Agnes Davidson author page

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Debut! Great to see C.C. work with so many new constructors.

Baseball theme, a BATTER, COACH, PITCHER, and a FAN making up BALLPARK FIGURES. I liked how they concealed those words by using different meanings, i.e. BATTER as a coating, not as a hitter. BEER BATTER was my favorite — a snazzy phrase, and one that threw me off the scent.

It would have been nice to get the revealer, BALLPARK FIGURES, at the very end, though. Right in the middle of the puzzle is a logical spot to place that entry, but that did give away the game halfway through my solve.

I usually prize consistency, and one form of consistency is having all plural or all singular themers. In this case, though, it felt odd with just a lone FAN. Perhaps this represents a Dodgers game. Hey-o! (Lifelong Giants fan here.)

Getting multiple FANS in could have been done with WINDOW FANS, but that phrase doesn't resonate as well for me. (Perhaps it's because my two-year-old has a strange fascination with CEILING FANs. Don't ask.)

Tough to build around five long themers. Looking at the layout of black squares before starting, I guessed that two of the roughest spots would be in the north and the south — those are areas where there's a lot of overlap between themers.

In the north, PATEK is tough, and I don't think Cheri OTERI has made a crossworthy mark yet. In the south … as much as I love Superman, I'm not sure it's fair to expect most novices to get the KALEL / LEA / TOILE crossings.

I did appreciate the effort to incorporate some long fill — RACHAEL RAY and ILL BE THERE are both nice additions. They make for some difficult filling challenges, since they both intersect two theme answers apiece, but the results are pretty good, especially in the lower left. Very smooth there.

I'm not sure the prices of INE / NATL / RHEAS / SCRAG (those last two are tough vocab for a Monday) are worth RACHAEL RAY, but I'm sure her fans will disagree.

Well-disguised theme plus a spot-on revealer makes for a nice Monday puzzle.