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★ What a treat to get something different on a Tuesday! Joel Fagliano, a very well-rounded constructor, shows off his chops with a (relatively) rare "mirror symmetry" puzzle, one which exhibits left-right symmetry. It might not be apparent why he chooses this option, but consider the pattern of V's that's central to this theme. If Joel had used normal (180 rotational) symmetry, the black squares might have visually overwhelmed everything else, a point Michael Sharp (aka Rex Parker) has noted many times in the past. As an added layer of elegance, there are no other V's in the puzzle.

It's a thing of beauty to imagine a flock of MIGRATING/GEESE flying straight overhead (I would have preferred MIGRATING/GEESE or MIGRATING/BIRDS over GEESE/MIGRATION, as the latter feels slightly stilted as a phrase). All crosswords are works of art in their own right, but this one I could imagine up on someone's wall.

Will and Joel's notes about the relative thinness of theme are well-taken, and I would have liked to see something else — not sure what though. V SIGN would be cool, but it would also throw a loose V into the puzzle (or require a "????V" theme answer to preserve mirror symmetry). So I like Joel's compromise of making the rest of the puzzle a quasi-themeless, giving us such great stuff as the long fill Will mentioned. I also appreciate the cluing, which felt Joel-ish (more modern than average). Neat when the constructor's cluing vibe comes through.

KISLEV...I scratched my head when I ran into it while solving. I polled a few Jewish friends afterward, and indeed KISLEV is important because of its relation to Hanukkah, so I'm glad to have learned it. But IYAR, ELUL, and SIVAN, you're on notice.

This puzzle gets my POW! but let me tell you, we have a couple of stonkers coming up. Gareth Bain assures me that "stonker" means "something good". It's possible he's pulling my leg, but I like the word too much not to use it. "Stonker of the Week", that's catchy.

– puzzle by Joel Fagliano

Nice mid-week offering from Paula, one of the most prolific authors during the Shortz era. She's one of the top 20 most published and has hit for the cycle and amazing SIX times over. Talk about a well-rounded constructor!

It took me a while to appreciate the theme. Originally I thought it was simply homonym switches, which seemed a little dull, then I realized it was a subtle sound change, and it finally hit me that it was a consistent sound change, using a soft CE to harder TS substitution. Not only that, she stuck with words where the change didn't affect the length of the word. Impressive. The theme answers are largely successful, the image of being startled by monks giving me a giggle. LOSING PATIENTS seemed awfully depressing, but luckily PRESENTS OF MIND and PRINTS OF THIEVES evoked fun images.

Paula uses a 15-14-14-15 arrangement, which is often tricky. Because each themer is a grid-spanner or a near-grid spanner, there will be many down answers which intersect two themers. This often produces challenges, specifically at the west and east (SUMP and SEXY) areas, which are constrained by the beginnings and ends of the middle two themers. Paula is largely successful in these areas today, helped by the fact that she's smartly placed her 14's in the middle, taking away one set of constraints where the "cheater" squares are. OBE is not ideal, but certainly acceptable for a Wednesday, given that the crossings are fair.

The grid-spanner constraints cause a small blip in the NW region, where Paula has chosen to give us the snazzy FANTASIA. I'm not totally agin leaving AGIN in a grid, but if it allows for FANTASIA, maybe it's okay. Difficult trade-offs when there are tough constraints to work with.

Enjoyable Wednesday; I'm curious to see how Dan's time (and that of the other speedsters) looks compared to Bob Mackey's. ADDED NOTE: holy !*@$% Dan finished in 2:48 (on paper). It took me longer than that to type this added note.

– puzzle by Paula Gamache

Fun debut from Evan! The eight special squares must be interpreted TO BE in the across direction and BB in the down; a whimsical interpretation of TO BE OR NOT TO BE. Cleverly done. At first I wondered if I was missing something, because I kept thinking it should be "TO BE" in the across direction and (blank) in the down. But then I decided I was overthinking things and kicked back with a COHIBA to shut up my stupid brain.

Well-constructed grid, especially so given that it's Evan debut. He's chosen really nice theme entries for the most part, with BORN TO BE WILD, SUCKS TO BE YOU, TO BE HONEST, and BRIDE TO BE standing out. The down answers containing BB aren't flashy per se, but almost all of them do a nice job. Esoteric foreign words like ABBE are usually something a constructor strives to avoid in a grid, but in something this ambitious, some trade-offs are usually required.

And the rest of the fill is pretty darn good; lots of sparkly stuff. Evan tosses in my man Geordi LAFORGE, who gets his second appearance in the NYT, making up some ground to the ubiquitous crossword ST:TNG personnel, Deanna TROI (31 appearances) and Lieutenant WORF (six). Hopefully his CHESS SET is a Star Trek Tridimensional one.

Like with most (non-Patrick Berry) puzzle, there are flaws. Aside from the typical ORI, HOSP, FAO, etc., I don't think Darrell ISSA is terribly grid-worthy, and the same goes for XENIA, OH, which mysteriously shows up with relatively high frequency (16 appearances in the NYT Shortz era, despite being a town of about 25,000 people). In general, I really appreciate what Will has done for the NYT xw in terms of fill (browse the pre-Shortzian puzzles to get a sense for what fill used to be like), and I applaud continuing motion toward better quality fill. Here's hoping we don't see ISSA again, until he does something worthy of fame.

More importantly, here's hoping we see more work from Evan in the future! One of the best debuts I've seen in a while.

– puzzle by Evan Birnholz

Bruce's solo debut! I met Bruce two years ago at the ACPT and drank a cold one with him. Good guy; fun time hanging out.

Themeless grids featuring 7-letter entries are rare, but this one goes all-out with 36 of them. Constructors usually depend on 8+ letter entries for snazziness because so many 7-letter (or shorter) entries have been used many times before. It's tough to find debut or "wow factor" 7-letter entries but Bruce succeeds today. AHI TUNA is one of those "why the heck don't I have that on my list?" answers, as is DAY LILY. By the way, NYT debut entries are listed in red in the answers below.

There's a lot of other good stuff in the grid, especially NETFLIX with its fantastic clue. IQ TESTS and ICE BATH are quite nice too, the clue to the latter leading me to think of cryonics, trying to figure out how they froze Walt Disney's head. Although there's not a ton of "wow" entries, Bruce spices up his grid by going the Scrabbly route, tossing in eight instances of the big four (J, Q, X, Z). Not an easy feat.

There's a price to pay for all the good stuff though, in the quality of the three-letter entries. There are 16 of them today, higher than average for a themeless, and that's not usually an issue if they're all solid words, but NNE, SPR, SOC, ASI, LTS, NIE ding the puzzle by collectively becoming noticeable.

Finally, cool grid, exhibiting "super-symmetry", i.e. you can turn it 90 degrees and the black square pattern remains the same. Not a lot of puzzles exhibit this, and it adds an aesthetically pleasing visual element. All in all, a nice Friday.

– puzzle by Bruce R. Sutphin

★ Two Puzzles of the Week, can that be? I tried so hard to adhere to my own rule of highlighting a single standout puzzle of the week, but I struggled, given how many puzzles I thought were fantastic this week (and we still have a Patrick Berry Sunday to look forward to!) Thanks to my Girlfriend/Wife/Barbarian Jill Denny for the idea of settling on two POWs.

Beautiful puzzle today. To continue my climbing analogy from last week's Saturday puzzle, I looked at this puzzle's teenty-tiny holds, slopers, and near-nothing features, and I quaked. Sure, I fell at times as I made my way up, but I fought through each of the tricky spots, taking a few rests to figure out how to move past a certain section, and came away slapping the top anchors with a triumphant yell. It stretched me in such a way that I wanted to take a picture of it (yes, I take pictures of great gym routes) to bottle the feeling of struggling mightily but ultimately managing to accomplish the near impossible.

Byron is a master at the challenging Saturday grid, a skill that few constructors have honed to his level. He's the 3rd most published Saturday author in the Shortz era, behind only the great Rich Norris (now the editor of the LA Times crossword) and the mystical/magical Patrick Berry. And Byron gives us a constructor's clinic with this puzzle. Two double-stacks, both with interesting answers and (mostly) squeaky-clean crossings, accompanying solid short fill through the puzzle's midsection, makes for a masterful construction. It's amazing how clean all the crossings through the double-stacks are; a real rarity. Only ENS and OEO as your (very minor) dings? You gotta be kidding me.

And it's not often I'm SO impressed with a puzzle's cluing, but the "Large monitors" clue was fantastic; same with "Tip used for icing". For the latter, I kept pounding my head, swearing at Byron for likely tossing some sort of ridiculous esoteric baking tool into the puzzle. When I finally hit on SILENCER, a big smile came to my face.

Brilliant. How could I not name this stonker co-Puzzle of the Week?

– puzzle by Byron Walden

Always a delight to see Patrick Berry's name on a byline, because I know I'll get a cleanly-filled puzzle, polished to a high shine. Today is no different. Two years ago we were blessed by a ridiculously awesome puzzle suite by the man, the myth, the legend. Although I'm not a religious person, sometimes I get down on my hands and knees to pray that one day I'll think of something so ingenious. I'm kind of glad I've never met Patrick in person, because I'd have a hard time not letting out a fanboy "SQUEE!" in his face.

Fine offering today; in-the-language phrases with the "TOE" sound appended to the last word. TOE TAGS seems a touch morbid, so I prefer to imagine ten little piggy-wiggies running around playing freeze tag. Note to self: make sure to delete that last sentence before this goes live.

I appreciate how Patrick switches up the modifications so it's not always a simple addition of the letters TO or TOE. We do have that in GUIDED MISTLETOE and GARBAGE CANTO, but the ending words are transmogrified for CUP OF TITO and BUY ONE GET ONE FRITO to good effect. And check out how Patrick tosses in nine long theme answers like it wasn't any big deal, even going as far as to stack the first two and the last two. An overlap of six letters apiece often causes an awkward two-letter series, but Patrick not only gives us buttery smoothness, but crosses those stacks with CANOODLE and REPRINTS. I'm working to suppress my squees.

I attempted to locate some pieces of questionable fill just to demonstrate that almost every puzzle construction contains trade-offs, but all I could come up with was ALEE and ATRA. Therefore, I will continue to use the modifier "almost". There is the travesty that 37A wasn't clued as "Philosopher King and Benevolent Overlord Chen" but I shall forgive him and Will this once.

(pause to order minions to assemble)

As if that wasn't enough, look at the word count: 136. As I've said before, it's hard enough to construct a smooth 21x puzzle with 140 words, and that much harder to reduce the word count to 136. I really like the fact that Will is trying something new, and I like even more the fact that Patrick laughs, not even bothering to reduce his theme density in order to lower his word count.

One nit I'll pick though, is that while there are some great pieces of fill (CANOODLE, BUCKLE UP, RUMBLE SEATS, JUST DESERTS, HYMN BOOK, BONE DRY, enough to make any Sunday puzzle very good), I would love to see someone achieve Will's goal of incorporating, say, 10+ great pieces of long fill to make a true hybrid of a 21x and themeless. Not a knock on this puzzle, but if anyone can achieve that (without sacrificing quality of the other fill) it's PB.

SQUEE!!! oops.

– puzzle by Patrick Berry

★ A great debut from Amy. I've said before how difficult it is to make a Monday puzzle, and this one fires on all cylinders. I really appreciate Monday puzzles which I could give to non-crossword friends to get them hooked on the NYT xw, and this is one of them. We have some fun puzzles coming up this week, but this one deserves the POW. Here are the reasons why Amy's works so well for me:

Interesting, consistent, specific theme. There is a huge range of solving abilities in the NYT xw universe, everyone from total novices to the speedsters (Dan, Anne, Tyler, Plot, ZigZag, Shazbot, Commander Chewie) who don't even look at the theme, so finding something that works for everyone is near impossible. Amy gives us a theme that beginners can grasp (songs all ending in a word that's a shade of blue, plus another song as a "revealer") and advanced solvers can appreciate, given the catchiness of the three songs. As for specificity, there may be other well-known songs which also fit the theme, but I couldn't think of any right off the bat.

Long fill. Often the best source of added snazz is 8+ letter fill. Amy has some nice stuff here, GETTYSBURG and ARE WE ALONE (although I would have preferred to see a clue like "Secretive whisper" to get more specific about its usage). But she also incorporates some shorter good stuff: ST PETER, WOE IS ME, RUB IT IN, and HAR HAR. Nice.

Surrounding fill. This is the category that makes Mondays so difficult to create. A late week puzzle often must use an esoteric or crosswordese entry to hold the grid together. In my own late-week puzzles I've often had to let the likes of an OEO pass because of tough grid constraints. That's usually fine for a late-week solver, but it can badly trip up the novice solver. Amy has filled her grid professionally, with just a couple of the lesser uglies: ENNE, PHYS, ESE, STDS, GSA. GIDE is an outlier for a Monday, but the crosses are all common words and the Nobelist Andre Gide is gridworthy. I also appreciate Amy's use of a set of black "cheater squares" at the very NW and SE. As Patrick Berry has said, he'll always choose to incorporate cheater squares if that means the surrounding fill is of higher quality.

Cluing. It's tough to come up with fun and tricky cluing on a Monday, because that usually makes it too difficult for the novice solver. There's nothing spectacular here, but nothing too tricky for its own good. A slight ding is the sheer length of the clue for SINGING THE BLUES. It would have been nice to concatenate that somehow, maybe "Soulful activity describing the ends of 16-, 27-, 49-across"?

Looking forward to more work from Amy. P.S. There sadly is no ZigZag, Shazbot, or Commander Chewie in universe of NYT xw solvers. But there should be.

ADDED NOTE: Erik Agard shall hereafter be known as ZigZag. BTW, check out his indy crossword site, Glutton for Pun if you have a chance. Good stuff.

– puzzle by Amy Johnson

Neat Tuesday offering from Tim, playing on the cross-referencing that typically occurs in crosswords, delighting some solvers (who appreciate the linked answers) and irritating others (who grouse about having to jump all over the grid). Typically I groan when 1-across is cross-referenced because it messes with the flow of my puzzle solve, but I did a double-take when I saw 1-across was cross-referenced to... 1-across. Clever idea!

With themed puzzles, there's a certain beauty when the theme answers jump out at the solver just by layout, and a bit of inelegance when the solver must hunt to figure out which answers relate to the theme. Today's sort of theme, which incorporates a lot of short answers, typically falls into the latter category, but because all the theme answers are clued with the "With (this answer)..." style, it works well. Very nice way to make the themers stand out; typically much better than a simple asterisk trying to tell the solver which is theme and which is not. I also appreciate that the theme answers are the only ones with cross-referencing.

I highlighted all the theme answers to show the symmetry, putting the doubles in tan and the triples in green. There was something bothering me as I solved, and this exercise helped me figure out what it was. I really liked that most of the themers were doubled, with the kicker of a few of them being tripled. But I would have loved to see all the tripled answers symmetrical (note the location of LOCATION). A minor issue, to be sure, but one that deducts slightly from the puzzle's elegance.

Another small nit came with the idea of less is more. Specifically, PETER PETER stood out to me as a partial. Everything else felt fun and complete, great entries such as HEAR YE HEAR YE and SAME OLD SAME OLD. The puzzle would still have its amazing theme density without PETER, and that would have allowed Tim to work his magic, perhaps giving us even more juicy fill in the center. And perhaps take out OSAMA, which is kind of a bummer to see in an otherwise uplifting puzzle.

Cleanly filled, with good stuff such as WEE UNS, TB TEST, THE OMEN, RIO LOBO, and a minimum of ugly entries; a real feat given the tremendous theme density and all the overlap of said themers. Great change of pace Tuesday; enjoyable solve.

– puzzle by Tim Croce

It's not often that a constructor comes across a serendipitous find, but the fact that two of Philip K. Dick's famous short stories split nicely into 15/15 definitely qualifies. Kudos to Jason for attempting one of the most difficult constructions in crossword-land, double stacks where you have no ability to swap in one of the answers. And he does it twice! It's like a first-time Olympian attempting a quintuple axel or a one-handed iron cross.

Being an utter sci-fi geek (scientific name: dorkus malorkus) DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP was a gimme, so much so that the top fell in no time. The bottom, however, put up so much of a fight that I had to throw in the towel after trying to reel it in for 15 minutes (my average Wed time is about 6 minutes). I don't remember seeing WE CAN REMEMBER IT FOR YOU WHOLESALE before, but it Googles well (1.7M hits) so perhaps it's a gap in my sci-fi knowledge base that needs serious shoring up (preemptive apologies to my girlfriend/wife/barbarian, Jill Denny). This is going to be a divisive puzzle, some loving it, some finding the solving experience frustrating because four grid-spanning entries will effectively be random words strung together.

Let's look at the crossings from a construction standpoint. Usually, double-stacks provide a killer challenge to constructors not named Patrick Berry or Byron Walden, but Jason does an admirable job here, especially given that this is his debut. Not many solvers like to see Christine DAAE because her last name is a bit of esoteric trivia. STAEL is also a toughie, but otherwise, the crossing entries are relatively smooth.

What was troublesome for me was the difficulty of cluing in those crossings. Typically with really tough (or virtually unclued) across answers, Will goes easy on the clues for the crossing down answers, so the solver has a real chance. I didn't need that for the top set, but the really hard clues in the SW made that entire corner inscrutable.

Finally, the off-center placement of DICK felt inelegant. I've used an asymmetrical revealer before and looking back on it, regretted that I didn't find a way to adhere to usual symmetry rules (I wish I had thought of putting A R O U N D in a circle pattern around the center). Of course, DICK is a four-letter word (pun intended) so it can't be the center entry of the middle row. PHILIP K DICK would be a great central entry (11 letters) but that would also make the construction even harder. Putting D I C K in the four corners (as an easter egg) might have been cool, but adding even more difficulty to this puzzle probably wouldn't be a good idea. Extending the grid to 16 rows would have allowed DICK to be a vertical entry of the center column (where UPC is) but who knows how that would have affected the sets of double-stacks. Tough choices.

Looking forward to more from Jason.

– puzzle by Jason Flinn

"All the time?" is a fantastic clue for the central theme answer (a set of rebus entries going from SUN to SAT). A central entry plus two vertical grid-spanners may not seem like a lot of theme material, but incorporating vertical answers across the central entry adds to the density. Jeffrey could have made all seven of his crossing entries short stuff like LEMON and FRIDA, but he ups the ante by giving us the juicy SUN YAT SEN, ARE WE DONE, THUCYDIDES, and EASY VIRTUE. I hadn't heard of that last one, but pretty much anything from Noel Coward ought to be gridworthy. Beautiful work in the center of his grid, quite a feat. Well done!

One aspect of this construction that jumped out at me was the high number of 3-letter words. Will tries to keep them down to roughly 20(ish) or under, because too many of them become distracting to some solvers. Here, we have 30 three-letter words, and that's not counting LE(MON) or (FRI)DA. As a result, the solve felt a bit choppy to me. This sort of grid arrangement (lots of short entries, lots of long entries) does have the potential for long snazzy fill, but not a lot of the longer entries felt fresh and sparkly (to me, at least). I did like VARIATION and its science-related clue, but SIDE AISLE and UNDREAMED OF felt a touch off to my ear.

One aspect I appreciated here is the liberal use of cheater squares (black squares which don't affect the total word count). Jeffrey incorporates three pairs of them, and I'm sure this gave a better result than without. Yes, the extra black squares do cut down on the open feel of a puzzle, but I'd personally much rather take a cleaner fill with cheaters. In particular, note the black square at the end of SALIVATE and its match just before DEAD BODY (nice save with the clue for an otherwise creepy-ish entry, BTW). Those 9x3 stack sections are tough to fill cleanly, and placing just a single set of cheaters opens up the possibilities greatly, because the universe of 8-letter words is about 10% bigger than that of the 9-letter universe. I'd bet we would have had at least one other OSO or MEDE type entry without that particular pair of cheaters.

Rebus puzzles are getting tougher to innovate, given that there have been over 300 of them in the NYT now. I appreciate Jeffrey's fresh take on this one, all the rebi in a neat calendar row. Clever idea and a great clue for that entry.

– puzzle by Jeffrey Wechsler

A ton of nice debut stuff from Pete today. SETTLES THE SCORE, WHAT HAPPENS NEXT, and especially WHERES THE REMOTE with its brilliant clue. It's not often we see five debut 15's in a single puzzle; cool feat Peter's pulled off. I got a thrill typing those beauties in (what can I say, I'm easily amused).

Unusual arrangement, not only incorporating four 15's in the across direction, but interlocking them with two 15's in the vertical. Building a themeless grid in this style is daunting, because it creates so many subsections, each one with high constraints. Quite a challenge to find a set of six 15's which allows for reasonable fill. I really appreciated hearing Pete's comment about trying for six debut 15's, but settling for five in order to give the solver a better experience. I love hearing a constructor prioritize the solving experience rather than the construction feat.

While the arrangement of 15's is awfully nice, the surrounding fill suffers a tad. We get an assortment of partials (A STAR, USE AS), crossing awkward abbreviations (CTN/CWTS), French words crossing (ETAT/LYCEE), and a dash of crosswordese (ENOTE, REE, SERE), but I appreciate that Pete has carefully spread it out amongst the different categories so we don't get a ton of one type or another. Still, there was enough of the suboptimal stuff that I noticed it during the solve, and it made me think about the trade-offs Pete must have been weighing as he chose his 15's and filled the grid.

Quick observation about SERE, which has been a crossword staple for decades because it contains common letters. 149 instances in 12 years of the Maleska era (thanks David Steinberg for adding pre-Shortz puzzles to the master database, process still ongoing), 98 from 19 years of the Shortz era. I like this trend, as it discourages the idea that you need to know a totally different language in order to do crosswords. Perhaps with more of this kind of thoughtful progress, crosswords will one day be more popular than baseball.

A guy can dream, can't he?

Good workout today plus some very nice debut entries.

– puzzle by Peter A. Collins

Nice puzzle from John today, with a highlight of NOBODYS HOME and its brilliant clue. Bravo as well for the misdirectional clue "John Paul's successor", referring to John Paul Stevens, not Pope John Paul (I or II). I tried LEOIX, LEOXI, PIUSI, etc. until I realized that both Pope John Pauls were recent. I blame the fact that my buddy Merlin gave me his backward-progressing timeline. I'll tell you all about tomorrow's puzzle yesterday.

Quite a bit of good stuff in this puzzle, as Will mentioned. The SE stack in particular is fantastic, with not only three great answers but two more (RED ZONE and SPAMALOT) crossing them all. Now that's a beautiful piece of construction. I also appreciated how little dreck John incorporated overall. APTER isn't great ("more apt" being more common) and ULCER feels a bit grim, but overall, excellent work.

TURTLE DIARY: curious choice of answer. There are only two slots for 11-letter entries, and at first, I winced when I needed most of the crossings to uncover what seemed to be two random words strung together. After some searching, I found that the movie made $2.2M domestically. Yes, Harold Pinter (definitely gridworthy, Nobelist in Literature) wrote the script for TURTLE DIARY, but it still feels a touch questionable. I was curious if it was a necessary evil to make CAMERA SHY/EYE EXAM/BAD END section possible, or if it was a seed entry, so I'm very glad John weighed in on that (I will see it, John, thanks for the recommendation!). As for F SHAPED, I played cello for 20 years, so from my perspective, F SHAPED was both a gimme and an asset to the puzzle. The great thing about the diversity of constructors is that we as solvers get exposed to a huge range of subjects.

Finally, I love the fact that Will points out an entry he wants to see less (or none) of. SDI was an important acronym 30 years ago, but it's faded into the background by this point. It's important for crosswords to evolve, to keep relevant to people's lives, and I enjoy observing this process of adaptation. I really appreciate hardly ever seeing ADIT (esoteric term for a mine opening) anymore: ADIT instances in the Maleska era = well over 100 (in the puzzles litzed so far), in the Shortz era = 20.

Excellent Saturday challenge.

– puzzle by John Farmer

The constructor community is amazing. When I was just getting started with crosswords, I read C.C.'s blog religiously, making sure I gleaned as much information as possible out of each puzzle. Both C.C. and Scott (Argyle, as he's known over there) were so supportive, always saying kind things about my puzzles, being gentle in their thoughtful critique. The entire commenting community was so nice, too, which made me look forward to checking in as much as I could. I even wrote one puzzle after getting inspiration from C.C.'s name. Blessed to be a part of this community.

Nice opener to the week, theme answers which all start with US, using the revealer US OPENS. Clever idea! The theme is nice, with five long entries, but a more notable aspect is what's becoming C.C.'s signature: inclusion of lots of good long downs. PIANO BARS, NOT FAIR, TALK RADIO, OIL RIGS, MALL RAT. That's a ton of good fill for a single 15x puzzle.

I also appreciate how C.C. and Scott use cheater squares to improve the fill. The four corners are relatively big white spaces, so without the two pairs of cheaters, they would have been harder to fill cleanly. As it is, the NALA/LOIRE crossing may give some beginners a problem, and the inclusion of two French rivers could cause some grousing. People probably ought to know LOIRE (or learn something about it because it is France's longest river), but I could understand if ISERE causes grumbles.

Another issue I notice: the placement of the theme revealer feels slightly inelegant. The revealer itself is very nice, but its off-center placement in the lower corner gives the puzzle an asymmetrical feel. It would have been very nice if it were in the last across theme spot, in the middle of the middle row, or in the middle of the middle column. That's more difficult to do, though — almost every puzzle construction calls for trade-offs.

Finally, a challenge to C.C., who's rapidly becoming one of the most published constructors (counting the NYT and the LAT): I always look forward to those beautiful long downs, but I'd love to less entries like ESAI, YEE, EDINA, IRAE, ULEE, and the aforementioned NALA, LOIRE and ISERE in Monday puzzles. These are all acceptable crossword answers, but I would love to see C.C. join me in my quest to make more Monday puzzles that true beginners can tackle. What better than a silky-smooth Monday solve to kickstart a lifetime love of crosswords?

The ability to make Monday puzzles with an interesting theme and filled clean as a whistle might be the rarest talent in all of construction.

– puzzle by Zhouqin Burnikel and D. Scott Nichols

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.

– puzzle by Patrick Blindauer and Andrea Carla Michaels

★ A few years ago, I was working on a construction at my local bagel shop, and a guy said, "Excuse me, but is that Crossword Compiler?". My first reaction was to hide under the table and/or pretend I didn't speak English, but luckily my second reaction was to shake Sam Donaldson's hand. Little by little we started hanging out along with Jim Horne, and now Sam is one of my favorite people in all of crossword-land. Amazing how a chance meeting can turn into something so awesome.

Sam used to blog daily over at Crossword Fiend and managed to write entertaining pieces every day for about two years while reviewing the CrosSynergy puzzles. One of his best features was "Guess the Constructor", where he ranked three guesses, trying to match the puzzle's grid and cluing vibe to one of the CrosSynergy regulars. If I were to play that game with this week's seven puzzles, I think I could have picked out Sam's in a heartbeat. It's a puzzle chock-full of Donaldson personality, and for that I give it the POW.

Fun theme with a catchy revealer, working on a deeper level than usual "add-a-letter(s)" themes by adding HIS and HERS to each of two phrases. I appreciated Sam's effort to incorporate the HIS and HERS at the ends of the first two theme entries and at the beginnings of the last two. Thoughtfulness like that makes for an elegant execution.

More importantly, all aspects of the puzzle scream SAM DONALDSON! and I love it (yes, I'm biased, but what are you going to do). Sam and I have both been known to 1.) titter at juvenile jokes and 2.) enjoy greasy food, so the base phrases HEY BABY and BACON FAT made me reminisce of the good old days when Sam still lived in Seattle. You throw in I CHOKED, I RAISE right next to each other, the "No acting up!" clue for BE GOOD, "Jeez Louise!" for MAN, and "End of a lame pickup line" for OFTEN and you have yourself a Donaldson signature. BTW, it's a good thing Sam and I are both married because we'd be those two pathetic guys at the end of the bar poking each other, saying, "No, YOU go talk to her!" while giggling a la "Dumb and Dumber".

To be sure, this puzzle isn't without its flaws. I debated for a long time whether to disqualify the puzzle for POW contention solely based on the NIDI/HSIA area, but eventually all the great stuff won me over. And I do like the pairs of stacked 10's in the NE and SW corners, but the trade-off of having a lot of three-letter abbreviations (SYL sticking out) and acronyms made me wonder whether it would have been better to break up COHABITANT and YOU ARE HERE for cleaner fill, especially if it could mean improving the NIDI/HSIA region.

But overall, this puzzle gave me a tremendous smile. Full of personality and enjoyment. Can't wait to see Sam at the ACPT in 2014.

– puzzle by Samuel A. Donaldson

"Add-a-letter(s)" type theme today, with APPENDAGE parsed as APPEND AGE as the revealer. Nice choice of revealer, although for the longest time I couldn't figure out why APPEND A GE wasn't quite working. (headslap) Also very nice was the inclusion of strong 7's: JEAN ARP, MACBETH, WHOS WHO, MY STARS. That all added to the quality of my solving experience.

The success of these types of themes hinges on the sparkliness of the base phrases plus the wackiness/hilarity of the resulting phrases. E STREET BANDAGE and CLASSIFIED ADAGE brought a smile to my face, but SCOTLAND YARDAGE and NEW YORK POSTAGE felt (to me) a bit too much like real things...only not quite. I would have loved to see more ridiculous clues for the latter two, something like "How caber tosses are measured?" and "Stamp showing a Brooklynite shouting 'Dem Bums!'"? Humor is so subjective (as my poor girlfriend/wife/barbarian well knows).

What I found most interesting about this puzzle was its layout. Note the 15-14-9-14-15 pattern. This makes construction very difficult, because the central 9 necessitates a block of three black squares on either side. Toss in the fact that the 14's must contain a single black square on one end or another, and that means that those single black squares must connect to the black squares at the ends of row 8 (in order to prevent a two-letter word in between). Tricky! The layout here certainly works, but the blockiness of the giant black L's feels a touch inelegant.

You might ask, why not swap the 15s and 14s to avoid that issue? Aha! Because 14-letter entries cannot go into rows 3 and 13 without forming an ugly block of three squares — the same issue as with the first layout. And if the 14s are placed in rows 4 and 12, that smooshes the theme answers together, making for a dense and difficult construction. That's the reason constructors often go out of their way to pick 11s and 15s, trying to avoid 12s, 13s and 14s if at all possible (especially when five theme answers are required).

Finally, an observation about the way the top section splits. Notice how BMW/NAMATH/LSAT break up in lengths of 3/6/4? This is less common than some permutation of 4/5/4 or 3/5/5, because those six-letter words add a level of difficult. Gary has done a nice job in the north section, with just ISIDRO being a slight outlier. The south section demonstrates how tough a set of sixes can be though, with a stack of REAIMS, EN FIN, TOILE, and BEENE all crossing MILNER (who may be more familiar to some, but not to me).

A tough challenge! Interesting to hear Will's comments about fill; I'm curious to see how different Gary would have made this puzzle today. We are blessed to be living in an age where crosswords are rapidly improving with each passing year.

– puzzle by Gary J. Whitehead

Fun solve from the puzzle prodigy. A 62-word themeless puzzle poses a significant construction challenge, and David has given us a nice solve today. The areas which I thought would be the roughest, the NW and SE corners, turned out to be relatively smooth, especially given their wide-open nature. I would guess not many people like to see EDE in their crossword, but then again, there's a pretty big Dutch presence in America, right? Aside from this outlier, the NW corner came out great...with one interesting entry to debate: STILL DRE.

I had a nice exchange with David over e-mail regarding STILL DRE, as it left me scratching my head after I finished. For him, it was a nice enough entry to help seed his puzzle. At first that entry gave me a feeling of incompletion, like I had uncovered the answer, but wasn't really sure if it was the answer or not. But after hearing his rationale and looking up / listening to the song, I understood better that part of it is a generational divide issue (I'm 29 in hexadecimal, or 32 in base 13, whichever you prefer). Different strokes for different folks.

The SW to NE diagonal really illustrates the searching, questing nature of themeless construction. There's some great stuff in the middle of it, the SNOW TIRES / JET PLANE / TWIN BILL area especially. Note though, how constrained that area is once you lock in just a few entries. The result in the NE is pretty good, notwithstanding ORIENTE, but the SW has so many propers that will be unfamiliar to some. The DEODATO / PASA / STEARNES crossings were awfully difficult for me, and I doubt I'll be the only one. I did enjoy looking up DEODATO and reading more about his work around "2001" as well as STEARNES's amazing career in the Negro league, but I would have preferred to not have to look those up on the very same day.

Finally, kudos to David for doing something that most of America would take for granted but we constructors too often brush aside: spelling AMOEBAE with the "O". The brilliant Matt Gaffney started a crossword blog recently, mentioning that his most dreaded piece of fill was AMEBA. I'm guilty of this, having used it before, having seen it used so many times in so many crosswords that it felt like no big deal. But his post reminded me that before I started doing crosswords, I had never spelled it AMEBA and would have found it very odd to see it that way. Good reminder for us as constructors to be vigilant and keep our word usage standards high.

Fun Friday challenge, quite a workout.

– puzzle by David Steinberg

Part of the next generation of xw constructors, Peter fills his themeless puzzles with fresh, contemporary fill. Entries like WHATS UP G?, JOE BOXER, SEX SELLS and WHIP IT (would've been fun to clue it to the recent Drew Barrymore roller Derby movie) feel like they're evolving the NYT crossword, helping to attract and draw in a new wave of solvers. Very fun solve today.

I'm fairly sure there will be some grumbling about some of the very entries I found snazzy, WHATS UP G in particular. A friend of mine we call "G-money" so although it took me almost a minute to parse WHATSUPG properly, man oh man what a smile I got when I did. But I realize plenty of people, even after looking up WHATS UP G will be asking "What's up with that" (G)? Now see how fun that is? Okay, fine, we'll agree to disagree.

Interesting point about the solve: as I was going through it, I had the sense that maybe this was not one of Peter's most current constructions. Typically I associate Peter with very up-to-date fresh new fill and little to no SCHMUTZ in his work, so seeing the I LUV / SADO / UDE region made me pause, wondering what was going on. It made so much more sense to me after reading Will and Peter's notes.

A final note, an apology to a constructor I collaborate with, John Verel. He one day mentioned how great an entry FAZOOL would be. I politely said I wasn't sure if that would be all that interesting an answer. But what a great clue for FAZOOL today, relating to the Dean Martin rhyme with "fool". Shows what I know!

Great to see a constructor talk about his/her development and see it in action. Another one of his earlier this year is one of my favorites.

– puzzle by Peter Wentz

A tribute puzzle today, one which taught me something, filling in one of the many gaps in my sad knowledge of history and geography. Being an inveterate West-coaster, I had never heard of the LINCOLN HIGHWAY, but after looking it up I cringed at how famous it was. Not knowing it seems a bit like mixing up Wyoming and Wisconsin (hey, I was tired!).

As with most of Liz's puzzles, neat visual. I was vaguely aware that the circled pairs were all states, but after finishing and going to Google, I sat back, impressed that the placement actually reflected the path of the Lincoln Highway. Pretty cool!

Note her use of L-R (or mirror) symmetry. Liz is one of the few constructors who uses L-R symmetry regularly, and I love seeing it. Yes, traditionally xws have called for rotational symmetry because there's an inherent elegance and beauty to the symmetry, but I'm glad Will and others have adopted the stance that L-R symmetry is just as elegant. Note how this allows Liz to place LINCOLN / HIGHWAY wherever she wants, instead of it being in the middle row the grid, as would be required in a puzzle with traditionally symmetry (if she wanted to keep those answers together). The fact that she can offset LINCOLN / HIGHWAY allows her to 1.) place them toward the bottom to give them more impact as a revealer, and 2.) keep them out of the way of the 13 states, making for a much easier fill.

Liz has used L-R symmetry to come up with some of the most visually stunning puzzles during the Shortz era. Her holiday puzzles are always a treat, this gingerbread man one was particularly memorable for me.

Interesting to note that there has only been one instance of up-down symmetry in the Shortz era. I've sent Will a handful of up-down symmetry puzzles, and he's politely said that they just look too strange. It took me a while to figure out why that was, but now it makes a great deal of sense: if human eyes were arranged one atop the other, up-down symmetry would be commonplace. Sadly, the tyranny of left-right human eye placement may take some time to overcome.

(shakes fist at the universe)

Will's note this past week regarding how far fill has come in the past four years might be relevant today. There are so many constraints in the grid, what with four 23-letter grid spanners plus LINCOLN HIGHWAY and 13 states, which makes the construction inherently very difficult. There were enough entries like TREN, A DATE, CCCL, AGLET, NISI, EAR TO, ONE I etc. that it bogged down my solve a little. Overall though, always a treat to see Liz's byline at the top of a puzzle.

– puzzle by Elizabeth C. Gorski

Fun offering to start the week. Standard type of theme, where the first word of each phrase is synonymous. To Gary's credit, I didn't notice the puzzle was a pangram until I analyzed it in our database. That's a testament to the smoothness of his work, because often times if the fill feels forced or iffy, it's because a constructor has stretched to incorporate the last letter he/she is missing. I don't support making pangrams for their own sake, but I fully endorse anything that enhances the solving experience. Often times, adding Scrabbly letters (JQXZ and perhaps KV) can do just that.

FUMET might generate a little controversy. I generally like learning something new from a crossword, and all the crosses to FUMET are certainly fair. But in my opinion, it felt out of place for a Monday. I realize I have a different philosophy than Will (and probably many others), mine being that I want Monday xws to be both interesting to current solvers but also something a novice could get hooked on. It doesn't take much to turn someone off to a new hobby, and hitting DICTA, AGLET and FUMET in one day feels like it might turn a novice away from future solves. We'll have to agree to disagree on this one, methinks.

Regarding the theme, it's a fine Monday idea. Straightforward, easy to cotton to, perfect for a beginner. I don't know if it's possible, but as I was solving I was hoping to see a Shawkshank Redemption story emerge, something like a HOLE then a BREAKOUT then an ESCAPE and finally FREEDOM. Probably too much to ask, and incorporating this might have made it too opaque. But a guy can dream.

Finally, nice long fill today. POGO STICK, BAND AID, and TOUCH UPON are strong entries, plus Gary delves into the six-letter fill to give us I DUNNO, CHOKER, and YAWNER. It's often difficult to incorporate strong six-letter fill, so kudos to Gary for being deliberate about adding these types of entries to enhance the solving experience. Overall, a solid offering.

– puzzle by Gary Cee

As an unabashed dorknerd, I couldn't help but smile when I came across MIDDLE EARTH as today's revealer (fair warning: I would love to see HELMS DEEP or BAG END or ELVISH METAL in a puzzle, but I realize I'm in a Hobbitish minority). Each of the four theme phrases contains EARTH spread across two words, and each of them is a snappy answer in itself. People may not know I HEART HUCKABEES but I really enjoyed that quirky movie.

Interesting point today for me was how knowing something about the constructor helped enhance my solve. Kevan is in entertainment law and often posts awesome pictures of him hanging out with big-time celebs on his Facebook feed. So I can imagine how I HEART HUCKABEES, LICENSEES and IN REM gave him no pause. I learned IN REM through crosswords, but I have to think it's part of Kevan's everyday lingo.

With this type of puzzle, there's a certain elegance to splitting the word EARTH either always the same way or always a different way. Today Kevan splits his entries EAR/TH twice, EART/H once, and E/ARTH once. During my solve, I had a sensation in the back of my head that something was a little odd, and I think this inconsistency was the reason. But overall, the theme phrases are strong enough, LINEAR THINKING being my favorite, that I didn't mind too much. Having such theme density often makes fill very difficult, but except for the IS OK / TWO A / SO TO region (which spans three theme entries), it holds together pretty well. Good work given the tough constraints.

Generally I'm in favor of adding long fill, as it spices up the puzzle. Kevan utilizes what is typically a very difficult arrangement, two pairs of nine-letter words (DOOHICKEY/LICENSEES and THRACIANS/PEANUT OIL) crossing not just one but two themers, and the SE corner shines as a result. THRACIANS will be tough for some, but I think it's a great answer steeped in ancient history and all the crosses are fair (thanks, terrible new Star Wars movies for making me cringe every time I hear ANI). Incorporating these two nine-letter answers without compromising the surrounding fill results in Elvish beauty.

Hey, I warned you.

The NE corner... I do appreciate ID TAG in there, but the triplet of DLI/OID/OCT felt inelegant, especially since the plural ISAACS resides in that region as well. As always, constructors are faced with difficult trade-offs.

Any puzzle with MIDDLE EARTH sitting on top of SHE-RA is going to get my nerd on. Entertaining solve.

– puzzle by Kevan Choset

Fun theme today, two games paired together to give us wacky BACK TO BACK GAMES phrases. Each of the three theme phrases works pretty well, CLUE MONOPOLY evoking a funny image of Clouseau hoarding his clues, and SORRY OTHELLO sounding a trombone wah-wah-wah-wah sound effect in my head. The revealer works really well, tying everything together with a snappy phrase reinterpreted.

I appreciated the long fill today and wanted to point out a good technique Robyn used. Incorporating long fill is often a difficult matter, given the need to keep a puzzle relatively free of ugly short entries. Sometimes constructors (including myself) will push too hard, trying to incorporate parallel long downs or even triple-stacks of long downs to achieve extra snazziness, with the unfortunate result of junky three and four letter fill. Today, Robyn spreads out her long entries via thoughtful black square placement: note how CHIPMUNKS, SARDINE, and CUTLET/BAKERY are spaced through the width of the puzzle (same goes for NEIL SIMON, GOOD COP, and I GOT IT, of course, due to symmetry). Just like with long theme answers, increased spacing in long down placement usually means more flexibility and therefore better fill. Well done!

Robyn's also done well on the short fill front. There's no doubt that a constructor would rather not have AS I or ETH if at all possible, but there will almost always be some of those entries required to hold a puzzle together. I've heard complaints about ISP before, and it makes me scratch my head because I hear that term all the time (internet service provider). It's a good reminder that there's a wide range of opinion regarding what is acceptable and what is not (and that these judgment calls are usually very subjective).

The consistency of the theme is good in that they are all games, but the specificity gave me pause. Ideally, a constructor wants to avoid the question "why did you select these answers instead of X, Y, or Z?", because using a finite and or complete set adds elegance. I don't know if it would have been possible, but it would have been fantastic to see only famous board games (eliminating Twister), or only games with black and white pieces (chess, Othello, Go, etc.). For me, that sort of specificity is a factor that lifts a puzzle from the ranks of good to great.

Fun note from Robyn today; she sounds like someone who ought to come to the ACPT and have a drink with us (hint hint).

– puzzle by Robyn Weintraub

Neat idea for a Thursday puzzle. Tricky, with a wicked clue "Unwelcome reversal..." for the revealer, alluding to the fact that four theme pairs go out and back. And indeed, having two pairs of themers intersect the central BOOMERANG EFFECT grid-spanner is an impressive feat of construction. Even after Pete figured out that ELEVATOR OPERATOR could intersect BOOMERANG EFFECT as it does, he still needed to find a matching pair due to crossword symmetry rules. Consider how hard a task that would be: you have to find a strong phrase which 1.) splits up 8/8, 2.) relates to the BOOMERANG EFFECT theme, 3.) has a first word whose last letter is E, and 4.) has a second word whose first letter is F. Considering the constraints upon constraints, it's amazing that Pete found something that fits!

ELEVATOR OPERATOR worked very well for me, the visual of a worker going down then back up fitting perfectly with the layout of the pair of entries. But the theme consistency felt a little off, as TWO WAY STREET doesn't seem to quite fit (a two-way street doesn't itself go out and back, rather, cars on it might). In fact, the other three besides ELEVATOR OPERATOR seem to be internally consistent in that they allude to the out and back idea but don't directly represent it. So overall the theme works for me, just not in a perfectly elegant way.

No doubt, there are some entries that any constructor would try to avoid, but WRS and STK are more or less necessary given the paired theme entries they intersect. And with such an ambitious puzzle that undoubtedly would run on a Thursday, I appreciate Pete's consideration of the trade-offs. Is having FLOUTER and AFLARE worth having big, open corners which add to the challenge of the late-week solve? Pete could have gone a different way by breaking up INKPOTS and BOLEROS (by adding a pair of black squares, thus increasing his word count to 74). I really liked the NE corner, some great entries in there. The SW corner I wasn't as wild about. If it had been just one of FLOUTER or AFLARE...

Overall, I enjoyed the fact that even after uncovering the reversal trick, the rest of it played out like a themeless. Good challenge, and I always appreciate Pete's efforts to push the boundaries of puzzle-making.

– puzzle by Peter A. Collins

★ A couple of months ago, a non-crossword friend of mine pulled me aside and said I had to see something. He took out a newspaper he had saved and held up a NYT crossword, a themeless with two triple-stacks and very few black squares. "This is the coolest thing ever," he said. That's a pretty powerful statement from someone who doesn't even like crosswords.

I realize some people are going to hate today's crossword, but I say, haters gonna hate. I'm not a fan of construction feats for the sake of record-breaking, but I was so wowed by the visual of today's puzzle, with those wide-open spaces, that I had to give it the POW. Well done, MAS!

The usual knock on triple-stacks is two-fold (and these apply even more strongly for quad-stacks). First, because of their construction difficulty, they tend to use phrases which aren't very snappy, use too many common letters (RSTLN E), or incorporate ONES (A LOT ON ONES PLATE being the most notorious). MAS shines here, using eight really nice entries. At first I was put off by CHANSONS DE GESTE, but after looking it up, I decided I enjoyed learning about a term that's gridworthy; a deficiency in my knowledge base. It's just amazing that MAS managed to find two separate sets of four good entries for his stacks.

The second knock is that the crossing down entries tend to be tortured, giving the solver an equally tortured solving experience filled with a gamut of partials, abbreviations, esoteric names, roll-your-own words, etc. On this front MAS doesn't do quite as well. In general, there are a reasonable number of ugly entries, but there are so many of one type, partials, that it was noticeable during my solve. It's unfortunate that ME AT had to be clued as a partial to avoid the dupe with MADE MINCEMEAT OF, as that would have helped the issue. Should we give constructors a break, allowing for extra ugly fill when a feat is as cool as clean quad stacks? I think a little leeway is reasonable to expect, but the high number of partials did detract from my personal solve today.

So overall, very impressive work and an enjoyable puzzle. I'm usually dead set against stunt grids for their own sake, but in my e-mail exchange with MAS, I really appreciated hearing how he tossed out a whole bunch of triple and quad-stacks before settling on something he thought solvers would enjoy. Solver first, constructor second, that's what I love to hear.

– puzzle by Martin Ashwood-Smith

Barry Silk is one of the most published themeless constructors in the Shortz era, and there's a reason for that: he consistently delivers challenging puzzles containing a mixture of fun answers and good trivia from a wide range of areas. His name always brings a combination of excitement and nerves tingling through my fingers, as I know I'm going to get a tough but fair solve.

Some great stuff in today's puzzle, headlined by a clue/answer pair I found immensely challenging but providing one of the best aha moments I've had in a while: PHONE BOOTH clued by "DC transformation location". What a perfect example of a misdirectional clue! It took me forever to change my mindset (thinking about DC politics) even after ??????OOTH was in place, and I beamed when I realized the clue referred to DC Comics and Superman's preferred choice of changing room. Perfect late-week clue, in my mind. I also really liked the clue for HOCKEY MOM and CLEAT. Great stuff.

I had an interesting conversation with Frank Longo, who helps Will with fact-checking and general proofing. Although there is no hard and fast rule about duplicating a word from an answer inside another clue, the BATTERY BOX and "Penalty box..." clue at 47D made me pause. Apparently Frank and Will had a discussion about that, but ultimately decided anything but "penalty box" was too oblique to use in cluing (unfair to non-hockey fans). And since "box" is a short word, the dupe was passable. I think they made a good decision, especially since as a non-hockey fan, I was mystified by SIN BIN.

Each of the four corners contains a triple-stack of 10's, with good results. Each corner has its pluses and its minuses, for example, the SW has the beautiful PHONE BOOTH and SOLAR ARRAY but with OLEN and ERICAS in the way. The NE corner is relatively clean, save FORA, but ARRIVE LATE feels like a less elegant form of FASHIONABLY LATE, and I wasn't totally sure what a BATTERY BOX was. Each corner is very reasonable though. All over, we see example upon example of the quintessential constructor's dilemma: what trade-offs are worth it in order to work in great entries?

Nice Saturday challenge with some fantastic entries and clues.

– puzzle by Barry C. Silk

One of my first memories of BEQ: we were talking about some (fair) entry of his that people were grousing about, and I asked if that sort of stuff bothered him. He shrugged and said something to the effect of "haters gonna hate", but in fresher (and cruder) words. I pretty much knew instantly I was going to like him. One of my highlights of last year's ACPT was hanging with him, Mike Nothnagel, and Kevin Der amongst other constructors, drinking cold ones at the bar on Will's nickel while swapping stories. Good times (and a big bar tab; sorry Will, I'm not sure who drank so much*).

Easy breezy theme today, names hidden backward inside longer theme entries. Where BEQ shines is with one of his typical fortes: new entries. Not only does he give us debut entries in the long theme phrases, but he gives us three pieces of choice short fill in PC BOARD (I'm a electromechanical engineer by education so loved seeing this), PRE-WWI, and COULTER (all the entries that have never before been used in the NYT show up in red in the answers listed below the grid). I was stuck so badly on PREWWI, which looks like such a crazy string of letters but makes such an awesome entry. When I eventually figured it out and parsed it properly, I got a big rush, marveling at how neat it looks. I don't know how BEQ manages to do this so consistently, but I'm constantly impressed at all the fresh stuff he integrates.

Since BEQ does so much cool stuff in his indie crosswords (definitely check out his blog if you haven't already), I couldn't help but wonder if there was an extra level I was missing, perhaps if all ten names were tied together somehow. It was a bit of a disappointment that there was no extra layer, but that's more a matter of my high expectations due to BEQ's amazing body of work.

I was curious to ask him why he went with COHERER instead of COHERED, but I was pretty sure the answer would be 1.) something about why the COHERER was important in early radio (he's quite the music buff) and/or 2.) haters gonna hate.

Overall, this was a tough challenge with difficult clues, playing out more like a themeless than anything. Some very nice entries and a good long workout.

*It was Kevin.

– puzzle by Brendan Emmett Quigley