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A debut! Nice work from Brandon today, a visual puzzle representing an ALIEN / ABDUCTION of a... cow? I wasn't familiar with this particular urban legend, but sure enough, the truth is out there. At least according to the Google. How or why this all started still mystifies me. Sure is amusing what stories people will tell!

Fun concept, forming the shape of a UFO with ET rebus squares. I also liked the fact that Brandon mixed it up with the single COW rebus — too often a rebus puzzle with a single type of rebus square can get a little boring to fill in. Man oh man though, did I struggle with that COW square (the last one I filled in). I imagine if I had heard of cows being abducted before, it wouldn't have been a problem?

Overall a smooth product, well done for Brandon to have avoided most of the crosswordese that debut authors tend to let slide (especially given the high constraints). Not only does he have to put his nine ETs in the shape of a UFO, but he has to put a COW in as well. That in itself takes up a lot of his black square allotment (to make the middle of the grid fillable), so the NE and SW are forced to be themeless-like subsections. All in all, a pretty good effort of filling those tough areas. The SW is really good, but the NE does suffer slightly with the OSOS/NSC/UPA trifecta. Not that the NSC is bad or anything (to all NSC eavesdroppers, I LOVE the NSC more than pudding!), but among with the other glue-y entries, it tends to be more noticeable.

I'm usually of the opinion that cheater squares should be deployed whenever they help smooth out a grid's fill, but today I paused when I first opened the file. Two pairs of cheaters, like in the very left and right of the puzzle, hardly ever bother me. Likewise, I usually shake off a pair in the center, hardly even noticing. But when there are four pairs (two on the perimeter, two in the center), those eight extra black squares become noticeable for me. Personal opinion, but the overall effect looks not as elegant as I would have liked, especially given that you don't want to overwhelm the UFO what with all the black squares. It all becomes clear when you connect the ETs, but ideally the UFO would be a stronger visual.

Interesting to me is that this isn't the first time ET has been used for a rebus, but the other time (in the Shortz era), Liz Gorski used it for something completely different. That one had perhaps the most perfect title (FRENCH CONNECTION) I've seen for a puzzle.

And finally, a couple of beautiful entry/clue pairs. [Site of many hangings] is often used for ART or MUSEUM related answers, but here it's talking about a CLOSET. Nice! And even better is FIREEATER, whose clue made me laugh. Gave me a warm feeling inside, that it did. (wah wah)

Congrats again on the debut!

– puzzle by Brandon Hensley

Some beautiful stuff from the master today. FIVE THIRTY EIGHT is a great entry in itself, but BEQ's awesome clue makes it really shine. That and CLICKBAIT (when advertisers pop up racy pictures / headlines in order to draw in gullible readers, unlike me) gives the puzzle a really fresh, recent feel. Classic BEQ. His puzzles do a lot to make the NYT feel up-to-date.

Huh? Whoops, I'm back. No, I didn't click on that lurid picture! Ahem.

One notable aspect of the grid is that BEQ doesn't just stop at four sets of triple-stacked 8's or 9's like most themeless constructors. Not only does he incorporate FIVE THIRTY EIGHT straight across the center, but he crosses ANOINTED ONE and appropriately CROSSED EYES through everything. Instead of being able to work with four mostly separated corners, everything is interlocked. Change one of your ANOINTED ONE type answers and the ripple effect is devastating. It's a wonder BEQ got everything to fall into place.

Not only did he get everything to stitch together, but he also managed to work in some nice little details. The crazy letter pattern MLKJR crossing another crazy one, JLO? Don't mind if I do! What a great way to spice up a grid.

With such an immensely constrained grid, Brendan ends up with ADAYS, ATIME, RESEWN, LATH, none of which by itself is too bad. But all taken together, it feels a little heavy. And I really liked INSOMNIAC and FACES OFF, but some of the other long stuff (OUTSPOKEN, HENRIETTA) were a bit workmanlike in comparison to the juicier entries. And VARDALOS feels a bit dated since that movie was such a long time ago. As I've mentioned before, I tend to focus a more critical eye when a master builder is up to bat. It's probably unfair, but expectations are expectations.

Finally, two clues I really liked. [It's by no means a long shot] is fun for PUTT (never mind that some putts can be awfully long — I'm about (ahem) 50% on a one-foot putt). And I often balk at straight-up trivia, but I really liked [Skateboard trick named after its inventor] for OLLIE (when you jump up so the board kicks into the air with you). Some pieces of trivia I find tedious, but this (to me) was not one of them. I always wondered why skaters called it an Ollie. Fun to read up on Alan "Ollie" Gelfand.

– puzzle by Brendan Emmett Quigley

★ Beautiful work today out of the SAY HEY KID himself, Sam, one of the prodigies of the crossworld. Talk about a tough construction today. Sam starts where most themeless constructors finish, with two sets of triple-stacked 8's and two set of 10's. Then he connects the 8's across the middle of the grid. And then uses two more long answers to connect that central answer to the 10's. Finally, he throws in a couple more 7's and 8's to boot! And with such snazzy results, the overall pa-pow is impressive.

What's really outstanding about this puzzle is how effectively Sam manages to use his long spots. Everything from MAKES A MESS to TOP HONORS to SLAM DANCED to SAY HEY KID, such awesome answers in the corners. But it doesn't stop there — ALASKAN KING CRAB across the middle? MURDER INC, one of my favorite entries in recent memory as a connector? Out of 17 (!) slots for 8+ long entries, I really liked (or loved) 13 of them, and the other four were fine. A really impressive hit rate.

And the cluing. As with any strong Saturday, I expect a handful of clues that push me one way and give a great a-ha when I finally find my footing. [Bond film?] was really nice ("bond" as in glue, not "Bond" as in "Bond, James Bond"), [One hanging by a thread?] made me think of SPIDERS or TRUANTS or something, so TASSEL provided me a smile.

This puzzle is not going to be for everyone, as some hold the opinion that any puzzle with a handful of GLUE entries cannot be stellar. I'd certainly agree that I'd prefer not to have ODO, ABAA, and especially A POSE (DIETZ I'm still on the fence about), but I find these well worth the price for the TEAPOT DOME / BABA O'RILEY / BOY SOPRANO / ABOUT THAT snazziness.

My one hesitation, and it was big enough that I waffled whether or not to give this the POW, was the clue for ALASKAN KING CRAB. Sometimes I feel like a clue is trying too hard, or comes off too cutesy, or in this case, a bit creepy. I'm all for fun or funny innuendo, but there was something icky to me about the juxtaposition of "luscious legs" and eating crab legs (perhaps it evoked an image of George Costanza (from "Seinfeld") mixing his favorite pleasures?). Even the "long, luscious legs" phrase made my skin crawl a bit. Surely others will laugh at this clue, but I bet there will be others like me that were uncomfortable with this language. It's too bad that it was at the centerpiece entry.

ADDED NOTE: I had an enlightening conversation with Jim, who thought the aforementioned clue was fantastic. It's always eye-opening when I hear an opinion so different from mine — nice to get the reminder that most everything in art is subjective.

Overall, I thought this puzzle was dynamite. TOP HONORS to Sam this week.

– puzzle by Sam Ezersky

Mary Lou, back with her second NYT in a month! I enjoyed this one, which featured (DOUBLE) ___ type themers, like a (DOUBLE) BARRELED shotgun and a (DOUBLE) AGENT, all tied together with a DOUBLE EDGED revealer hinting to the perimeter theme answers. Tight theme, nice.

As with all perimeter theme-type puzzles, fill can be quite tricky. Mary Lou and I have tackled a couple of these constructions together, and there's hardly ever zero compromises. She does well in creating her grid skeleton, which spreads around the white space pretty evenly. If you stand back and squint, not a single white space jumps out at you as bigger than the others, and that's generally what you want. One big space can slaughter you with its intense difficulty to fill.

Lovely selection of longer fill. TITLE ROLES, DEBUT ALBUM, OLIVER STONE, CLEAR THE AIR, yes yes yes yes! That's the way to pick snappy answers. Since the themers are all pretty short, the grid must contain some longer fill (due to the word count maximum) so it's super important to make good use of these spaces. Mary Lou does well here.

Ah, the difficulty of filling these bad boys. Corners like the NW and SE are always going to be tough, playing out like filling a themeless puzzle. The NW is pretty decent, only OEN, SLO, ELL, ERICAS as slight blights. The SW has some more issues, PERCALES being an oddity. When I searched it on Bing, the first answer that came up was the Wikipedia article on Pericles. Now, that may have more to do with Bing than anything, but it felt to me at best a missed opportunity to do something with that nice 8-letter entry slot. And man, is it going to be tough for people unfamiliar with SARAPES.

Sections like the west and east are typically easier to fill since there's not much constraining them like in the four corners, but since Mary Lou has long answers crossing them (TITLE ROLES and DEBUT ALBUM), things get hairy. AREEL, ESSE, and especially TELA create a bit of inelegance, as do CESTA, A HAT, SNEE. Perimeter puzzles are super tricky. Starting in the middle often creates problems in propagating fill out into the corners, and staring in the corners often creates problems in knitting the sections together.

Finally, some great stuff. [Better at picking things up?] wasn't pointing to SMARTER or anything, but TIDIER. And I love to see a clever clue for a shorty like SOD: [Cover some ground?] adds a lot of spice. Stuff like this really adds to my overall impressions of any puzzle.

Congrats on your Sunday NYT debut, Mary Lou! Interesting to see that in 2013, only eleven of the NYT Sunday puzzles were made by women (the awesome Liz Gorski had six of those). Glad to see Mary Lou join the club of Sunday constructors. As I've offered before, if you're a woman interested in working on a Sunday NYT puzzle submission and could use a hand or just some feedback, let's talk. If I can't help you, I'm sure we can find you someone that can. Let's do what we can to even up the stats, yeah? Contact me through the XWord Info home page.

– puzzle by Mary Lou Guizzo

Not much that I like better than a Seinfeld reference. A puzzle about nothing! Great idea. Lynn, the master of Mondays, gives us themers with synonyms for "nothing" hidden within four phrases.

And what beautiful phrases! "Words hidden within phrases" type themes often depend on the quality of the theme answers, and Lynn has chosen some stellar ones. I know it more as "The Mighty Wurlitzer" but WURLITZER ORGANS Googles nicely. TRINI LOPEZ wasn't familiar to me right away, but he should have been (chalk one up to the giant hole in my pop music knowledge base). Add JOHN ADAMS with a nice piece of trivia about the White House, finish it off with a LAUGH TRACK, and you have some snappy entries.

Fill is quite nice too, as I would expect from Lynn. Even with five themers, Lynn does a great job of laying out her skeleton and taking full advantage of her 7's: SQUIRMY, BURRITO, TIN MINE, OLE MISS, LACONIC. What a fantastic array of mid-length fill. And to pull it off with just an ALG here, a TPK there, with the assorted MON / AMT / INIT stuff is aces in my book.

Ah, the punchline. As with any joke, the delivery is key. I recognize that ITS ABOUT NOTHING is a direct quote from the man himself, George Costanza, but it felt off to me. The puzzle themers "contain nothing" but aren't really "about nothing." I know it seems semantic, but I thought it could have packed more punch if the revealer had been something to the effect of NOTHING IN HERE (is there a snappier way to express that?) or if the themers had all been slang terms for nothing, like BUPKUS / GOOSE EGG / BAGEL etc.

Final comment, the clue for USB felt off to me (ADDED NOTE: Jim pointed out that it's actually precisely accurate. I say, what does he know? Given that he works at Microsoft. And programmed the original Freecell. And is high up in the Windows 8 chain. Ah. Right.), which is unfortunate as 1-Across often sets the tone (consciously or subconsciously) for the puzzle. First of all, I wasn't sure why it needed the (Abbr.) tag, since PC already indicated an acronym or shortening. And more to the point, a "USB PORT" feels more like a "connection means" to me than just "USB." Alternately, [PC connection standard] would have felt better to me. Again, it's the fault my linguistic anality (and the eensy weensy fact that I was approximately 0% correct), but I stared at the NW for way too long before moving on.

Very tough puzzle for a Monday, but in a good way. Nothing esoteric, lots of great fill, clean, and the snazziness was most welcome. Well done.

– puzzle by Lynn Lempel

Congrats on the NYT debut, Alex! I've had the pleasure corresponding with Alex before and working on some things together (one 21x co-construction in the Crosswords Club). Fun to work with him. Today's theme is a "word that can precede or follow" type, which Will doesn't run very frequently these days. It is nice that Alex picked a word, PICKUP, which forms some great base phrases: PICKUP TRUCK, PICKUP LINE (at a bar), PICKUP GAME (on a basketball court), and PICKUP STICKS. Swizzly stuff.

Some really nice entries today, ICE CREAM TRUCK brings back so many happy memories of when I would chase after the Good Humor van, waving my money overhead. (That may or may not have been yesterday.) CUTS IN LINE is another great one, and SWIZZLE STICKS is my favorite. Nice stuff.

TRIVIA GAME, as Alex mentioned, is a bit wonky. Jeopardy is more a GAME SHOW to me, but perhaps this could have been saved with a clue like referencing TRIVIAL PURSUIT. Of course, the clue can't have the word TRIVIAL or GAME in it though. Maybe [Competition in which players earn pie pieces]? Yikes, tortured. Okay, something like ENDER'S GAME or HOCKEY GAME might have been better.

It is awfully nice that Alex worked in IT IS SAID and AVOWING and BIKINI in that location though. It's so tempting where you're constructing to hold onto a piece of great fill (or in this case, theme piece) in order to preserve a couple entries. Always the trade-offs.

One aspect I admired about Alex while co-constructing with him was that he was always searching for new entries. It's great to fill your puzzle with fresh stuff, PRECALC and PICAYUNE are awfully nice. There are some trade-offs in fill to get said answers though, NEDS and ESS sticks out a bit, as does MGR and YAH. Same goes with the trade of BALLPIT and CAME EASY with the random CLV and ILE (and STYES to a lesser extent) as prices to pay. I admire the stretch to make it a 74-word puzzle — it does come with some minor costs in glue-y entries but does allow for a lot of snappy fill.

Surprisingly, I had the hardest time with TENTHS place, as it just looked crazy. Totally me though, as a quick check made me realize it is indeed called the TENTHS place. Dunno what I was thinking, but the TENS place certainly is not the one to the right of the decimal point.

I liked the revealer as it allowed for some nice themers, but the placement threw me off a bit. I realize it's a subjective opinion, but I find it odd when theme revealers are at a random place in the grid. I've done it myself before, but these days if it's not in the center of the grid, or in a corner at an extreme across or down spot, it feels inelegant. Could just be me.

Anyway, congrats again Alex!

– puzzle by Alex Bajcz

A puzzle based around show-biz catchphrases! Kurt does a nice job of selecting themers which are easily recognizable to the general American population. The four represent a wide range of time periods, providing something for everyone. Kind of analogous to the NYT daily crossword, eh? Enough variety and there will be something most everyone will like.

HERE'S JOHNNY is fantastic, not only because it brings back memories of watching the Tonight Show with my dad when I really wasn't supposed to, plus its repurposing for "The Shining" makes it even more memorable. LIVE FROM NEW YORK brings back similar good feelings , and although I've never seen Lawrence Welk or The Honeymooners, both lines came easily to me. All snazzy, fun entries.

I would have almost preferred to not have a revealer though, as IT'S SHOWTIME doesn't feel like it stitches everything together. I see what Kurt is doing here, cluing the four lines as "(Famous person's) intro words" and IT'S SHOWTIME opening the show. But while Ed McMahon and the SNL (not specifically Chevy Chase) opening lines actually kick off the shows (more or less), it's not the same with the others. It would have been perfect if that's the way Lawrence Welk and Jackie Gleason kicked off their respective shows.

Some rough spots in the fill today, COHOE being a NYT debut but being an awfully funny-looking one. Here in Seattle COHO salmon is plentiful, but I've never seen it listed as COHOE. It's an unfortunate product of 1.) theme density and 2.) the 6x3 northern area. Those 6x3 blocks are much harder to cleanly fill than the usual 5x3 blocks, but since the themers are so close together, Kurt doesn't have much of a choice there, because he needs a block separating RAJ and OVER. Hard constraint, producing an unfortunate entry.

Also, FORTY LOVE feels a bit arbitrary as it's not really an important score but more like the ONE ONE or ONE NIL [low soccer score] type of entry. I did really like LOOSE LIPS and MARRY ME though. Not quite sure if it was the price of seeing our old crossword friend ETUI show up, along with the EDT EELER, though. Five themers can be difficult to work with.

Anyway, some great memories brought back by a selection of iconic lines from TV.

– puzzle by Kurt Mueller

★ I'm pretty sure the "Jerry Maguire" line "You had me at hello" should have been "You had me a logic problem." Matthew indeed earns the POW with a nice implementation of a typical paradox. Usually seen as THIS STATEMENT IS FALSE, it's made into a crossword-appropriate set of statements, cross-referencing each other. I really like how he got the lengths to work out perfectly, without having to make the statements sound tortured. NINE DOWN IS FALSE and THREE DOWN IS TRUE, that's beautiful stuff.

With just three theme entries today (and one of them only 7 letters long), the puzzle did feel a little light. I was glad then to see Matthew utilize his long answer slots wisely. Check out COWGIRL, UNDERDOG, PA SYSTEM, LOST SOUL, SO AND SO, even X AND Y. It went a long way to making me feel like I was getting my money's worth from the puzzle. I also appreciated that Matthew took care in his fill, leaving us with few enough glue entries that I didn't particularly notice an excess. Now that I look at grid again, I do notice NCO and CTR straight across the top which is unfortunate, but there's really very little ugliness here. He even throws us two X's and a Z without torturing those areas. Nice.

I would complain about SNORERS, but 50% of my household is a SNORER. Ahem. It might be me; not saying. Throw in that my favorite Pokemon is the Snorlax (or as my poor wife calls me, "The Snormax")...

I probably have said too much.

One item that caught my attention is probably something no one else would even consider, so I feel a little silly for bringing it up. A puzzle like this, involving logic and symmetry, to me begs for left-right symmetry. Especially considering all the black squares on the perimeter are already set up that way, just a few blocks could have been switched around to make a mirror symmetry arrangement. Granted, I'm partial to that type of symmetry in the first place, but it felt to me like it would have been spot-on for this exercise in logic.

Another thought that cropped up was that it would have been nice to have this puzzle a bit more complicated, as are many logic puzzles. Then again, the best paradoxes are those that are simply stated.

Finally, I'll end with a great clue: [Places for mobiles] made me think about where people need cell phones, and it took me the longest time to figure out that it wasn't referring to mobile phones but actual mobiles (hanging over many cribs).

Nice fill, really fun theme, a winner in my book. That last statement is indeed not false.

– puzzle by Matthew Lees

What a cool grid pattern. Typically in most themeless constructions we see two triple-stacks of answers running horizontally, two vertically. One reason for this is that arrangement helps separate the four stacks, allowing a constructor to work on each one (more or less) at a time. So it was pretty cool to see this unusual arrangement — check out how many long across answers are basically on top of each other: KRUGMAN (really nice to see this influential economist finally get his due), DIET RITE, ABNORMAL, MUMBO JUMBO, UTILIZE, SHEER AGONY, UNBEATEN. Not everything overlaps completely of course, but it makes for quite a challenge. Neat to see something different.

A lot of great fill today, with MOT JUSTE / MUMBO JUMBO being a standout. I found it really neat that they both follow the M* J* pattern, and they mean essentially opposite things. AL PACINO in itself is a really nice entry, but I love getting an iconic image in my head from a puzzle, in this case of Pacino in "Scarface." This is a great example of getting the most out of an entry / clue pair: for me, something that evokes emotion like this is a real winner.

What with all the horizontal overlap, I was impressed that James filled the puzzle as cleanly as he did. The parts I was wondering about as I was solving were the west and east sections, as I worried stitching the two halves of the puzzle would be tricky. On the west side, the halves come together pretty nicely. It's a little tiny bit inelegant to have USMC right next to NCAA, but they're both fine entries, of course.

Where I had a little frowning, especially in contrast to the high quality of the rest of the puzzle, was in the east. It's quite possible that NON-U has common usage in England? But I tend to cringe at its sight, along with the usual ADIT and ETUI type suspects. Could just be a personal preference, as I know several constructors who don't blink an eye at random Roman numerals, while they make me shudder. And seeing it next to Ned YOST made it stick out a little further — I like seeing some sports references in puzzles, but unless an athlete is in the Hall of Fame or has achieved something huge in his/her field, it feels a bit unfair. Sort of like having to fish out GINO Torretta or RIK Smits (I have a soft sport for the Dunkin' Dutchman, but I doubt many others do).

Also interesting to me was that I thought the NW and SE should be the cleanest sections, given how separated they were from the rest of the puzzle. James did a great job with the SE, nice fill there (I know ANIL bothers some folks, but it's totally fine by me as I saw a lot of it traveling in South America). The NW however, with its two partials in close proximity, felt a little unfortunate. I can see where fixing the beautiful MOT JUSTE and MUMBO JUMBO in place would cause problems, though. Always the trade-offs.

Finally, two clues I really dug. The first, appropriately, was [Digs in the snow?]. Digs here refers to a crib, a joint, a place to live, and it's a great misdirection, making me think about shoveling snow in the Indiana winter. The second, [Fix as a pointer]. In computer science, it's quite easy to have problems with syntax, using pointers to memory locations, so this clue had me baffled for a long time, thinking about what coding lingo would be appropriate. I felt silly (and delighted) when it turned out to refer to pointer-type dog. Dog-nabit, that's some nice stuff!

– puzzle by James Mulhern

Another appropriately silky creation from Barry. This one eschews the typical separation of corners, instead meshing two sets of triple-stacks in the NE and SW corners. Very hard to do well, as the high constraints make it difficult to get both snappy answers and clean crossings in those locations.

That top stack is loaded with juicy answers; MCMANSION / CRAZY BONE / DONT PANIC. Ah, if only the latter had been clued to "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." I had never read the book until two years ago and thunked myself on the forehead for being so remiss. And I had an initial hitch at CRAZY BONE, waffling on whether to love it or try to force in FUNNY BONE. But it Googles fine.

It's impressive then that Barry got a nice stack running down the right side. ON IN YEARS is a nice one, as is IONIAN SEA. NECTARINE is a bit more bland in my book, but a nice clue related to the color, not the fruit, gave it extra oomph.

Given how nice those six long answers are, it's no surprise that there's a bit of glue needed to hold them together. MCD seems like it should be "a thing" (short for McDonald's?) but as a random Roman numeral, it sticks in my craw a little. Just personal taste. And AZTEK is a fun combination of odd letters, but SHAK feels wonky to me. I suppose there needs to be a way to abbreviate Shakespeare (and maybe this is the uber-common way to do it?) but what an unsightly four letters stuck together. I like the SBA as they do some good work in facilitating loans to entrepreneurs, but I hardly ever like an ASE. So a mix of snazzy stuff with some glue required.

Contrast the SW corner. There's still really nice stuff in there, DREAMLAND being excellent, but there's nothing that jumped out to me as a marquee answer in that corner. It is really nice to have only a DSO and MIES holding it all together. So not quite as snazzy, but not a lot of junk either.

A really nice feature of this grid arrangement is that it allows the NW and SE corners to be more isolated than usual, and Barry does a bang-up job in both. Love the JINXES and PIZZA and ZIPPO Scrabbly letters, all done without making it all feel forced.

Figuring out Saturday puzzle clues is getting to be my favorite part of crosswords, and the clue for BONSAI didn't disappoint. It is a small job indeed — not a job that will take a small amount of time, but a small work of art. And seeing then MONKEY as a wacky 1960's dance, that adds a lot of spice. Finally, I really liked the Ruy LOPEZ clue. For years I've been fascinated by chess terminology, and there's something awesome about hearing this lingo. I didn't actually know the Ruy Lopez opening, but seeing this made me go look it up.

Now to think of what the Chen Crossword Maneuver should be...

– puzzle by Barry C. Silk

Pete's comments always make me laugh. Neat to hear this time though about his grandmother — what staying power! A perfect puzzle for her (and mothers out there everywhere).

I'm a sucker for puzzles with visuals. Black square visuals tend to be my favorite because they stand out so much more than circles or shaded squares or connected rebus squares. They can be difficult to work with though, because standard crossword rules don't give a lot of freedom. So I like how Pete flaunts convention, incorporating both two and ONE letter words into his puzzle... or are they really one letter words? (See the red highlights below!) Very clever implementation. That alone gave me a smile.

I can see how Will would balk at low theme density. I've often wondered about trying to construct themelesses in the 21x size, but I've come to realize that I personally get bored solving a 21x unless there's a nice theme or a gimmick I really like. Strong long fill is important to holding my attention, but by itself it's not enough for me in a 21x. Personal preference.

So even though Pete had added themage, I still felt like this was a little light. It would have been great to have some long entry like Mother OF THE BRIDE or Mother JONES MAGAZINE or something, but then you get into partial territory, where the themers don't hold together by themselves. So I'm not sure what a better solution would have been.

It did confuse me a little to see such nice long answers and consider how/if they were related to the theme. As Pete mentioned, I was wondering what he was trying to say with LAUGH LINES, PUTTING ON WEIGHT, MATURATION, etc. (insert sound of nervous laughter here) He said it, not me! If only Pete had found a way to tie all those uber-long entries into the theme, I would have absolutely loved this one.

The M O M black square patterns might look straightforward, but there's a lot of finesse that goes into them. They also eat up a lot of the black square allotment, forcing wide-open white spaces in the grid (to keep to the maximum word count of 140). I loved a lot of the mid-range fill (JOE BIDEN and his self-parodying ways = hilarious, DREW BREES, I'M SO SURE, HAY BALE), and the glue-type entries (ISSY, EERO, OVOLO) weren't too bad. A nice construction given the constraints.

Happy Mother's Day! And no, you haven't put on any weight at all.

– puzzle by Peter A. Collins

Intelligent puzzle to start the week — what more could you ask? Gary brings us five synonyms for "intelligent," hidden within phrases. SMART phone, QUICK buck, SHARP turn, BRIGHT side, FAST one. I liked that there was no revealer necessary, and that the theme didn't make itself clear to me until the very end. Or maybe that shows how SHARP I am. Ahem.

With the "pinwheel" arrangement of themers, it's often hard to work in good long fill to spice up a grid. Indeed, there are only two eight-letter slots, which can often spell trouble for grid snazz, as eight letters and more is often where the best fill comes from. Gary does well to utilize those slots with the nice ALPHABET and BRETHREN. Not the juiciest of fill, but not dull either.

Where Gary really shines is his SMART use of shorter fill. Often constructors will let their seven and six letter slots go with unfulfilled potential, but not Gary. Check out RAW BAR, HOT FOOT, ALL NEW, BAR HOP. That adds a lot to the solving experience.

The latter did make me pause, as it dupes BAR, which is one reason I decided against giving this the POW. Typically a dupe like this is not allowed within a single puzzle, so it was a bit of a head-scratcher.

One other reason was that while most of the synonyms were hidden until the very end, the SMART in SMARTPHONE was not. It would have been perfect if it had been something to the effect of THAT SMARTS! (but of course, this example wouldn't fit because 1.) SMARTS is plural and 2.) it's at the end of the phrase). Unfortunately, I can't think of another way to get the "pain" definition of SMART worked in. Even taking SMART out of the puzzle, replacing SMARTPHONE with FAST ASLEEP or something, might have been preferable.

Finally, one aspect I always admire about Gary's work is the care he takes in his short fill. As a meticulous (read: anal) constructor (sorry again to all my co-constructors!), I spend too much time obsessing over every single entry, trying never to allow a "this is good enough" feel into even a teeny corner. And I love scanning through a puzzle, not being able to find more than a AGA or an OPER (neither of which are bad, anyway!). With short fill, the best you can hope for is that no one notices it. It's obvious to me how much care Gary puts into his short fill. Very smooth end product.

– puzzle by Gary Cee

Song title masquerading as WEATHER FORECASTs, fun! Even being an idiot when it comes to pop music, I easily recognized three of the four songs by title, a good mark for a Tuesday puzzle. AGAINST THE WIND took me most of the crossings to get, but after Googling it, I realized I ought to have known it. The slow process of increasing my pop music knowledge base chugs along...

With five longish themers, it's great that Tracy managed to work in some long fill. LIVE WIRE and HEPTAGON are really fun. So bizarre that someone would decide to make a coin in the shape of a HEPTAGON! (I recently learned this from a really good Matt Gaffney Weekly Crossword Contest puzzle.) Currency people, get on a triskaidecagonal coin already, will you? (I'd buy that for a dollar! What, no original Robocop fans in the audience?) Also, a nice touch that EDIT OUT and SLEEP IN are in symmetrical locations.

I've had the pleasure of co-constructing with Tracy a few times now, and one aspect I really appreciate about her work is that she has a very different perspective than me. Being a nerdburger Star Wars robot-fighting sports-talking math lover, I tend to fill my own crosswords with stuff that skews heavily male (see above Robocop reference). So I really like it when Tracy puts more academic fill in, like BAHIA, ARHAT, HELOT. Classes up the joint.

There were a couple of crunchy locations, not too surprising given the theme density and the long fill. That's a lot of constraints to work with. The word ERUCT stuck out for me — not sure whether to wince at it or to appreciate learning something new? With so few Bing hits (45K), I tend to think the former. And crossing the plural of a name I didn't know, ERINS, made it feel even crunchier. Along with an AMIR here, an ORIG there, it felt not as smooth as I typically like. Ah, the difficulties of working with high constraints.

Finally, it's rare to get a Tuesday treat, a wordplay clue that makes me smile. I'm sure I've seen variations on [Place for sweaters?] before, but I liked getting a fun clue, not about a sweater to be worn, but a sweater, as in a person who sweats. Good stuff.

– puzzle by Tracy Gray

Amusing theme; I got a chuckle out of the TURNING A PROPHET revealer. I had no idea what was going on as I solved, so I had a nice a-ha moment at the end.

Great selection of long themers. WIN SOME LOSE SOME, ESPRESSO MAKERS, and especially SCHWARZENEGGER are all juicy entries. Typically I would like to see all of the themers be the same number of words, but the 4/2/1 progression was kind of nice. When you can't have perfect consistency, perfect inconsistency is the next best thing.

I did wonder why these prophets? A quick search turned up dozens of prophets, so it would have been nice to have some rationale as to why these three. It might have been impossible to choose three that were all related in some way (good luck finding a word/phrase with LEIKEZE), but wow, what a big bang it would have made if it had been possible.

Given that there were only four long themers, it would have been nice to see a pair of long downs in the fill. Victor does do a nice job with his sixes and sevens, MISHAP and ZAGGED and SKEWER being colorful. But having even one pair of snazzy eights would have been very welcome.

Ah, the lure of the pangram. I do like seeing Q, J, Z, V's in a grid. They do a lot to add to a puzzle's snazz. I didn't think JAS was worth the price of JAS though. Differences in philosophy — I definitely know both solvers that hate this type of trade-off and those that love it.

Finally, what a great clue for EMAIL! Perhaps a slight dig at the postal service, hmm? I enjoyed running through DHL, FEDEX, UPS, etc. before getting a smile at EMAIL. I find it baffling that the USPS is still allowed to survive in its current configuration, given its history of giant financial losses. One of you clever crossword people, get on that!

– puzzle by Victor Barocas

Fun theme today, second day in a row with a revealer involving a homonym. AN I FOR AN EYE amused me, plus it looked so weird in the grid: ANIFORANEYE I couldn't help but like it. Ani DiFranco, a crossword-friendly singer, this one's for you!

Nice grid layout today. I really liked having four themers plus the reveal, which gives more body to the theme. And John does a great job of spacing out his five themers, not creating any really tough to fill sections. The result was a smooth fill, not any one entry making me wince. There were a couple of HOR and ORU type entries, but as a whole, the puzzle came easily to me, without much of a hitch. Very nice work.

Let's take a look at those two gluey entries, HOR and ORU. Ideally, I would have preferred not to have them, and that could have been possible if HUGH LAURIE had been broken up at the A, reducing the constraints in that NW sections. However, I like the choice John made here. HUGH LAURIE and RAZOR SHARP add a lot to the puzzle, so I think it's a more than favorable trade-off; HOR and ORU easily being cheap prices to pay to get the longer, snazzy fill.

Speaking of good longer fill, John does a nice job with BABY FAT and HANDS UP! I'd call it four for four hits in the longer fill slots.

Not the most mind-blowing of themes for a Thursday puzzle — all in all, I tend to agree with John that I'd personally prefer to have crazier themes on a Thursday — but executed very well. And again, I'll repeat that this is simply a personal preference. I know a lot of solvers who would much prefer to have their Thursday NYT puzzles be on the easier, more doable side.

Finally, a favorite clue for me was [Joy-filled?]. Not ELATED or BEAMING, but "filled with Joy" the dish soap. Really nice.

– puzzle by John Lieb

I enjoy the variety, every so often getting a wide-open grid like this. Eye-catching to see so much white space — makes for a very neat first impression. A friend of mine (a daily NYT/LAT solver) works at the coffee shop where I write every day, and he mentioned that these types of themeless puzzles are astounding (typically he can't quite finish them, but he enjoys the visual of it all). As Will once mentioned, I wouldn't want to have one of these mega-stacks every week, but once in a while it's a great change of pace.

Making a mega-stack amenable to crossword integration is hard enough in itself — coming up with three (or in this case, four = way harder) grid-spanners which work well enough together to produce clean crossings is very tough. I've tried my hand at it a few times now, just to see how difficult it is, and it's... well, difficult. Every time I think I have something in place, one single crossing will jut out with a strange letter pattern. When I eventually publish a famous book, the main character's name is going to be TKLED.

One aspect I appreciate about MAS's work is that these days, he pushes the envelope past "only" triple and quad stacks. The earliest of the triple-stacks tended to be extremely focused, in that besides the stack(s), there wasn't much else to spruce up the grid. Here's an example from the early days, by... any guesses? Note the differences between this one and today's. Night and day when it comes to the long fill outside the stacks. I really appreciate how MAS integrates MOLTEN LAVA and KITTEN CHOW straight through the quad-stack, and then tosses in LET IT BLEED, LAST HURRAH, ENTRANCE FEES, COAST TO COAST on the periphery. Snappy stuff.

In terms of the usual glue holding together a mega-stack, today's offering is pretty good. A RING is the awkward five-letter partial that jumped out at me, but it's impressive how clean the rest of the crossings are. Well done! So important to choose the right grid-spanners. Speaking of that...

Glad that MAS commented on A TEENAGER IN LOVE already so I don't have to. I've gone back and listened to the song a few times now, and its excessive use in triple stacks... well, I need not say any more. It sure has a nice pattern of semi-alternating consonant-vowel (repeat), so it's understandable. A heavy price to pay, especially since it's been the source of much derision (along with A LOT ON ONES PLATE), but one I thought was reasonable given how much goodness it allowed for.

My favorite clue was [Stream on the side of a mountain, perhaps] which I was convinced would be something esoteric like RILLET. Beautiful misdirection; a stream of MOLTEN LAVA, not water. And finally, one clue that I really liked and didn't want people to miss out on. A HOSTILE TAKEOVER indeed often results in changes across the board, but also often results in changes across the Board (of Directors). A witty double-meaning that tickled me.

– puzzle by Martin Ashwood-Smith

★ Loved this one; right in my personal wheelhouse. A pinch of culture, a dash of history, add some devilishly clever clues, finish it off with one of my personal heroes, BRUCE LEE, and you have a Jeff Chen special. I'd make a Kato / POW! joke here but that would be just too easy.

Brad, who is soon taking over the helm at the Chronicle of Higher Education's crossword, is as exacting and detailed with today's puzzle as ever. The construction itself is quite nice, with an artist I didn't know but should have, PAOLO VERONESE, straight across the middle. That's flanked by CAMEL CAVALRY, an awesome term in itself, and CAMERA TRIPOD, an already good entry made even better by the misdirectional [Stand for a photo]. I considered answers to the effect of STRIKE A POSE and PUT ON UGLY SWEATERS TO TAKE A FAMILY PHOTO AT JC PENNEY before getting it. Lovely that it didn't even need the telltale question mark, which would have given away some of the cleverness.

This type of arrangement, with central marquee answers (an 11-13-11 with two crossing 12's!), can often mean that the corners of the puzzle suffer. Not today. I absolutely love the NE corner, with the aforementioned BRUCE LEE next to BUGBEARS and SNEER AT. Reminds me of the way BRUCE LEE used to SNEER AT opponents before beating the living *@#$@#& out of them.

Once in a while, I tremble at Brad's byline, because I know there will be an entry or two that I don't know, or a piece of trivia that I just can't get without figuring out every cross. But today I really enjoyed working to pull out the pirate LAFITTE from my cobwebs, and actually being able to work out the beautiful LUCK BE A LADY from the clue. Sometimes the puzzle gets you, but today, I got the puzzle. Neat feeling.

There are few bits that I didn't care for, OREM and OTB always make me shrug, for example. But other that than, Brad keeps the grid amazingly clean. I wonder if people will gripe about FTLBS, but for me, I really liked it. Granted, I'm an engineer by education and it was a very common sight when I was practicing. And no one would ever write it out as "foot pounds" (we engineers like our efficiency). A rare example where I like the abbreviation much better than the full answer in a crossword grid.

Finally, [Group living at zero latitude?]. Beautiful. I knew something fishy was going on, what with the question mark, but what a clever repurposing of "latitude," nothing to do with geographic position but everything to do with level of strictness. Bravo!

– puzzle by Brad Wilber

What a fun theme, common words and phrases reimagined in Irish ways. ANGIOGRAM becomes ANGIE O'GRAM and WILLOW TREES becomes WILL O'TREES, for example. Neat that Joe found nine of these, most all of which amused me. Not often that a punny type theme works for me, but this one did it. I mean, JEAN O'TYPING, that's brilliant!

Joe does well with his layout, putting as much space between his themers as possible. Note the two themers in row three and the two themers in row nineteen. Anytime you can get two (shorter) theme entries into one row, that helps immensely.

Ah, the devilish constructions that are Sunday puzzles. Even going up to Will's maximum word count (140), 21x puzzles are almost never easy to put together. Long fill is not just a nicety but a requirement, given the specifications. I can understand that in some ways — it's awfully nice to get some long fill to spice up a grid — but boy does it make for a challenge. I liked PUT ER THERE and TOSS A SALAD quite a bit, but BIG IN JAPAN felt awfully arbitrary. I'm mixed on CLERKS TALE, which clearly is part of "Canterbury Tales," but I fear that opens up the floodgates for any of the 20+ tales.

Although I bet there's a hilarious joke if you smash up THE NUNS PRIESTS TALE and THE MAN OF LAWS TALE. A nun, a priest, and a lawyer walk into a ye olde alehouse...

Check out where WEINSTEIN sits below ANGIEOGRAM. Because of the word count maximum, long bits need to be incorporated in many places. I do like the wide-open look this subsection has. The INRI / EGAN / CESTA pileup did feel a little inelegant though. A tough trade-off; a very difficult task to place an entry as long as WEINSTEIN right in between two theme entries (same goes for the symmetrical spot, with the unknown to me PAPER LACE and the SAREE variant). An almost surefire way to create high constraints.

Sometimes I wonder if opening up the maximum of 140 to 144 (which is what Rich Norris allows at the LAT and Patti Varol allows at the Crosswords Club) might be useful. I do love me some long fill, but I also value smoothness of solve. I hate to admit how irked I get at little bits, but struggling for minutes and then revealing TOPEE / SCREED wasn't very satisfying.

So although I struggled a bit with the fill, I really enjoyed the theme. A clever interpretation of in-the-language phrases with amusing results.

– puzzle by Joe DiPietro

Fun theme, five colloquial phrases loosely related to phones. DIAL IT DOWN, OFF THE HOOK, and PHONE IT IN, those are some snappy entries. Excellent material.

Michael gives us quite an ambitious grid, especially for a Monday puzzle. Not only does he give us five themers, all relatively long, but integrates SIX long downs, two pairs which are both adjacent to each other. I was really impressed by each of the six, ICE BRIDGE and SYMBIOSIS being really nice, and TATER TOTS easily my favorite. I don't see them around nearly as much these days, but TATER TOTS were a staple of my school lunches way back when. Nice to have good feelings evoked by a crossword.

This type of parallel down structure has its drawbacks, though. Let's take a look at ICE BRIDGE and COLOSSEUM. As with any sort of stack (as typical in themelesses), the crossings inevitably become difficult because of all the constraints. Here, RING A BELL and WHAT IS THE HANG UP already constrain this pair of long downs, so choice is restricted. And once you settle into a pair you like, there are often trouble spots with the crossing answers. Specifically, the ?RS? pattern has very few "good" entries to fit, OR SO or URSA being the only ones I'd personally be happy with. It's tough to avoid these types of issues with any stack of longer answers.

I would say that ORSK and KYL are a bit iffy in themselves. And when taken together, and in a Monday puzzle, are not my ideal. Nice to learn a thing or two from a crossword, but this little area felt a bit too much like work, for my taste. I'll note that my philosophy is shifting, in that I don't think Mon NYT puzzles should be accessible to ALL people. I do think that there's a balance though, and having ORSK and KYL in one little section could be a real turn-off for someone considering tackling the NYT crossword.

I did appreciate that Michael took care throughout the rest of the puzzle though. The opposite corner for example, is amazingly smooth for all the constraints. It's a small miracle anytime you can pull off a double-stack as good as CHINA SHOP and TATER TOTS with only a very minor price of UNES.

I liked the innovation in the theme. It's not often that we see a crossword that can't easily be classified into a theme type. I like the ones that stretch our ability to categorize. I think I would have loved it if the five themers cohered a little bit better, i.e. they all ended with parts of a phone or something, and if WHAT IS THE HANG UP had felt not as wonky. I wanted WHATS THE HOLD UP, especially given the clue, and I'm mixed on whether WHAT IS THE HANG UP is "in the language."

Overall, nice to see the boundaries for a Monday puzzle pushed. A little strained at points, but worth it to me.

– puzzle by Michael Hawkins

Nice example of a "hidden word" type theme, COST broken across four different themers, with HIDDEN COST as a revealer. As a finance guy, I like HIDDEN COSTs, specifically digging through documents to uncover where salesmen are messing around with you, spending hours poring over details so you don't get taken advantage of.

Apparently, I'm getting weirder (as if that were possible). The things I like to do...

I appreciate how Pete took care to be uber-consistent, breaking COST in the middle each time (CO/ST) and keeping each phrase to two words. Textbook consistency; keeps the puzzle elegant. This is especially important when a theme is of a standard type, and thus isn't allowed as much wiggle-room by solvers.

I'm going to have to name the antagonist in my next book PECOS TIM though. Man, I cracked up reading Pete's comment about that.

I also enjoyed the snappiness of the themers. TACO STANDS are some of my favorite places to eat, and although I didn't know BRONCO STADIUM specifically, Boise State is one of the few college football teams I know a little about because of their propensity to deploy trick plays. Hard not to love a team that dares to run the Statue of Liberty play at a critical moment.

I did appreciate the bits of long fill, DUCK BILL being my favorite (I'm a big fan of the platypus and its cousin, the Psyduck), but the overall fill did have a slightly older-school feel to it. It made a lot more sense after I read Pete's comments about how long this puzzle took to get published. I doubt Pete would let by so much CES, SRA, CRO, IGO, APO, ESO kind of stuff these days.

Off to start writing the Ballad of Pecos Tim!

– puzzle by Peter A. Collins

Double homonyms today, both halves of phrases (or words) transmogrified into something wacky. PLAIN WRAPPER becomes PLANE RAPPER, BAND LEADER into BANNED LIEDER, etc. Whoo, was it a toughie for me, causing me slight panic toward the end at possibly not finishing a Wednesday NYT puzzle for the first time in years. What a feeling of relief to finally uncover PLANE RAPPER!

Matt Ginsberg had a puzzle along these lines a while back, and I struggled mightily with that one as well. It's odd — so many theme types snap into place naturally to me, add-a-letter or sound change ones requiring not a lot of thought to work out. But the double homonym, whew! I'm curious if others have the same mental block (and to figure out why).

Loved the longer fill Mike worked into the grid. Check out GIRLS DORM, HONEYBEE, RIP TIDES, TV VIEWERS, RED SCARE, BREATHER, all running in the vertical direction, all really nice stuff. But Mike kicks it up a notch, nosing in an INDY CAR and some CASABAS in the across direction. A huge slice of goodness to spice up his grid.

I often worry when there are more than six pieces of long fill, because this introduces so many constraints that a grid gets difficult to fill cleanly. It's a tough trade-off — you want to give the solver extra juice, but you also don't want him/her to notice an excess of glue-y short entries. I wasn't wild about some of the trade-offs today, the southeast chunk in particular. I like a BUONA flair here and there, but not when it's compounded with the odd ABOIL and SHU and SASES. Granted, BREATHER and CASABAS are both great entries, but their price of inclusion felt high. I wonder if adding a cheater square at the S of CASABAS might have helped?

And I loved seeing Sergey Brin's name in there — he and Larry Page were just a few years behind me in undergrad (look where they are now, look where I am now... hmm.). But wow, did I get tripped up at the ARMCO / ACS crossing. I like to think my knowledge of corporations is pretty good, but ARMCO makes me think otherwise.

Tough trade-offs, always. Anyway, a tough workout, good for keeping the mind both sharp and flexible.

– puzzle by Mike Buckley

Nice theme today, a literal interpretation of phrases with the word "after" in them. The morning after pill becomes literally PILL MORNING, one thing after another becomes ANOTHER ONE THING, etc. At first I wondered what these four had in common — there have to be hundreds of "X after Y" phrases out there. But sometimes you just have to turn off your constructor's brain and enjoy the ride. I mean, I BEFORE E EXCEPT AFTER C transmogrified into the crazy looking CIBEFOREEEXCEPT, plus a great clue for it? Excellent.

Unusual placement of themers today, but Adam makes it work pretty well. Typically it's best to spread out themers as much as possible, as having two rows in between themers is much better than one (three is even better, but that usually isn't possible unless you only have three themers). Note how all four of them are crammed together toward the middle, only a single space between adjacent ones. I do like how it presents all the meat in a group, sort of concentrating all your best material into one fell swoop. But it does create some difficulties.

Check out the west and east sections. When you have two grid-spanners so close to each other like this, the west and east sections will be often be constrained enough to cause difficulty. Adam does well to get by with just PARC and RTE. Not shabby at all. I wonder though, if those two glue-y entries could have been reduced by spreading those themers apart, perhaps even switching things so the grid-spanners were in rows 3 and 13. I realize this may come off as nit-picky to some, but in today's world of rapidly increasing crossword quality, I believe many solvers are expecting more and more smoothness from their puzzle.

A huge number of really good clues today, enough that I slowed down my pace to enjoy. [Twenty-one words] for HIT ME (blackjack-related clue), [Starbuck's orderer] having nothing to do with the coffee chain but everything to do with the Moby-Dick characters, even [Make a long story short, perhaps] for EDIT and you have a lot of nice material concentrated up top. I really enjoyed that. And then saving the best for (almost) last, [One acting on impulse?] for AXON — that's the way to make your clues work for you.

So even though I would have liked the themers to be more specific, tying together better somehow, much of the rest of the puzzle stepped up its game to produce a very enjoyable experience for me.

– puzzle by Adam G. Perl

What a cool swath of Z's in today's puzzle (highlighted below). Sometimes I get the feeling a constructor is attempting something for its own technical challenge, producing a product that is much more interesting to other constructors than to all the solvers out there. But today, I really liked the stunt, David's bonus of eight Z's grouped toward the center &mdash in a Z(ish) shaped grid! It can be hard to make a themeless stand out from the pack, and I like what he's done here. Would have been perfect if the Z's had been in the exact middle of the grid, but oh well.

A nice construction today, especially given the extreme challenge. A 62-word themeless is no small feat, only a few having achieved it in the NYT modern era. After reviewing a lot of the puzzles on that list, I get the feeling that in the past, the feat was so unprecedented that quite a bit of ugly stuff was allowed to pass, entries with excessive S's and made-up sounding words with -ER endings. Glad that things are changing, Will publishing something like today's puzzle no longer for the stunt in itself, but demanding a higher quality of fill in order to pass the bar.

So much for my 58-word themeless including the words CLOGGERS and PULLERERS.

And a specific shout-out to my main man, Norm MINETA, after whom the San Jose International Airport is named. Whoop whoop! Not often that we get high(-ish) profile Asian role models in the world, so I'm super glad to see this ex-U.S. representative and former cabinet member get his due. For those of you wincing at a name you think isn't gridworthy, maybe it's time to learn a little something.

That isn't to say the fill was perfect, of course. PERF is kind of an ungainly bit to have at the top of the grid; STLO and PRENAMES are not any constructor's first choices. And hoo boy, did I have trouble at the MONTERO / TONTINE / GAZZARA / FOOZLER section. Pretty sure I'm not a fan of TONTINE, as it has an ADIT or ETUI type feel to it, but FOOZLER... I think I might love that word. Still undecided. I'll try it out for a while and see if it sticks.

Some beautiful clues today, [It's a long shot] excellently repurposing "long shot" for HOMER. And the mechanical engineer in me absolutely loved [Make less attractive?] for DEGAUSS. Not sure if screens still require degaussing these days, but that clue is no foozler.

Super tough construction today, with a high level of success, at least for this solver.

– puzzle by David Steinberg

★ Ah, I love seeing Peter Wentz's name on a crossword byline. He has a great sense for what's colorful in a grid — a difficult concept for many constructors to develop. Almost all of his themeless puzzles manage to work in a snazzy set of entries, and some of them are as close to my perfect ideal as I've seen. This one from 2012 is on my personal list of all-time favorites.

I really appreciate how Peter isn't okay with resting on his laurels, but instead pushes his envelope. The best part of XWord Info for me is corresponding with all the constructors, and I absolutely love when someone comments about striving for growth. Even better is when that impulse is spurred on by the desire to give the solver a better quality product. So seeing Peter's notes about trying for four quality "seed" entries did it for me.

This grid has its minor flaws, the SNO / FRA / ESL kind of stuff (TEC doesn't bug me at all), but look at the goodness that it allows for. The center in itself is fantastic, NOODLED AROUND being such a fun, colloquial phrase. Thirteen letter entries are often very difficult to incorporate in both themed and themeless puzzles, so it's neat to get this treat. Having it sandwiched by THE WHO SELL OUT and JIMMY SWAGGART was both fun and a funny juxtaposition. JIMMY SWAGGART NOODLED AROUND... I need say no more.

Grids with 13-13-13 (or similar) middle arrangements can be a little dry, as that can stop up many puzzles with the heavy constraints. Peter deploys his black squares wisely though, isolating the SW and NE corners so they can be filled with strong stuff, same goes for the NW and SE. Segmenting one's grid to work with subsections often makes filling much easier.

Oh yeah — there was THE WOMB. I didn't care at all for that entry, which opens the door for just about any THE ___ entry, i.e. THE BOOK, THE PEAR, THE DOOR. I'm a big fan of entries that can stand by themselves like THE STAND (Stephen King's book), but I'd prefer to show THE WOMB THE DOOR.

Finally, two clues I loved. [Round stopper, for short] had me thinking about bathtub plugs, the ace of clubs (defensive "stoppers" are very important in contract bridge no trump contracts), even food items that stop you up. Ahem. I've said too much. Great misdirection from the real answer... a boxing round. And [Merrie Melodies sheepdog] may seem like a pedestrian clue to many , but for me it brought back fond memories of Sam and Ralph, the sheepdog and coyote, clocking in and out of their "day jobs."

Very nice work today. G'night, SAM. G'night, Ralph.

– puzzle by Peter Wentz

Today we get TV shows with one word homophonically changed, thus CHANGE OF PROGRAM. I liked the fact that Dan chose a wide variety of shows from all walks of life. A soap opera, a sci-fi, a sitcom, a drama — something for everyone. Except CHAMPIONSHIP BRIDGE with Groucho Marx, that is. Harrumph.

Dan does a really nice job with his spacing today. Note how little overlap there is between most themers? At least two rows between, ideal for a 21x. The closest he gets in the vertical direction is some overlap between DAZE OF OUR LIVES and THE EX FILES, but that's only a mere three letters.

So why doesn't every Sunday constructor do that? The way Dan manages it is that he puts two themers running down, TWIN PEEKS crossing DAZE OF OUR LIVES (and MIAMI VISE crossing AWL IN THE FAMILY). This type of interlock isn't always possible, especially given that many puzzles don't allow a lot of flexibility in choosing a theme set. It's fortuitous here, because it allows him to work in nine meaty answers but still retain great spacing. Very nice job in layout.

The one drawback is that I'd expect those areas with crossed themers to be the roughest places to fill. Any time you cross entries like that, you introduce an extra set of constraints into a grid skeleton. And for me as a solver, I had a difficult time in the NE. The partial A WAVE isn't bad in itself, especially given a surfing-related clue (I love to surf (badly) when I can). But surrounded by RVER and I NEED (sorry LL Cool J, even you can't save that) and GELEE made for a rough patch to complete.

All in all, I think it was worth it, in that the rest of the puzzle came pretty smoothly to me. An ACU here, a ST LO there, that's certainly a passable level of glue. Made for a relatively hiccupless solve. Nice.

Overall, the straightforward homonym theme will likely appeal to a big chunk of Will's solving community. It was a little too straightforward for my personal taste, but I often remind myself that while I tend to like complex, meaty themes, a (great?) majority of Will's audience prefers simpler puzzles. And while I personally love a heavy dose of twisty wordplay clues, there are many solvers out there who like puzzles with less playful cluing. I often have to remind myself that I'm NOT representative of the majority of the NYT's solving audience.

Finally, when you make a silly mistake by putting in SECTS SIN THE CITY (now THERE'S a show I would watch!) it's hard not to smile.

– puzzle by Dan Schoenholz

Debut! I really appreciated the novel theme today, one I wouldn't usually expect from a Monday puzzle. After solving, I had to reread the theme clues to figure out what was going on. "Hip-hop" song had nothing to do with the hip-hop genre, but referred to a WHITE RABBIT which actually hip-hops. Fun! Same went for "Rap" song leading to KNOCK ON WOOD. Rap = knock, get it? I really liked the innovation; well done Dan!

With many debut authors, we tend to get pretty straightforward constructions, with few to no longer fill entries. Not today! Dan could have easily broken up UNBROKEN or iced ICED TEA so kudos for making my Monday solve snazzier than expected. I really liked IT IS SAID and even REDCAPS — so much good stuff packed in!

It didn't come totally without a price, but the glue entries were manageable. I personally dislike partials, only random Roman numerals being worse for me. Totally a personal preference (note though that Rich Norris over at the LAT has changed his standards to a max of two partials in a 15x grid). So seeing AT ME next to IT NO wasn't great. And OLA always feels a bit wonky to me, as does the shouldn't-be-gridworthy Robert ILER. LET UP crossing SUN UP was a little inelegant, too. Some compromises, but all in all, well worth it to get so much good long fill.

Let's take a peek at the NE and SW corners, 6x3 chunks. Typically we see constructors working with 5x3 or 4x3 chunks in those areas, because they're much easier to fill. So why might Dan give himself this challenge? Well, a puzzle with four 11-letter themers must often call upon this difficult layout. Here's why: Dan spaces his themers perfectly, allowing two or three rows in between adjacent ones. But if that block of three black squares (under the OOD of KNOCK ON WOOD) was shifted to above the OOD, that NE corner would be almost sectioned off from the rest of the puzzle. A 4x3 chunk, quasi-isolated is no good, choking off a solver's feng shui. So although harder to work with, this 6x3 arrangement is much better from a grid flow standpoint.

And I appreciate that Dan took the time and care to make those big corners smooth. There's really nothing objectionable in either NE or SW, and he even gives us MACAWS in the SW. Very nice, professionally done.

Looking forward to more from Dan!

– puzzle by Dan Margolis

"Both words can follow X" type theme today. Impressive that James manages to fit seven themers into one grid. For a theme type that's heading toward being overdone, it's important to stretch for something extra, so it's great that James took the extra step.

For a long time, "word that can follow X" themes were commonplace, but they've fallen out of favor as crosswords have evolved. "Both words can follow X" were the new innovation to keep the idea fresh, but as with all art forms, crosswords must evolve or risk getting stale.

James does really well to pick in-the-language phrases. Sometimes with this type of theme, the entries sound forced… because they are. Luckily, there are so many words that can follow BOOK that it gives James the flexibility to come up with several good entries. OPEN SOURCE is a nice, modern term (I wasn't sure if SOURCE BOOK was an actual thing, but Google says yes), and FLIP PHONEs are coming back. Retro. Chic. Everyone's soon going to be envious of my Motorola Razr. Just wait, you'll see.

With seven themers, there are bound to be strains on the grid, but James manages to keep things relatively clean. Using a modified pinwheel arrangement (and stuffing two themers each into the NE and SW corners) keeps all the themers largely separated, allowing for more flexibility. The stacked themers are pretty nice in the NE, only A DOG and SLO to slow things down. That's nice work given the heavy constraints up there.

The SW doesn't come out quite as nice, with OON sandwiched between MATCHPLAY and SCHOOLWORK. Most times when you have two themers directly atop one another like this, it's hard to escape with 100% cleanliness. A NOSE and SKAT along with RTS is not ideal. I wonder if moving some black squares down there would have helped — the 3/6/4 word lengths in rows 14/15 add to that south region's difficult level. Perhaps flip-flopping black squares to create 4/5/4 word lengths would have made for cleaner fill.

Overall though, I appreciated the effort to stretch the boundaries of a well-known theme type. And for such heavy constraints, James did a nice job selecting strong themers and wrangling the fill. I was especially happy to see MASSE (a billiards trick shot where you curve the cue ball's path through spin) and its fun clue, given that I used to play four hours of pool a day in college. What can I say, applying English was a lot more fun than studying English.

– puzzle by James Tuttle

★ A really nice change of pace today, a hugely ambitious grid that delivered a quality solving experience for me. A collection of "adjective as an animal" similes, Tim not only packs in seven strong ones, but does so in a 72-word grid that gives us additional long fill and mostly clean short fill. Quite a fun experience for me, both to solve and to admire as a constructor.

It's easy as a constructor to fall back upon standard methodology in grid design (or even just use grids out of a grid library), so I really like seeing constructors push boundaries. I'm not sure I would have ever come up with the same grid design as Tim, especially considering how he carefully packed everything in. Some crossings will be natural given the simple theme — themers crossed through part of the "AS A" is a natural way to do that — but look how Tim crosses FAT AS A COW and BALD AS A COOT and SLY AS A FOX. Very cool.

And with seven themers, it's altogether too easy to call it good once you can fit them all in. So I really like the extra step, squeezing in BASS ALE over LOCAL PUB and TRASHBIN and ART DECO, all nice answers. As I go back and study this grid, I still have a hard time wrapping my head around how Tim managed to get everything so tightly packed. It's a Tetris-like solution.

There are blips here and there, not surprising due to the level-ridiculous constraints. BIG AS A WHALE overlapping BUSY AS A BEE is naturally going to be problematic, for instance. The ?HS?? pattern is not particularly friendly, so the OH SAY partial is one of the only options there. Our crossword monkey friend ABU shows up too, but that's an impressively low number of glue entries. Tim's work in the west section is remarkably clean, only UGA raising an eyebrow, at least until I remembered how cutely ugly the UGA bulldog mascot is.

Not a mind-blowing theme, but a great example of how to pull something off with panache.

– puzzle by Tim Croce