. They also tend to give me an ego boost — a fun challenge that I can overcome without releasing the magic smoke from my brain.

A flood of witty, tricksy clues today:

• Nervous witnesses in mystery novels … supporting cast? Plot devices for moving the story forward? Well, yes, but more often than not, RED HERRINGS to throw readers off track.
• [Boost at the gym] has to be a spotter. A personal trainer yelling at you? No, a burst of fuel provided by an ENERGY BAR.

I like it even more when pedestrian short entries are made into standouts via their clues:

• SITIN is an event where participants may take the floor. So groany that it's great!
• WTF is [1/2 vis-à-vis 1/3, say]? How could EVE possibly fit? And come on, does anyone know what "vis-à-vis" means? Ah, 1/2 = Jan 2^nd, the EVE of Jan 3^rd! And of course, I know what vis-à-vis means! (Heading to dictionary.com, BRB)
• [This might be a bust] usually has some relation to a NARC or a KILO, and it often fools me. Doubly fooled today, as this bust meant a STATUE's head. Fool me … you can't get fooled again? Apparently I can!

I found the overall solving experience harder than for an average Friday, and that tends to be unsatisfying when you expect to fly through. The biggest factor is that there are some wide-open sections — take the SW corner, for example — where it's tough even to get started. Any time you have four answers like LOGAN / FURMAN / MANO A MANO / PROGRESSO stacked, with no short answers going through them, it makes it tough to gain a foothold. Makes me remember when I would see a tract of squares like this and not even bother trying the puzzle.

I like to feel smart doing crosswords. Perhaps if this one had been run on a Saturday, accommodating for the difficulty in gaining traction through the giant white swaths, my extended 16 minutes of solving time wouldn't have felt so shameful.

Plenty of strong material, particularly in the clever cluing, to gain some POW! consideration. Maybe if my bruised ego hadn't gotten in the way …

Another buttery-smooth offering from C.C., who's challenging Lynn Lempel for the "Queen of Mondays" title. Such a solver-friendly grid, hardly a blip to trip anyone up. Along with enough bonuses in PAVLOV'S DOG, ONION BAGEL, ROAD RACE, TIME LAGS, I'd gladly offer this to a newer solver. Heck, I'd gladly offer it to anyone!

Have you ever wondered why there's no "King of Mondays"? I've noticed several constructors expressing notions of wanting to challenge themselves to create audacious grids, the quest to fashion something-that-should-be-impossible being the ultimate thrill — damn the solving experience!

And every single one of those have been men. (Sadly, including me.)

There's something to be said for constructors wanting to keep personally interested. Following the same darn recipe ad infinitum can get boring. Trouble is, this tried and true formula — no more than four themers, high word count, deliberate placement of a few snazzy vertically-oriented bonuses, extreme care with short entries — is a great way to give early-week solvers exactly what they need.

As far as the theme goes, it's hard for me to get excited about anagrams these days. However, the revealer makes a strong case for why D A N G E R should be mixed up. Words made OUT OF D A N G E R are indeed GANDER, GRANDE, GARDEN.

Pushing my biases aside, newbs won't have encountered as many anagrams as I have. Considering that it's tough to find anagrams for longish words, DANGER GANDER GRANDE GARDEN might even elicit a "wow!" from rookie solvers. Along with top-notch gridwork, this was in POW! territory for sure.

I was so close to winning "Name That Theme" today! I knew GORDON JUMP right off the bat, having been raised by "WKRP" (and "Gilligan's Island and "Three's Company" and …). So it had to be HOP SKIP JUMP, the Olympic event!

Nope.

PHOTO SHOOT ... biathlon! They JUMP over little hills along the way.

Well, they do!

CHICKEN RUN ... now I have it! CHICKEN RUN is the very definition of my gait on the third leg of a triathlon — cramping from the long bike ride, hobbling like a chicken in distress.

Huh? What does SHOOT have to do with it? Have YOU ever done triathlons? Then you wouldn't know. So there.

See, ADULT SWIM, triathlon! SNOW FENCE, there are fences that gate off the changing areas for transitioning from SWIM to RUN to bike.

What? Wouldn't BIKE be in a triathlon-themed puzzle?

Who asked you, wise guy?

PENTATHLON, of course. That's exactly what I thought right from GORDON JUMP. Because of the high jump. Or long jump?

FINE IT'S EQUESTRIAN JUMPING, AND I COMPLETELY FAILED AT NAME THAT THEME! TAKE AWAY MY ONE TINY MOMENT OF JOY, WHY DON'T YOU?

I liked the theme, but it didn't click strongly. SHOOT, RUN, FENCE, SWIM, yes. But JUMP? If I could have given early input, I'd have taken the themers out for a test ride. Maybe then, C.C. could have accelerated to maximum ride.

Ahem. RIDE!

(JUMP does allow for intersecting themers, crossing with ADULT, which often makes grid layout much easier when you have to incorporate six themers. It's still possible to use RIDE, though, while RUNning all six themers in the across direction.)

Speaking of maximum ride, I loved so much of C.C.'s seasoning: NO CAN DO. ORIGAMI as something for which you need a "folder" = genius! The I CHING. Modern SHONDA Rhimes to balance out GORDON JUMP. UP TOP, C.C., take some ENCORES for that!

★ Brilliant themes don't come around often. The way they get presented can make them stand out even further, or hold them back. Today's puzzle hit on all cylinders, an auto-POW! pick.

Discovering HEBREWS → He brews → male who makes beer is a constructor's dream. The muse blesses you with her benevolence! How to execute a full theme set in a 15x15 crossword, though? Some might take it in a "dictionary theme" direction, with a grid entry like PERSON MAKING BEER. Others might put HEBREWS into the grid, with a clue of [Headline: "Male Makes Beer!"]

Even if you landed on the optimal solution of choosing a colorful phrase to describe "Hebrews" — BEERMAKER is great — you might write the clue as [Hebrews?], or [Hebrews, in a way]. Putting HEBREWS in all caps was a touch of genius, shouting to solvers that something odd was going on. A question mark might do that, but the CLUE YELLING IN MY FACE made me take special attention. There was zero doubt that I was going to review what the heck was going on once I filled in the last square.

I was annoyed that I finished without hitting a revealer to explain everything, but it didn't take long to figure it out. HE BREWS, WE AVER, SHE RIFFS, I RATE, all with snazzy, in-the-language phrases describing them? That's as big a WITT (wish I thought of that) moment as I've had this entire year.

Along with strong grid execution — extras in BEEN THERE, POOR TASTE, CAMISOLE, EN GARDE, MARS RED, FAN BELT, and not much crossword glue — it's a work of top-notch craftsmanship.

THE NERVE of C.C., making me feel so pleasantly jealous. It's no wonder that she's near the top of my POW! list. I give her strong odds to take over the top spot in the next few years.

★ I'm envious. It takes a great constructor to transform a stale theme — I've seen dozens of "salad dressing" concepts over the years — into something incredible. Who would have ever thought to riff on CROSS DRESSING, interpreting it as "a revealer literally crossing dressings"? And to attempt the impossible, crossing CROSS DRESSING through FIVE symmetrical dressings, incorporated into great phrases?

It should be impossible. There's no way that Crucivera, the crossword goddess, is benevolent enough to allow such a fortuitous happenstance.

You'd have to come up with a way to intersect five salad dressings through CROSS DRESSING, at symmetrical rows. That's hard, but doable.

But add in the constraint of having the five phrases also be symmetrical in length? And have those lengths match up in position, so the dressings still fit properly?

Nah. I wouldn't have even tried.

Sure glad C.C. did! Wow. I uncovered the revealer and figured out the theme early on. But I kept stopping to admire the feat. It didn't seem humanly feasible. I mean, getting CAESAR and RUSSIAN to intersect in rows 6 and 10, that's pretty cool. But to have HAIL CAESAR and RUSSIAN MOB just happen to fit into total, absolute, mystifying crossword symmetry?

Screw HAIL CAESAR. HAIL Crucivera is more like it.

Fantastic clue in RECESS, too, reimagining "trial separation" in a funny way.

A couple of blips in the fill: a little more crossword glue than I like, and a ton of 3-letter words that broke up solving flow. Not the most elegant of finishes. But:

1. Much of that is expected with six interlocked themers. After looking carefully at the grid design, I don't think I could have done better.
2. Who cares? When a theme is this eye-popping, such trivialities matter not.

Compare and contrast today's puzzle with yesterday's. They both have seven themers along with a revealer, and both needed heavy crossword glue.

The big difference is that C.C.'s puzzle had a good reason to need all seven themers, since you can't do a puzzle about the days of the week without including the entire septet. I was able to overlook a slew of ESSO ESO IRT EUR ARA RTES today because it was in service of a complete set.

I've seen many "days of the week" themes, as well as "months of the year," etc. But I loved how C.C. tied in the snappy OPENING DAY to give the puzzle a raison d'etre. She could have kept to seven themers, calling it good by simply circling MON, TUES, WED, etc. But the addition of OPENING DAY put a perfect bow on the theme.

Thoughts on TU ES BELLE? Initially, I shook my head. Resorting to random phrases in a foreign language? Why not pick a strong phrase or word that starts with TUES?

Oh.

Wait.

Is "Tueslam" a word?

Okay, then. Why not shorten to TUE and use …

Tuemeric?

Ah, now I see C.C.'s issue.

Given that there is nothing reasonable that begins with TUE, TU ES BELLE is passable in service of a decent theme. Sometimes I think that it's better to scrap a theme completely if you're going to need a phrase that's not in the language, but in today's case, I came out in favor.

I would have preferred for OPENING DAY to be at the very end since it was odd to get SATE afterward like it was an afterthought. But trying to pack seven themers in rows 1 to 12 is sheer madness. Perhaps a compromise would have been to shift SUNG to the NE and SATE to the SW, which could have made OPENING DAY seem more like it was at the end of the puzzle, even though it still technically wasn't.

Incredibly tough construction that came with the sorts of trade-offs I'd have expected. But overall, the theme plus revealer was interesting enough that I didn't mind the rough patches.

★ A Monday theme that's accessible to newer solvers and interesting for more experienced ones? I say YES!

That was too easy. Well played, C.C., well played.

It's one thing to use "foreign words for YES" — I've seen that a couple of times before — but to disguise them using homophones is a great way to target both sides of the solving spectrum.

The theme is tight, too. How many other foreign languages would YES be obvious in? SI (Spanish or Italian), HAI (Japanese), DA (Russian), and OUI (French). My inner nerd wishes that Dothraki or Klingon were included, but in both of those languages, YES loosely translates to "I shall excise your gizzard and use it to kill the ghosts of your ancestors." Probably wouldn't pass the breakfast test.

C.C. did well in her themer choices, LAH DI DAH, AIMS HIGH, and especially THE ROYAL WE. I liked PLAIN TO SEE, but it was a bit, well, plain. I'd have preferred THE DEAD SEA. Perhaps that's my inner Dothraki speaking.

As always, C.C. is a star when it comes to bonus fill. So much greatness in CARPE DIEM, SAN MARINO, PIT STOP, SLEUTHS. I liked FAN ART, too, great way to use a mid-length slot.

My solve was slow. Not because the short fill was gluey — on the contrary, just an LTS = top-notch craftsmanship. But there was so much novelty in the shorties: AP LIT, GO BAGS, KTOWN, even DEETS and DCON. As much as I enjoy a feeling of freshness — and I do like each of these entries on their own — this verged on too fresh. I wonder how it affected newer solvers. I could imagine it being a turn-off.

But overall, an entertaining, creative theme with a solid a-ha moment doesn't come around very often on Mondays. Along with a solid grid that aimed high, it's a slam-dunk POW!

NOTE: Thanks to some sharp-eyed readers, mistranslations in the original post have been corrected.

Will Shortz has warned me to avoid using too many proper names in puzzles if they're at the level of not-quite-famous-enough — "either you know them, or you don't." If you're in the latter camp, it's no fun to work hard to uncover someone that brings you little joy.

Now, the President of China? He's most definitely a person everyone ought to have heard of. But is that the case? I could only recall Xi off the top. And JINPING? Good luck with that! All those Asian names look alike.

(One of the benefits to being a minority is being able to say stuff like that. Don't try it at home.)

I enjoyed this entry, as its clue was eye-opening: XI JINPING at #1 on Forbes' list of most powerful people? Yikes! Neat that he has so many rare letters in his name, too.

With only eight long slots (8+ letters), I wanted every one of them to count. AD LIBBING is great. FINAL SALE, FULL TIMER, ODOR EATER, all solid. HYACINTH is pretty, too.

But SITS IDLE and RESTS EASY are on the dull side, sitting there too idly, resting too easy.

Thankfully, there were a lot of mid-length slots to juice up the joint. ARTEMIS, HEY JUDE, NO JEANS, FOX CUB are all assets.

Most others weren't as strong, though. LENDERS is fine, but nothing exciting. I WAS HAD isn't as interesting as I BEEN HAD or WE WUZ ROBBED! And SLOVENS? It is in the dictionary. That's the best I can say about it.

All in all, solid craftsmanship, but I want more snazziness out of a standard 72-word themeless.

Fairly standard 72-word layout from C.C. today. I loved that wombo-combo of ICE SCRAPER / SENATE RACE / LETS PARTY in the SE — that's the way to make the most out of your triple-stacks!

Not as hot on the prices to pay of PARA, NO PAR, NEC, though. Minor offenders, all, but when working with a 72-word grid — the max allowable for a themeless — there's very little room for inelegance. The bar has been raised so high for 72-worders.

I'd be interested to see what C.C. could have done without the black square separating EMMA and SCAR. Both the SW and NE corners already have some crossword glue — RYNE / ADP, and ATTA — which I would have been more forgiving of, if there had been more quality and quantity in the long slots. Give me another ADOPT A PET or LEAD STORY and I'd happily look the other way at the tough crossing on CALPHALON / ADP and CALPHALON / RYNE.

Some great clues helped snazz up my solve:

• Did [Ring in a coffee shop] make you think of a coffee ring, too? Brilliant misdirect.
• [Stern competitor, once] disguises the capital S of Howard Stern.
• The plural "arms" is a bit of a stretch, with an ESCORT being an [Arms provider?]. But that's the kind of stretch I'm fine with. Funny wordplay. (And Jim's favorite clue of the puzzle!)

Some great marquee entries in EAGLE SCOUT, RAN TRACK (or RANT RACK, where you store all your kvetches?), MALAPROP, ME AGAIN. But also some inelegance that's hard to accept in a 72-word themeless these days.

A "revealer" entry is often necessary to create an a-ha moment for solvers, but sometimes these still don't clear up the theme for everyone. I bet some won't understand why DEAR JOHN LETTERS ties everything together, so I've highlighted the special letters below.

Get it? HOLLYWOOD ENDING refers to the end of the word HOLLYWOOD? EYE OPENER points to the beginning letter of EYE? It's an oldie but a goodie, a theme type that's played upon in many crosswords and other puzzle types as well.

I enjoyed how C.C. didn't rely solely on beginnings and endings, throwing a CENTER in there, as well as a SECOND and a THIRD. Even an EPISODE I!

Wait a second …

(that sort of works for A, the second letter of WAIT!)

My first reaction to the theme: why was DEAR JOHN chosen? Why not BUSINESS letters, or VARSITY letters, or the SCARLET letter? There's nothing wrong with DEAR JOHN LETTERS as a phrase, but since this is a time-tested theme type, it would have been nice if there had been some additional layer. For example, if SCARLET LETTER had been used, it would have been so cool to arrange the seven special letters in the shape of an A!

Then again, it would need to be pluralized into SCARLET LETTERS, which makes no sense. So upon further consideration, DEAR JOHN is probably the best choice for this sort of LETTERS theme. Take that, overthinking Jeff!

Solid gridwork, as to be expected from a pro like C.C. I enjoyed the bonuses of CUP O JOE, BLACK COD (one of my favorite dishes at my local sushi place), MOLESKINE, SCEPTERS, BALLPARK, NOBLEMEN. Not a ton of bonuses, but enough.

The only place I disagreed with C.C.'s gridwork — the southwest. It's neat to work in an X into IXNAY for some rare letter color, but I didn't think it was worth the price of AMICA, especially crossing ASANA. Even non-yogis probably ought to have heard of ASANA before, but two words like this crossing felt like inflexible legs cranked into the lotus position.

Hilarious clue alert! I had the middle three letters solved for [It's in your jeans]: _ENI_. Ahem. Of course, it was DENIM. Of course.

(I'd make a comment about a GENIE in one's jeans, but I doubt anyone wants to hear that.)

★ I like to play the "guess that theme" game with early-week puzzles. Not difficult with today's! Turkey's place = POULTRY FARM, okay. Turkey's place = RAZZIE AWARDS ... game over! Oh well.

But even with the premature giveaway, I still had more a-ha moments. Fun to figure out where other types of turkeys could be found. A bowling turkey is three strikes in a row, and Turkey is a country in WESTERN ASIA. Four very different turkeys!

This type of theme is often done with a single word clue, TURKEY, and the entries are dry dictionary-entry-esque. (Think BIRD WITH A WATTLE). I like C.C.'s implementation so much more, each of the themers snappy phrases I'd happily use as fill in other crosswords.

And the fill! C.C. has built a well-deserved rep as one of the top constructors when it comes to assets in her fill. CLEAR AS MUD and LEMON WEDGE are in the positions you'd typically see bonuses. She goes above and beyond just that though: VAMOOSE, OPEN MIC, DO TELL. Not a lot of long slots, but she used her mid-lengthers to such advantage.

With just a couple of EUR and OUTA minor dings (I have a soft spot in my heart for grape NEHI, Radar O'Reilly's drink of choice), it's top-notch craftsmanship.

If that weren't enough, the clues for PARLOR and DROOL made me laugh. Not sure I'd visit an establishment that serves ice cream at the same time they're tattooing you, but that might be "Shark Tank" worthy. And I had a moment of panic after reading [Baby wipe target], as my two-year-old has many baby wipe targets do not pass the breakfast test. Thank goodness it was DROOL!

Ticked all the boxes. I'd be delighted to give this puzzle to a newer solver, trying to get them hooked on crosswords. POW!

Some delightful feature entries: TATAMI MATs always making me feel at home (I love visiting Japan!). And how can you not love a DUDE RANCH? The SILK ROAD is so evocative, Marco Polo along it for 24 years. And I'm fascinated by intellectual property law, so I enjoyed getting TRADEMARKS defined as "commercial slogans." It didn't feel quite right to me at first, as most slogans as "trademarked," not TRADEMARKS. But then I realized that they're actually both — fun realization!

Not so fun: STALIN ERA, which brought the death of tens of millions of people. I usually would point out things like CRIME BOSS and DEAD END as assets to the puzzle, but man, what a shiver-inducing vibe, that CRIME BOSS / STALIN ERA pairing. Not sure it passes "the breakfast test" — I would have STRESS ATE everything in sight!

COSSETS is not in the assets category for me. Apparently "cosset" means "mollycoddle"? Huh.

Also in the "huh" category: NATALE.

Check out those COSSETS and NATALE corners — there's a reason for these oddball entries. The NW / SE might not look like much of a challenge, but yikes, are they ever. I rarely leave a section that big to fill in a themeless (or any puzzle, for that matter), because you're usually going to need short gluey stuff (see: ANO CMAS ESA) or weird mid-length stuff. C.C. did make her task a bit easier by adding a black square just before LEAVEN, but those huge chunks of white space were still too leavened to fill smoothly.

I find more and more that a themeless is all about the connection you feel to the constructor — did you get that great vibe of being right on someone's wavelength? I didn't today, as I usually want a more uplifting solving experience. Personal taste. I can see how others might love the subtle message implied by pairing CRIME BOSS with STALIN ERA.

I admit it took me a while to figure out what was going on. ALTOGETHER = AL TOGETHER … = A and L repeated in phrases? Ultimately, I think it's more simply AL + AL together. Confusing though, in that IN LA LA LAND is the only one with a third LA, and MALALA has an extra A.

What, no FA LA LA LA LA, LA LA LA LA? Grinch!

I enjoyed the diversity of theme answers. From KUALA LUMPUR to I AM MALALA to HALAL FOOD to CENTRAL ALPS — what a range! Especially that last one. (rimshot)

That's a ton of themers, intersecting, taking up a ton of real estate. FRAID SO that there's a bit of ANDA and ITHE, but that's pretty darn good given the constraints. And as much as I dislike partials, they are friendlier to newer solvers than weird words, esoteric abbreviations, tough names, etc.

Speaking of tough names, I don't mind a couple of toughies in my grid, even if there are one or two head-busting ones. For a newb though, I'm not sure that ANI IMAN LAILA OPIE RAE SHERA is very friendly. I worry that this sort of pile-up might be quite a turn-off.

I enjoyed the creative parsing of ALTOGETHER = AL TOGETHER. But I wish it had provided a stronger click; a sharper, more smile-inducing a-ha moment.

★ Beautiful Monday puzzle. Interesting theme full of fresh finds, a couple of bonuses in the fill, and a smooth grid. Nothing more I could ask for!

C.C. riffs on DOUBLETREE = phrases with two trees embedded within them. I highlighted them below in case you couldn't locate them. Particularly nice one in BALDERDASH! It's so densely packed with trees, plus it's a fun word to say.

C.C. is so, so, so good with her fill bonuses. DON'T BLOW IT? No way she would --- AMEN TO THAT. And a BARISTA, DR DOOM, and SARA LEE? Nobody doesn't like that!

And when NNE is the only grid entry that feels gluey, you've done incredibly well. Superb craftsmanship.

The only nit I had was that it took me forever to think of TEA in STEALTH FIGHTER. I was a bit slow to find FIG to begin with, and then I thought there might something called a TEAL tree? After much Googling, I headdesked when I figured things out.

I often wish that puzzles don't get dumbed down; that solvers be allowed to discover and earn their a-ha moment. Here though, TEA tree feels not as easily recognizable as the ASH or ALDER (I might say the same for TEAK), so I would have preferred shading them in the grid.

Ooh, trees providing shade! That would have been so meta.

ADDED NOTE: Astute reader Janie Smulyan commented that ARBORS are indeed [Shady places]! Another call for shading; that would have been awesome!

Minor quibble aside, a near-perfect start to the week; a puzzle I'd happily give to any newer solver.

I like theme type mashups — so interesting to cram together two tried-and-true ideas to form something new.

1.) Reversals. Many puzzles over the years have featured backwards entries. BACK, UP, REVERSE, FLIP are usually hints or revealers.

2.) Different definitions of a key word. Take a word that has many disparate meanings, find phrases that define said meanings. (Many moons ago, I wanted to use LOG as my key word, and Jill suggested something scatological as we were brainstorming. I knew then she was a keeper.)

Mash these two up, and you get a three COURSE meal — reversed! AUGUSTA NATIONAL is a golf COURSE, PREALGEBRA is a school COURSE, and APPETIZERS are a meal COURSE. I like the innovation.

Great bonuses in the fill has become C.C.'s trademark. No surprise to get awesome AU NATUREL, PICANTE, DON'T PANIC, GONDOLA.

Sometimes I've critiqued C.C.'s work with an eye on her craftsmanship, her slight overreliance on crossword glue. I think she's come a long way, and today I didn't notice much at all. A bit of ELEC URI, that's it? Excellent work.

I score each new entry as they get introduced into our Xword Info word list, and I waffled on ADD ME. Is this a thing? Granted, I'm not a huge fan of the Facebook ("the" added for humor, of course, I knew that, I REALLY DID!), but do people say ADD ME? Huh.

ANALOG got such a great clue. I can just imagine the kids though, saying "wot the heck are watch hands?"

More likely, "wot the hell is a watch?"

Overall, I liked the innovation. If "reversing A course" had been a real phrase, I might have given this some POW! love. But as is, the anal grammaratician in me hitched on the awkwardness of REVERSING COURSE as a revealer, without that "A." I know, I'm so darn annoying!

Apt MLK Day theme, reinterpreting the famous FREE AT LAST to mean "phrases whose last words are synonyms for free." Especially apt that Agnes and C.C. chose the "release" meaning of free (instead of "not busy" or "take a burden from"), given MLK's goals in life.

NEW RELEASE and THE COAST IS CLEAR worked beautifully for me. Colorful phrases, and perfect synonyms.

BEG PARDON … perhaps it's a generational thing, but I don't ever hear exactly this. I BEG YOUR PARDON, yes. BEG YOUR PARDON, too. (And OH NO YOU DIDN'T all too much.)

TAX EXEMPT is my favorite type of tax! But here, the "free" meaning of exempt didn't get at the "release" sense of "free" that I associate with MLK's work.

As always, C.C. gives such nice bonuses — POWDER KEG, OLIVE OIL, CRAVAT are great. COSPLAYS is a bit odd in the verb form, but it's legit. REAL DEAL is similarly odd in the plural, but it's okay too.

I did find the short fill novice unfriendly. CITGO, ELYSEE, DARIN, ORECK are all valid words that educated solvers (mostly probably) ought to know, but so many in one puzzle felt like a heavy concentration.

Usually, these sorts of compromises arise when constructors try too hard to add in bonuses, but curiously, it had nothing to do with those added bonuses today. I would have asked for some rework in the north and south sections, which should be doable without changing black squares.

I wonder if someone might be a SOX fan, striving a bit too hard to work in the odd GO SOX …

Happy MLK Day! Hope you're volunteering somewhere, or at least remembering the spirit of the day.