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DECODER RING indeed gives this one a Weintraubian flair. I love it when Robyn treats us to delightful entries like this one, evoking memories of that little kid in "A Christmas Story" who gets the message to drink more Ovaltine. The clue — "… to have on hand" — makes an already fantastic entry that much better!

LICKETY SPLIT fell into that same vein. Such an entertaining, colorful phrase.

I didn't detect much else high on the Weintraub scale of playful nerdiness, though, no MIRACLE MAXes, TRACTOR BEAMs, or CLOWN CARS. I don't want to ACT YOUR AGE, thank you very much!

A solid grid overall, though not as clean as I'd like out of a 70-word grid, with a smattering of HRE PST SRS SYR TELE. These are all minor offenders, fairly easy to overlook, but they are what they are.

All in all, an enjoyable solve, as are most all Weintraub joints, but perhaps a bit more middle ground — neither excessively colorful nor excessively clean — than I like.

– puzzle by Robyn Weintraub

A one-two punch of Paolo and Erik? If you listen closely, you can hear all us old-timers shivering, wondering what entries we won't be cool enough to know. Thankfully, 1-Across wasn't back-breaking! It took every single cross, but I finally cracked AM I LLI, where in Roman numerals, L + L + I = 50 + 50 + 1 = 101, cool-kid slang for lots of money.

Ha ha ha, I kid! Of course, it's AM I ILL, where ILL gets reversed, like backward baseball caps. Only those in the know will understand when I tell them I'm LLI. Boo-yah!

I was wondering when SEMORDNILAP was going to make its debut. Will Shortz once told a friend of mine that it was too tough a word to use as a revealer in an early-week puzzle. A Saturday — without a telltale clue — seems like the perfect place. Still confused to its etymology? Pretend you're a cool kid … or should I say LLI?

Curious choice to clue KIM to the nuclear-arsenal-possessing madman. Doubly curious to tell him to COME AT ME, bro. Not cool, guys! Seattle is not nearly far enough from North Korea for my taste.

Some fun clues, like ELECTRIC FAN being a "Cooler full of juice?" and DOMED using "Round up?" Both required telltale question marks, though, which took away from some of the entertainment. For my milli, Erik is one of the best cluers out there, so I was a little disappointed to not get a potential award-winner today. Just goes to show how high my bar is for him.

Overall, a great Saturday workout. It's such a relief to finish, after the initial scare of a potentially generationally inaccessible 1-Across.

– puzzle by Paolo Pasco and Erik Agard

We're at the movies today! Get it? MOVE Es? As in, move that long E sound into the theater? You know, like when you sneak in a full dinner of a rack of BBQ ribs, corn on the cob, and an entire sheet cake so you can have enough to last you the three movies you stay for when you're only supposed to go to the one?

Don't judge me.

Oh! ALL THE RIGHT MOVIES = all the moved Es are to the right!

Well, that doesn't quite work either, but it's close enough.

It's all too easy to add an E sound to something to create kookiness, so I appreciated Kristian's effort to tighten things up, restricting to 1.) only well-known movie titles and 2.) always adding the E sound to the right, i.e., at the end of the title.

Ah, drat. IRONY MAN and GOODY FELLAS ruins that consistency. Fuggedaboudit.

Through my solve, it felt like I was pushing through a bog of short answers. Nothing terrible, but nothing that interesting either. These shorties are generally ignorable, stuff that solvers get through to reach the truly interesting stuff — the themers and the long bonuses — but when you have this much of it, it tends to be more noticeable.

It's also noticeable when you draw too much from one specific well of crossword glue. In this case, there were so many tough names — WOPAT NEKO OMARR KIRI TOD GAMERA/YGOR READE ZAK etc. — it started to feel like a trivia contest.

Part of the excessive-short-entries problem was that Kristian went up to 142 words, past the max of 140. The themers also take up a huge amount of real estate, so there are only little cul de sacs left over.

It's a tough call. JOHN WIKI was the only themer that caught my attention because it's the only interesting spelling transformation (and unfortunately one of the themers in a puzzle I recently helped a friend put together, sigh). However, taking it and IRONY MAN out would have opened up the grid, allowing for more bonuses, fewer short words, and some cleanup in aisle OSCAN RESTE.

– puzzle by Kristian House

I was sure the revealer was going to be METALHEAD. Sure. SUUURE! I was so confident that I filled it in and paused only briefly at the empty square left at the end. Crossword constructors do all sorts of kooky stuff, I reasoned.

Like convincing oneself that Will Shortz would allow a purposeful blank space in a Monday crossword.

IT COULD HAPPEN!

Monday crosswords should lure in unsuspecting novices — why don't you try this one, oh yeah!, didn't you get such a rush from filling in every box correctly? Why not try another one? Heh heh heh — huh? No, I wasn't evilly chuckling.

Zynga's Crosswords with Friends pushes far to the side of easy-peasy-[Sour yellow citrus fruit]-easy. Every single entry ought to be so gettable that if you can't fill in every box, perhaps it's a sign that you can't actually speak the Englishes. It's not an approach I'd recommend for the NYT, but it does make their puzzles accessible to a tremendous slice of folks.

Should a novice NYT solver be expected to know (or at least have heard of) SARI / NAAN, LUZON / KABUL, IFILL? Yes ... probably? However, having so many of these together risks leaving the newb with a feeling of "This can't be correct." I'd have cut some of these, even if it meant tossing in a couple of (easier to figure out) partials, abbreviations, etc.

I appreciated the attempt at tightness, linking all the metals to music instead of using METALHEAD to describe "anything that can start with a metal." It's a shame that METAL MUSIC isn't a stronger phrase, though, and that the assortment of a band, a song, a musical achievement, and a locale felt only tenuously connected.

– puzzle by Trent H. Evans

Four fruits playing JUICY ROLEs today. What? JUICY PARTs? That does make more sense for this theme concept, but it doesn't hit my ear as strongly as JUICY ROLE. Checking the Googs … huh! Apparently JUICY PART is highly favored over JUICY ROLE. Shows what I know.

I appreciated that John found so many long fruits hidden within themers. ROMAN GODDESS is fantastic, both as a base phrase and as a delightfully fruitful find. LEMON across ANKLE MONITOR is wonderful, too. Those 5+ letter finds can seem so impossibly possible.

Usually, I'm not a fan of hidden words contained within other single words, but TOMATO in AUTOMATON is top-notch; what a cool discovery. TOMATO has no shared etymology with AUTOMATON, so that makes it even better.

Even with five themers, you should almost always be able to work in a couple of long bonuses. TANDEM BIKE and BEAUTY TIPS both hit the mark, totally worth the price of a minor ENDO. I always have a tough time with ENTO vs ENDO, but John made the crossing unambiguous.

Great themers, strong craftsmanship … so why didn't this strike me as POW! material? Perhaps I'm suffering from "hidden words" fatigue. Will mentioned a few months ago that he has too many hidden word themes on file, so it takes something incredible to pass his bar now.

The revealer didn't quite hit, either. JUICY PART more indicates that one word of the phrase is a fruit in disguise, like LEMON LAW or DATE NIGHT. It does work, but not as beautifully as if FRUITY MIDDLE had been a real phrase. Too bad that's not a thing. Come on, candy makers, make a FRUITY MIDDLE Starburst or something already!

Solid puzzle overall.

– puzzle by John Guzzetta

This one's rated XXX! Make that XXXXXXXXXXXXX. It's rare to add a puzzle to our record-setting Letter Counts, and Ross gets into a three-way tie for most Xs.

I liked the audacity of this concept. Some of them feel contrived to make it into this puzzle — XXXL TSHIRT, I'm looking at you — but it's also BUBBA SPARXXX's big day. All that work he put into coming up with a creative name finally pays off!

At first, I thought it was BUBBA SPAR, 30^th in a long line of BUBBA SPARs. BUBBA SPARXXX (rhymes with Karl MARXXX) is much better, although what a shame he's not a porn star.

It's no coincidence that the word "Horcrux" ends with an X. As with Lord Voldemort, every time a constructor inserts an X into his or her grid, it rips out a piece of one's soul, storing it within the puzzle. The XCI Horcrux … AVADA KEDAVRA!

Kidding aside, Ross did an amazing job of integrating those 13 (appropriate number!) Xs. XCI was the only egregious blip, and it's easily figure-out-able, anyway. I did debate on ARANTXA Sanchez Vicario crossing the probably-not-crossworthy BUBBA SPARXXX, but the theme made that cross abundantly clear.

Amazing job of construction given the ridiculously difficult constraints. To work in CS MAJOR, THE X PRIZE, ZAPPERS as well speaks to Ross's talent.

The puzzle didn't feel as smooth a solve as I would have liked, though, due to overdipping into one particular well of crossword glue: ELS ESS ZEE ZED. One or two spelled-out letters per puzzle, please! LEZZ is more.

The puzzle didn't eXXXcite me — to easy to fill in all those Xs — but points for going big.

– puzzle by Ross Trudeau

What a shame that THELUCYSKY wasn't in the middle of this grid.

We've highlighted the five diamonds below, in case you missed the concept: FAUX diamond, HOPE diamond, etc. Not a huge a-ha impact, but I did like how the theme made the shotgun blast of circles transform into something well-ordered.

I prioritize quality of fill way more than Jim Horne, who joyfully prizes clever themes. It amused me that he was the one who noted this puzzle's dabs of crossword glue, making for a sticky solve. No doubt, crossing FROZONE / AZOLE / DENEB is rough, and if you've never seen "Happy Days," MRSC is four random letters strung together (it's "Mrs. C." as in "Mrs. Cunningham." Keep MRC in your head; it occasionally comes up in crosswords!).

Oddly, I didn't mind these blips as much. I like LAC, IGAS, WEEB less than most people, but when you have 24 letters fixed into place, there are bound to be compromises.

Interesting choice to not run the themers clockwise. That would have had the bonus of making them easier to understand — I pondered for way too long what a FAXU or HEPO could be — but that would make the BASEBALL diamond go in reverse. Although, the action rarely starts at second base and circles back around to second. Hmm.

I enjoyed the puzzle much more after Jim animated the diamonds. There's something elegant about those five shapes creating order out of chaos. If only there had been more elegance in the presentation of the diamond themers, and/or a more memorable way to reveal what was going on.

– puzzle by Joe DiPietro

Another meticulous construction from Peter Wentz, a master at the 68-worder. It's so difficult to put one of these together without any crossword glue, but I couldn't find a single dab. Such unyielding craftsmanship is rare. There's only one other person who comes to mind — the great Patrick Berry.

A couple of excellent feature entries, too. CLAYMATION always brings me back to the first time I saw the "Wallace and Gromit" series. So delightful! Crossing that with NBA JAM — I still say "Boom shakala!" much to the chagrin of my friends, who then pretend they don't know me — makes for a fun middle.

And BANJO PICK crossing BIONICS! Think of what a great musician Steve Austin could have been if he'd only applied himself.

Not as much color as I'm used to out of a Wentz grid, though. PEA JACKET and ASA GRAY sounded vaguely familiar. PLASMA TV got pulled down by the "obsolescent" tag in its clue (really, these are outdated already?). ON ITS END took up a valuable long slot, and I tilted my head and gave it the side-eye.

A CLAW HAMMER isn't just called a hammer?

I struggled mightily with SVEDKA, too. I'm not much of a drinker, but SKYY, Absolut, Finlandia, Grey Goose, Ketel One — I see those in bars frequently enough. Maybe Svedka's marketing team has been hitting the bottle a bit too much.

I loved the clue for DEBT. A matter of great interest, indeed — get it, interest? As in, interest you have to pay when you take out loans? Huh. I worry that this one won't interest as many people as it should.

Sometimes I worry that my critiques, always pushing for cleaner grids, have made some constructors go too far the other way. I'm all for a bit of imperfection here or there if it means more color and pizzazz in a solving experience.

– puzzle by Peter Wentz

★

SUPERFREAK + SACRE BLUE + ZORRO MASK? IT FIGURES to add up to I HAD A BLAST with a STANDING O.

Wow, so much color, so much sparkle!

I'm usually a stickler for cleanliness when it comes to 70-word themeless puzzles — they're a relatively easy construction task — but I'm more than fine with some OK SO / NOT US / TGI to get the explosion of fireworks all throughout.

Hardly a SNOOZEFEST or an UTTER BORE — having both in one corner made for a nice tie-in. Something so fortuitous when two long answers happen to fit in an isolated region.

Oh, and [One with something to prove]? Not GUY WITH A CHIP ON HIS SHOULDER, but literally, a PROSECUTOR trying to prove someone guilty.

I HAD A BLAST indeed, thoroughly superfreaky.

– puzzle by Neil Padrick Wilson

Any else take off their glasses and call their optometrist while solving this puzzle?

Talk about daring! I worked on a puzzle with three adjacent pairs of doubles, and that was hard enough. Double that to six pairs, and you get crazy strings like SSAABBOOKKEE. I can barely look at those twelve letters without thinking I finally need reading glasses.

Some of the theme entries are awkward, like who would ever say QUEEN NOOR ROOMMATES or DOES SAAB BOOKKEEPING, but kookiness is the name of the game with a theme like this. I thought I wouldn't enjoy it after my eyes went unfocused, trying to make sense of SSIINNEEDDOO, but I'm going to remember this one.

I could have done with a couple more bonuses besides PIRATES BOOTY, MAKING A STINK, TRAP DOOR, and a few less ADM ELKE ESE SRTA STS, but all in all, it's a reasonable set of grid trade-offs for a 21x21 puzzle.

I appreciated this one more with each time I re-read the themers. Not all of them hit that strongly, but I have to admire the sheer audacity of the concept. Now I'm wondering what's the largest possible number of doubled letters strung together. If you tossed aside any semblance of the entry making sense, could you achieve ten pairs? Fifteen?

Down the rabbit hole I go ...

(Peter's two scrapped themers: CONDOLEEZZAANNEELLIOT and WALTERREEDDOORREEKED)

– puzzle by Peter Gordon

If you're going to make a "words that can follow X" crossword, this is the way to do it. Elements that stand out:

Great base phrases. POOL SHARK is so evocative, reminding me of my college days when I tried to hustle (sadly, you need to have the skill to back up your act). I love to WINDMILL DUNK (on an 8-foot rim). BOBBY SHERMAN is the outspoken ex-Seahawks cornerback (thus showing my hole-ridden knowledge base in both pop music and sports)? Bobby could be short for Richard. I stand by my claim, humph.

Equally excellent resulting phrases. SHARK TANK, DUNK TANK, SHERMAN TANK, what's not to love? (GAS TANK is fine but not a standout.)

Tightness. My first impression was that there were hundreds of ___ TANK phrases. After a minute of brainstorming, I revised that to dozens. Then to only a handful. What else might beg to be included? Maybe OXYGEN? Not being able to come up with a slew of other possibilities makes for a tight, elegant theme set.

Interesting revealer. THINK TANK? THINK … TANK! (Think of this as an order or a suggestion.) Much more creative than simply TANK [Word that can follow the ends of …]

Strong craftsmanship. Love the parallel downs of TRAMPOLINE / ALGAL BLOOM, especially since Evan didn't make any compromises in surrounding short fill. Note how he ran these through only one themer (BOBBY SHERMAN) — pro layout, allowing for great flexibility.

Overall though, I wouldn't give this puzzle to newbs, as the theme isn't too exciting, and it's not the most newb-friendly Monday in the world — CYSTIC / YUCCA / SCRUM / TAKEI right off the bat might cause gnashing of teeth and scratching of heads, trying to figure out proper spellings.

– puzzle by Evan Kalish

If you haven't seen "Schitt's Creek," stop reading this post and go binge. David, the BI-CURIOUS owner of the town, is one of my favorite sitcom characters in recent memory. Stroke of genius to get Eugene Levy's son, Dan Levy, to play his son on the show.

BYE BYE BYE … sort of rings a bell. From 2000? Wow, nearly twenty years ago? It's a sadly appropriate title for those non-Justin Timberlake guys. Uh … Lance something or other? Wasn't there a Jason in there?

Fun concept, but the grid execution had problems. A Tuesday puzzle ought to be welcoming to newer solvers, and entries like ARTE, DII, EIN, XYLO, and a singular TONG are not.

Crossing PHILOMENA with DOSAS is problematic as well. One might argue that an educated NYT solver ought to at least recognize one of these, but it's not fair to expect people to know their exact spellings, especially since any of the five vowels could look fine in that square.

One glance at the gigantic SW and NE corners, and I was sure this was a low-word count grid; almost impossible to get smooth enough for an early-week experience. In the NE, I love OVEN MITTS and VIDEO CHAT as bonuses. Trying to work those around BUY AMERICAN — plus the other bonuses of RIPENESS and ENLISTEE — is way too ambitious.

There's a ton of sparkly fill — LOOT BAG, GO BANANAS, STAMP TAX, TURBAN — but the balance is tilted too far away from smoothness. For a simple theme like this, increasing the word count to 76 or 78 would have decreased the filling difficulty and thus a better solving experience for newbs.

Looking forward to seeing what Gabi and Jake can do next with a grid layout more appropriate for early-week puzzles.

– puzzle by Gabrielle Friedman and Jakob Weisblat

★ It takes a lot to overcome my rebus fatigue, but the notion of circles representing balloons, popping into POPs? Delightful!

Add in brass-ring quality themers: IS THE POPE CATHOLIC is fantastic on so many levels — so colorful, so fun to say, and rarely seen in crosswords since it's 17 letters. I'm usually not a fan of words hidden in other single words, but APOPLEXY is such a crazy entry. HIPPOPOTAMUSES did make me wonder if HIPPOPOTAMI was the correct plural, and that made me love it even more.

(Thanks to Matt Gaffney for sending me a hilarious Hiphopopotamus link!)

Some problems in the short fill left me with that same feeling you get after losing at the ring toss 58 times in a row, though. It would have been one thing if it were only minor offenders like ACS (no one uses this to refer to multiple air conditioners, but it's easy enough to figure out), ERE and NAE, but PES? SKAT? OESTE?

Take a close look at the slew of themer intersections. IS THE POPE CATHOLIC crosses TOOTSIE POP crosses HIPPOPOTAMUSES crosses RED POPPY, and APOPLEXY crosses POPULAR. So much inflexibility is enough to make any constructor cross. (Sorry, I couldn't resist.)

As much as I liked Ed's ambitious long themers, a couple of shorter ones like POPPY (instead of RED POPPY), POPPA, POPEYE, POPULI, AIRPOP, etc. would have allowed for a smoother, better overall end product. I appreciated Ed's sentiment, but the notion of POP sounds vs. non-POP sounds didn't occur to me while solving.

Such a beautiful carnival effect — so charming, those circles — representing balloons suddenly blossoming into POPs. My big smiles made it easy enough to overlook the problems in execution.

– puzzle by Ed Sessa

Alex has such innovative ideas. I'd have never thought of interpreting FRENCH OPEN as "translate first words of phrases into French." I struggled mightily with the first themer, figuring there was some crazy transmogrification of FRIEND — maybe END, with FRI cut off as the Thursday trick? Days of the week ... end!

Um, no.

I enjoyed the a-ha; a concept I'd never before seen. I also appreciated the consistency, Alex using only three-letter French words often seen in crosswords; a bit of an insider's nod.

The notion got repetitive quickly, though. By the time I reached OUI INDEED, the puzzle felt like it was Marmotte Day.

Speaking of rodent-like creatures, an AYE AYE is … cute? Creepy? The etymology is reported to be from a French cry of astonishment. Appropriate for this puzzle!

During my solve, I had the vague notion that the grid wasn't nearly as strong as Alex's usual products. Upon second glance, though, most of that was due to the annoyances of seeing some usual crossword gloop featured, AMI and ETE in particular. Now, I wasn't a fan of LOUDEN, but aside from some ECCE AMAT, my first impression was too strongly negative. I hope other solvers will allow Alex similar leeway.

Experiencing this novel theme triggered some other notions in my own brainstorming, and that's rare indeed.

– puzzle by Alex Eaton-Salners

IS THAT A THING? — ooh, what a fantastic entry! I use that notion so often in my critiques (attention Byron Walden!); why haven't I ever added it to our list? If someone had given me a list of potential seed entries to build a themeless around, it would have jumped right out.

DATA SCIENTIST is also a snappy entry, although on a list of potential seed entries, I'd have passed over it in favor of phrases like I CAN'T EVEN and SUSHI BAR. I do like that it has the potential for clever cluing, which I CAN'T EVEN doesn't have. The quotation marks around "miner" in the clue gave away the game, unfortunately.

Tough way to open up a themeless, with EL CHAPO headlining. No doubt he has a colorful name, but yikes, the violence still ongoing to the Sinaloa Cartel … not something I want to be reminded of in my day's travel to LALA LAND, escaping the ills of the world. I wouldn't have thought twice about it, except for it being the 1-Across entry and the echo in DONS.

It's usually a good idea to avoid giant corners like the SW and NE. Roughly 5x6 area? All right, break it up! Amp up the difficulty even more with long entries like LEONARD COHEN and I CAN'T EVEN, and you're begging for tough and/or gloopy fill. In the NE, OBEAH, LISLE, LATEN make for an undesirable trio. Any one of them is probably fine, but all three lined up makes for an unsatisfying effect. Not worth the strong entries in CREWCUT, RATHOLE, SCROLL and ARABIA.

Solid craftsmanship from Debbie, along with some fantastic marquee entries. Next time, avoiding such big corners, along with one or two more long feature entries, and I predict she enters POW! territory.

– puzzle by Debbie Ellerin

It's a shame that crosswords can't play music. If there only were a way to capture that rocking-out feeling you get when Blondie's ONE WAY OR ANOTHER comes on. I'm gonna get ya get ya get ya get ya!

[Somehow] somehow just doesn't compare.

And pairing it with BREAKS OUT IN SONG? That would have been a POW! pairing right there. Come on crosswords, get into the 21^st century!

Themelesses featuring so many grid-spanners usually lack for other color, so I like what Daniel did in the SW and NE corners. I HOPE NOT / CODE NAME and SHOUT OUT / TEN FOURS added a lot to the quality of my solve.

Strong overall execution, too. I was thoroughly impressed by how smooth everything ended up, such a rarity for these types of grid-spanner-featuring themelesses. I wasn't surprised to see a final tally of zero gluey bits (I have a soft spot for OBELI, such a curious Greek word). About as far from a HOT MESS as you can get.

RUSSIAN TROLLS … I had to pause and weigh whether that felt like a solid phrase. I don't watch the news these days, so not a surprise that it didn't register. For the rest of the educated NYT solving base, I imagine the phrase resonated strongly! Albeit with some strongly negative connotations.

Echoing Daniel, I also wanted more out of the grid-spanning entries, since they take up so much real estate. I'd be ecstatic if the NYT's online app team figures out a way to play some Blondie and highlight the two adjacent answers as a reward for a victorious solve. I'm gonna get you, indeed.

– puzzle by Daniel Larsen

REPORT CARD

THEME: GREAT

Excellent concept. PARKING FINE imagined as "Parking: fine" makes me wish I thought of this notion.

THEMERS: GOOD

SCARBOROUGH: FAIR is another solid example, as is BATTING: AVERAGE. Not all of them worked, though. MOTHER: SUPERIOR isn't consistent, as it ought to be "mothering" to match the overall structure. BUCK PASSING is a questionable base phrase, as is TASTE GREAT.

GRID: NEEDS IMPROVEMENT

Randy and I had a useful exchange after his last low word-count experiment. There's nothing wrong with wanting to keep yourself challenged. After 100+ puzzles, the risk of getting bored is high.

There is something wrong about producing a grid like this, though, featuring pile-ups of ON UP / ONE AS, NOT US / ARTES, AGITA, BIERS, SIDER, THORO, and so on.

The center of the grid is the biggest offender, and that could be addressed by using more black squares to separate the themers. There is something to be said for adding JOCUND and INROADS into your grid, but their spice is not worth the moribund price. Any time you leave so much real estate open between three themers, gloop is bound to happen. It was so unpleasant to wade through.

Such a shame. New ideas are precious in crosswords. I'm officially begging Will Shortz to crack down harder on these low-word-count stunts. A couple rounds of theme and grid revision, and this could have garnered POW! consideration.

– puzzle by Randolph Ross

I completely failed at "Name that Theme" today. DOGGIE BAG was my first entry, easy enough—probably an animal theme! Except that it was the odd-looking DOGGY BAGS (not to be confused with DOOGIE BAG, what Doogie Howser, M.D. carried around).

BULLY PULPIT slowed "Guess that Theme" further, then sidetracked it. DOGGY and BULLY … are both animal-based adjectives? I knew that DOGGIE BAGs originated as a container to take home bones and such. BULLY isn't related to bull, though.

Or is my overthinking just a bunch of bull? (As always, yes.)

Etymology online doesn't give a definitive answer, sadly. So the theme couldn't be animal adjectives. Maybe it was a repeated letter pattern theme, words ending with doubled-consonant + Y?

KITTY CORNER … no, CATTY CORNER? Looks like both terms are in use. My daughter, an ardent pleader for us to get a kitty, argues for the former.

No victorious fist-pumping moment, given my struggles to figure out if there was indeed more than just a repeated letter pattern theme.

I *think* maybe perhaps sorta kinda ... it's supposed to be all animal-derived adjectives?

In any case, I do like that Alan came up with a novel set of themers. Sure made me think, and that's rarely a bad thing.

The other big factor in my sadly-non-fist-pumping-Monday was the difficulty baked into the fill. Educated solvers should at least be familiar with world capitals, so LUANDA is 100% fair game. When you force newb solvers to additionally wade through ORONO YORBA plus the tough names ERNO GIAN ALBEE, though, that's a recipe for making people walk away.

I'm a broken record, pounding the bully pulpit that low word-count grids shouldn't be allowed if they punish the solver. As much as I like how MY IT'S LATE and MENTORING / DYNASTY spice up the grid, they're not at all worth potentially losing solvers.

Overall, Will has done a great job of welcoming newb solvers into the fold — it's day and night compared to Maleska, who seemed to delight in the insularity of crosswords. I wish Will Shortz would crack down on grids like these. There are a couple of offenders he keeps letting slide, over and over and over again.

– puzzle by Alan Arbesfeld

Grid art made of black squares is the best kind. It stands out so well, unlike pictures formed by circled letters or connect-the-dots. I immediately take notice when a crazy-looking grid like this breaks the monotony of the normal grids we see every day.

Great aha effect on the TOP HAT, too. I had other ideas on how SCROOGE MCDUCK and WILLY WONKA might be related (rich cartoon characters, perhaps?), and even after ABRAHAM LINCOLN, I didn't see their commonality. Beards? Can ducks have beards?

I'm often not a fan of interlocking themers since this causes all sorts of filling problems, but there was something elegant about Ross's layout today. After some study, I realized it wasn't just that Ross wanted to show off. He had to use this interlock!

Why? With mirror symmetry, a long, unpaired answer can run horizontally. No problem … except when you then need to work in a pair of entries longer than seven letters. Those need to go vertically, and that creates a problem because of the long horizontal answer.

Why?

WHY SO MANY QUESTIONS!

Fine, try to lay out WILLY WONKA and ABE LINCOLN horizontally, using in this mirror symmetry arrangement. I'll wait.

See? Can't do it, can you? Mirror symmetry is great for certain theme sets, but it sure makes others tricky.

It's so fortuitous that Crucivera shined her glory upon Ross today, allowing for such beautiful interlock. More often than not, there is gnashing of teeth and promises of animal sacrifices if she would just cooperate.

As I mentioned above, filling around interlocked themers is tough. See: the AGT / OMN region. It's a fine product overall, though, a testament to Ross's skills.

Me and my long memory immediately flashed to Liz Gorski's FROSTY masterwork after solving this puzzle. Hers headlined the TOP HAT, which made it stand out so impressively. Still, I like that Ross gave me a fun aha by making me think about what connected these four individuals.

– puzzle by Ross Trudeau

Anyone else fill in O/RATE at ORCHESTRATE, and then get confused by the ?/RATE right below it? Erik wouldn't reuse a TALK word, would he? Neat effect, sneakily sneaking PRATE in to give me a delightful pause.

I wondered why the TALK synonyms were broken to the ends of theme entries. Usually, that type of theme is indicated with an "OUTER ___" or "___ ENDS" revealer. This is one way to work in such neat long words as BLATHER, but I would have liked more rationale baked into the puzzle.

I'd also have liked fewer themers baked in. It is neat that they all cross the central TALKING IN CIRCLES. It isn't so neat how such a crazy amount of inflexibility forced the unAgardian tally of SGT LUZ TGI UPN IMA CUL HEE NEG TCU. None of it is terrible, but it's too much. So much of it was forced by those stacked pairs of themers.

I do appreciate how Erik tried to jazz up what would otherwise be a simple, early-week theme, but it created a dissonance. The interesting but tough fill didn't mesh with the straightforward concept.

– puzzle by Erik Agard

I was so sure we'd see MIND THE GAP in a recent puzzle. Nope. but I was right today!

Sometimes even a blind squirrel finds a gap.

I've seen plenty of puzzles involving rebuses, and plenty of square-skipping ones as well. This is a fun combination of the two, the GAP rebuses needing to be skipped over to complete two-word entries like REPO MAN and ICE AGE. Far from a BAD IDEA, indeed!

It was an elegant touch not to have any other two-word phrases in the puzzle. I'm usually all about the juicy multi-word fill phrases, but today, keeping the bonuses to single-worders made the down themers pop.

I did wonder, why not go with a multi-word themer instead of SINGAPOREAN? GAP breaks across the words of the other theme phrases, so why not something like COPPING A PLEA, matched by GROWING APART?

Hey, GROWING APART would have been perfect for this theme!

Although Aimee had great flexibility in choosing her down themers — any phrase of length 4,3 for the REPO MAN slot, for example — she had to interlock two of the sets into MIND THE GAP, eating away at precious flexibility. The center shows strain with PEES and ATRA, for example. Having to spend so many black squares in that center also meant big corners that can be tough to fill. See: ESCS / ARA, etc.

Overall, a solid concept with just a few cracks — gaps, shall we say? — in the execution.

– puzzle by Aimee Lucido

If you gave me ?????TIONSHIP and told me to complete those five question marks, a million monkeys typing at a million typewriters would have come up with the right answer faster. I thought, can SITUATIONSHIP possibly be a thing? Turns out, it is! I'm afraid I still don't quite get it ... but perhaps that's the point — neither do the people in said SITUATIONSHIP.

The other marquee answers popped much more strongly for me, BRITISH INVASION not something I'm old enough for, but a cultural phenomenon even this pop music idiot knows. And given my son's fascination with 1) trucks, 2) smashing things, and 3) combining numbers 1 and 2, I'm well versed in the noble art of DEMOLITION DERBY.

ACUPUNCTURE also sang, with its fantastic clue, [Some needlework], misdirecting toward sewing — it had me fooled for the longest time. FASHIONISTA rounded out the set; such an evocative entry. Usually, editors prize multi-word phrases for their color and juice, but ACUPUNCTURE and FASHIONISTA measure up.

A couple of solid mid-length entries to help round out the solving experience: OPEN BAR had another great clue, repurposing "free spirits," as did USB PORT — "Mouse hole," indeed! Toss in a fun word to say in STYMIES, and you can call it just about good.

I did notice a stop-and-start feeling as I solved, though. It felt like there were so many short entries, and indeed, 12 three-letter words + 26 (!) four-letter ones comprised over half of the puzzle's entries — Emily's comments above hit the nail on the head. It's a common problem when you run diagonals of black squares through the middle of a themeless grid. Those diagonals forced so many 4-letter words.

Puzzles featuring a couple of long, marquee answers often require the constructor to make trade-offs, since those entries take up so much real estate. That often comes in the form of gluey short fill (OSO, I see you — oh wait. Is that an OJO I'm thinking of?). Not a problem today, but it would have been great to open up that center to create better solving flow.

– puzzle by Emily Carroll

★ It's rare that I do a week's worth of puzzles and one jumps out at me as an instant POW! winner. Today's fit that bill. Impressive from a constructor's standpoint, and a delightfully challenging and entertaining solving experience.

Those gigantic SW and NE were especially mind-blowing. Regions of 7x7(ish) scream I CANNOT BE FILLED WITH BOTH SNAZZINESS AND SMOOTHNESS! I've tried it and failed. I've come up with a relatively smooth product, and also a relatively snazzy one, but never both at the same time. I even went as far as to send in a 58-worder to Will Shortz, who kindly said it was a strong construction but lacked color.

Let's call a spade a spade: it would have sucked to solve. I'm glad Will rejected it.

I like how Trenton balanced ease of construction vs. solving flow. The center isn't perfect — it does sort of cut up the puzzle into four quadrants — but it's workable. I never felt like I was completely cut off, stuck like a duck.

It did help that my knowledge of Trenton's love for rare letters breezed me through that NE. Superhero ... let's see, who has a rare letter … AQUAMAN! That led to AQUINAS and I was off to the races.

Fantastic long entries, too. HILARITY ENSUES? Dang it, I wish I had debuted that one! PARKING GARAGES isn't colorful in itself, but it has so much potential for a clever clue. Get it, you get tickets in PARKING GARAGES? Not speeding tickets, but entry tickets?

That one could have used some clevering up.

So much to love in this one. First-class use of the mid-length fill slots — WITS END, LAB MICE, MAKE PAR, I MANAGE, ALTO SAX, BEELINE, CLIP ART, SASHIMI. That's great for a normal themeless featuring 7-letter entries, and it's phenomenal for a construction this daunting.

Beautiful work all around. Both the constructor and the solver in me give Trenton a standing O.

– puzzle by Trenton Charlson

OPEN WIDE! I wonder how many questions I'll get today, asking what the title means. Clearly, it's a dentist theme. What, you didn't get that? YOU ANTI-DENTITE!

No, no, there is no theme. The title might be too insidery for general consumption, hinting at the fact that this is one of the most wide-open Sunday grids in NYT history, setting a new record for fewest words. It's basically impossible to go down to 122 words in a themed puzzle, but the door cracks open if you decide to go the themeless route.

This is the third themeless Sunday the NYT has done, the first one about a year ago. Back then, I was adamantly against this notion, adhering to the position that it's a defeatist attitude, an admission that the NYT is struggling to come up with captivating Sunday themes. I still believe that, but perhaps I've softened. I did enjoy a lot about this one.

A couple of great long answers, all rarely seen in crosswords: DANIEL CRAIG / COLLEGE PREP, PRISON ESCAPE, BRAND NAME PRODUCTS, TOOK TO THE SLOPES, AMAZON PRIME. That's the kind of stuff that makes solvers sit up.

Some liabilities have to come along with such an audacious effort, though. Kicking off the puzzle with DUCA crossing AFLY was like swallowing a fly. I appreciated Frank's strong efforts to keep the rest of the puzzle impressively smooth, but I did notice two areas in which there were concentrations:

1. Tough foreign words. CADGING, TROYES, AMAH, SAAR, DESERET. Okay, that last one isn't foreign, but it sounds like it is. And CADGING is maybe more an oddball than foreign. Maybe two or three of these would have bene fine. Five, not so much.
2. SHORT OF, HINT AT, ALERTED TO, ETCH IN. These are all reasonable entries. Such potential left on the table, though; all of these much more neutral than positive.

I suppose I wouldn't mind one or maybe two of these Sunday themelesses a year, but I'd much rather have Will Shortz and his team focus on coming up with better and more creative ways of spurring constructors on to come up with more Sunday-worthy concepts. Increasing the pay is fantastic, of course, but it's clearly not enough, since Sundays overall have been disappointing this year.

I'd love to see a crack team assembled to tackle the problem head-on. Just imagine what could happen if you tasked the ten most creative minds to deliver ten awesome concepts per year. The Avengers and the Justice League would pale in comparison to the NYT Sunday Squad.

– puzzle by Frank Longo

Homage to Cathy today, the no-nosed wonder twice as irked as usual — ACK ACK indeed. (Cathy and Voldemort both having no nose ... things that make you go hmm!)

Today is a perfect example where a revealer — some word or phrase explicitly explaining the theme — would have been fantastic. The puzzle works as is, since the themers follow a clear pattern that's not hard to spot. There wasn't a sharp a-ha moment, though, more a slow realization that each themer has two instances of ACK.

What could have been a good revealer? How about ACK itself, clued to Cathy's quaint cry? That's getting there, but it doesn't explain why there would be two ACKs.

ACK ACK (clued to the gun) would have been better, opening the eyes of even the greenest solvers. It's not a great crossword entry in itself, but it would have been a spot-on explanatory phrase.

Speaking of green solvers, this isn't the most welcoming early-week solving experience. Too many names (especially tough ones) can make a crossword feel like a trivia contest — IDINA, REX, ELTON, ANN, AUDI, ALEXIS, ROKU, AGRA, ANI, DYAN, SARTRE, GAYLE, NASHUA, OTIS. There's no hard and fast threshold for how many names is too many, but this crossed well into dangerous territory.

There weren't any glaring grid skeleton problems — it's a fine layout — but further iteration would have helped smooth out some of the inelegancies. Aside from the slew of not-everyday names, something like NES / ATA / SCI atop each other should trigger a revision.

Overall though, I did enjoy the bonuses — DEAL ME IN, NEW CAR, SABOTAGE are great — and it was fun to see so many *ACK *ACK phrases. You can use our Finder with the search string *ack*ack* to get lots of others, like HACKY SACK, WACKY TOBACKY, QUARTERBACK SACK.

– puzzle by Daniel Mauer

★

Tuesday's job is tough — it has to be easy and welcoming enough for newish solvers, but also interesting for more experienced folks. This theme hit that sweet spot, such a clever link between the Tarot and well-known "THE ___" phrases. I've done a lot of Tarot puzzles and a lot of "THE ___" puzzles, and I've never thought of connecting them. Brava!

Speaking of that balance of easy vs. interesting, there's so much to love about the grid. Four 15-letter entries can be tough to work around, but Olivia produced such a smooth, accessible product for newbs, while also working in MR TOAD, OPEN WIDE, SMART KEY, KISSED UP for the veterans. Check out how wisely she spaced out OPEN WIDE and SMART KEY, using black squares to separate everything judiciously.

The one ding was ASLOW, which could have been massaged out with a black square at the A (and at the T of KLIMT). That would have also allowed removal of OCHS and/or ACER. The northwest corner of a crossword is so important in setting tone and expectations; an extra set of black squares would have been well worth it.

It's rare for me to take interest in a Monday or Tuesday theme, and I was curious enough to research the other Tarot cards to see what other phrases might have been possible. Spurring on curiosity is a great thing!

I'm glad Olivia pared it back from a 21x21, as that would have gotten old. The 15x15 format is perfect for this tidy and novel concept.

– puzzle by Olivia Mitra Framke

We constructors talk about "seed ideas" (for themed puzzles) or "seed entries" (for themelesses). Why not actual seeds — or S E E Ds? It seemed like a natural way to seed a puzzle based on ornamental POTs made of black squares. Easy peasy!

Over two hundred e-mails back and forth later …

As a constructor, I try to steer clear of long "bonus fill" across entries that aren't part of the theme. These muddy up what is thematic and what is not. To our dismay, this grid layout — largely fixed by the four POT placements — required a long across at the bottom of the puzzle. Bah! No matter how hard we tried, we couldn't break it into pieces.

Wait. How about making it thematic? Of course! A perfect solution, let's just do that!

Several thousand searches on our Finder and onelook.com later …

We wanted to have each herb break across multiple words of a theme entry, but we eventually had to make a compromise. GROWTH POTENTIAL was a strong enough bottom revealer that we figured we could let MESSAGE BOARD slide by.

Many thanks to Will Shortz and the team for sticking with Matt and me as we struggled our way through this one!

– puzzle by Matthew Sewell and Jeff Chen