Emanuel Ax author page
1 puzzle by Emanuel Ax
with Jeff Chen comments
See the 3 answer words debuted by Emanuel Ax.
| S | L | A | W | J | A | N | U | S | A | Q | U | A | ||
| T | E | C | H | A | B | O | V | E | R | U | N | S | ||
| E | R | E | I | K | E | R | R | I | M | A | T | T | ||
| M | O | N | S | T | E | R | M | A | S | H | K | O | I | |
| S | I | T | K | A | D | A | Y | M | A | R | E | |||
| E | D | G | E | R | S | U | R | F | S | |||||
| P | L | A | Y | A | R | E | A | M | A | N | G | I | A | |
| R | O | N | S | E | N | E | A | N | N | U | L | S | ||
| E | K | E | O | U | T | L | I | E | N | E | E | |||
| V | I | C | U | N | A | A | P | R | ||||||
| D | R | A | G | S | H | O | W | S | H | I | A | |||
| N | E | O | S | A | W | E | D | I | N | H | A | L | F | |
| O | A | T | S | R | E | N | O | C | I | L | I | A | ||
| T | S | A | R | B | A | R | R | A | G | L | E | T | ||
| E | E | L | S | O | T | I | S | R | H | O | D | E |
Love, love, love that Emanuel Ax and Brad teamed up to make a crossword related so closely to their lives! Visuals in crosswords can be so much fun — the musical eighth note made of black squares delighted me. It has been done before (Liz is a violist!), but it's still neat.
"Words that can follow X" puzzles have fallen by the wayside, so if you're going to go down that well-worn road, I think it's important to do something above and beyond. The musical note visual helped in that regard.
Having NOTE as a revealer (SOUR NOTE, MASH NOTE, HIGH NOTE, HALF NOTE) was a let-down though. I like to work a little for my a-ha moment, especially in a mid-week puzzle — no spoon-feeding! I'm not sure what would have been better, but something like HINT clued with a reference to the musical note?
I loved QUAKER GUN, what an evocative term! DAYMARE too. GRETA GARBO, MANGIA (Italian for "eat!"), ANECDOTAL, even PLAY AREA clued cheekily toward Ax's profession = so much great bonus fill! Almost felt like a themeless puzzle in that regard.
Prices to pay for these goodies, though. I don't mind a little ENE RONS UNAS LEROI SASE; generally minor and forgettable. But the upper left and lower right corners ended up giving the puzzle a rough-around-the-edges feel. It is difficult to fill around crossing themers — the starts of WHISKEY SOUR and MONSTER MASH combine to create inflexibility up in the NW — but A CENT + ERE I + LE ROI makes for an inelegant start to the puzzle.
Same for the end — A FATE + N CAR + the tough HALLO and AGLET…
(I usually would employ cheater squares (a black square at the R of RHODE or first A of AFATE to smooth these sections out). But some constructors much prefer a cleaner, more stark look to a puzzle.)
But overall, so neat that two musically-driven people came up with something so related to them.