Bill Thompson author page

MIDDLE EAST interpreted as "phrases with EAST smack dab in their middles." Bill's elegantly chose themers which are both colorful and have EAST exactly in their centers. With so many phrases containing EAST in various places, that exact centering is a much-appreciated bonus.

Speaking of bonuses, kind of fun to have YEASTY and FEASTS. Normally I don't care for themers shorter than the surrounding fill (like FOUL TIP and IMPASSE), but having them in the center of the grid sort of fits with the theme. Thumbs up.

YAWP is an interesting word to kick off the puzzle. I personally think it's hilarious and love it, but I was surprised when Ben Tausig commented that it was probably his least favorite entry in one of my recent puzzles; an oddity. It's good to remember how much subjectivity there is in the crossworld.

With four long themers and two shorties, I appreciate how much thought Bill put into his grid. Not only does he work in some nice long fill in SUGAR PEA and SKILL SET, but he uses the 7-letter slots well, giving us FOUL TIP and PERSEUS. Best of all, the short stuff is relatively smooth and clean. I don't care for the forgettable DR. T role, and A FLY and FREI aren't great. But the latter two are necessitated by the bonus themers, YEASTY and FEASTS, so I think that's an okay trade-off.

At first I thought having ESTE, the Spanish word for EAST, was inelegant. But it's 1.) another trade-off for getting in those two bonus answers, and 2.) there's something kind of cool about where it's placed in the grid: in the east.

And a great piece of trivia about PACMAN, a game that can be played "perfectly." (This factors into "Ready Player One," one of my favorite reads in recent memory. Can't wait for the movie.)

All in all, some little trade-offs but all reasonable, given how much extra material it allowed Bill to work in. If "SHE Bangs" had been clued to the awesome William Hung "She Bangs" meme, I might just have given it the POW!

I'll admit, I was underwhelmed by this puzzle theme at first, thinking it was composed of straightforward M and M phrases. Not that I dislike those, but they usually leave me wanting more if the X and Y are common letters — the fact that so many phrases start with M and M made it feel too easy to pull off; not tight enough. But then it dawned on me that there's an additional layer to the puzzle: each of the five themers incorporates a vowel progression! That is cool.

And what snazzy theme answers, most of them I'd be happy to use in a themeless. A little MODEST MOUSE for the younger crowd, MUCKETY MUCK for us who like to say humorous swear-word sounds without actually swearing (tee hee!), and the weird looking MISS MISSISSIPPI. The entry MISS MISSISSIPPI, I mean, not the actual Miss Mississippi. I'm sure her mother thinks she's very pretty.

Bold decision to incorporate long across fill today. These 10-letter answers are shorter than all the theme answers, and they are both really nice. The bottom section is awfully hard to construct though, with MODEST MOUSE overlapping SERPENTINE which hovers above MUCKETY MUCK and below MISS MISSISSIPPI. See how that severely constrains the fill? It gives few options where AIMS FOR sits, which results in the unfortunate CAN OF partial. Now if CAN OF had been clued "___ whoop-ass" that might have been a different story for me.

But Bill otherwise does really well to navigate through that section, tossing in UP HERE and ENVY to complete the south in clean fashion. That's strong work. In the SE I'm not so sure about KYL. Yes, he was the Senate Minority Whip and one of Time's 100 Most Influential People in 2010, but is he crossworthy? Maybe, maybe not. And more importantly, is he worth the URI tradeoff? I say no, but that's a matter of opinion (Jon Kyl and the URI alums I just offended might disagree).

A bit distracting to have the M AND M entry in the grid (which led me to think it was a not-so-subtle revealer for a straightforward M AND M type puzzle) but I can overlook that. Overall, a neat idea to combine two theme types to form something new. That's hard to accomplish in this day and age of so many ideas having already been used.

And go URI Rams!