Jennifer Nutt author page

This week, XWord Info hosts a pilot series called Next Level Constructor! (I've been bingeing Next Level Chef, which is ironic considering my lunch bowls are indistinguishable from our compost bin.) Seven contestants strive to earn the title of Next Level Constructor by taking a tired, trodden-upon theme type and working magic to elevate it into the heavens. Who will win? Stay tuned all week, and we'll announce the winner on Sunday!

Today's contestant drew "homophones," one of the most dreaded categories, as old as meatloaf with boiled vegetables, usually so lacking in flavor that it has to be doused with ketchup. Let's see what Jennifer has served up. TIED and TIDE, WAIVE and WAVE, CURRANT and CURRENT, EDDIE and EDDY. All common homophone pairs ... reaching for the bottle of Heinz …

Wait. SHELL in the center … with a brilliant clue! Ingenious way to play on sounds by focusing on an object commonly associated with sound. Excellent way to bring together TIDE, WAVE, CURRENT, EDDY, all elements of a seascape — a concept that holds steady against the pull of the tide. Yes, one could argue that only a WAVE can be heard in a SHELL, but I'm still awarding points for the creative link between sea sounds and word sounds.

The presentation of the theme was solid, but a central short themer leaves potential for improvement. Why give away the entire conceit halfway through when you could tuck SHELL into a bottom corner to build and amplify the revealer's impact? That could have made this outstanding, as would have artistic plating that evoked a SHELL.

A solid start to Next Level Constructor week!

That's a wrap! Literally, TAPE, SCISSORS, BOX, PAPER wrapping up a GIFT. My wife grew up with carefully wrapped presents, so we had some discussions early on about my preferred style. Some might call "roll GIFT in old newspaper" lazy — I call it eco-conscious.

Now that Jill has come to terms with all the waste, our holiday prep would make for a much different crossword: BOX, HIDE, CODE, BAFFLE. Ah, the precious looks of confusion/frustration / anger on our kids' faces after nine hours of breaking ciphers to find their presents!

Hey, who put coal in my stocking?

Speaking of coal, CLAUS gets dinged by some editors because it's hard to clue with anything but [Santa ___]. Well done today, spotlighting Mrs. CLAUS. We all know who really makes things happen, and it's not jolly old saint SLACKER.

I appreciated the color in Jennifer's themer choices. Although they didn't disguise the concept much — SCISSORS KICK can't help but evoke a pair of SCISSORS — they're almost all phrases I'd gladly see in a themeless puzzle. Even BOX SEAT shines.

Some of the bonuses are even snazzier — hard to argue with SKYROCKET! One-word entries are often less interesting than multi-worders, but EXECRABLE is hardly execrable. You only have to speak the word to get a sense for its meaning.

I want more smoothness in my Monday solve. IT WAS twas a long partial, ENIAC is a toughie from days of yore, ORANG … throw in some AMOR ASSN OTT, and it's too high a price for all the nice bonuses. Perhaps hiding GIFT at 59-Down (crossing BOWSTRING) could have helped.

Fun idea to kick off the holiday week. Wrap it up, I'll take it!

Jennifer is right; babies are cute. Once you get past the interrupted sleep. And the poop. And so much crying. Then there's the baby's crying, too. Did I mention the poop?

Let's call it cute-ish.

In all seriousness, I was on my way to a "huh, another WALK to RUN movement progression" reaction when I hit BABY STEPS. Squee! Thankfully, the many highlights of raising a kid — the first time they roll over, the tentative teetering steps, the mixture of elation and fear when they become mobile — make it all worth it. Mostly.

I don't know that this puzzle will have as much of an impact on people who haven't gone through parenthood since observing this highs-and-lows process from the outside is much different than living it. Even so, all solvers can appreciate the step-wise (ha) progression.

One aspect you might not have noticed is the unusual themer placements. It's usually best to alternate far left / far right for proper spacing, but the way Jennifer arranged her phrases is perfect for today's theme — look at the beautifully stair-like appearance of ROLL to SIT to CRAWL to STAND to WALK. It's an elegant touch, and better yet, one that Jennifer made work without severe compromises. ELEC is a direct result of it, but that's acceptable for such a pleasing overall visual.

I did wonder if the aggregation of ASSORT, DAMASK, SACHETS might be a turn-off to newer solvers, but it's reasonable to expect solvers to at least have heard of these words.

It's unusual for a six-themer Monday puzzle to work so well, especially given their unusual layout. A fun start to the week — at least for those parent-solvers who aren't still traumatized by those tough early years. (Check back with me in 2021.)

What a great story, PLINY THE ELDER looking up at erupting MOUNT VESUVIUS, saying FORTUNE / FAVORS / THE BOLD.

That didn't end well.

Or did it? Is it better to be dead, or remembered? PtE will stick in my head from here on out, wondering where the line between bravery and foolishness lies.

The puzzle felt thin, although upon second look, 13 + 13 + 7 + 6 + 7 = 46 theme squares isn't terrible. It's on the low side, but passable.

It might seem that this low theme density would allow Jennifer to inject a lava flow of bonuses into her grid, but having to break up FORTUNE / FAVORS / THE BOLD makes it a tougher task. See how FORTUNE interacts with MOUNT, and THE BOLD with THE ELDER? Those sorts of constraints cut down the potential for added bonuses. Still, with ANIMATRONS, TUNA BURGER, ERASERHEAD, it's a decent result.

AFORE was the only nail sticking out. A shame, since the rest of the puzzle was solid. I bet compressing FORTUNE / FAVORS / THE BOLD — putting them in rows 7, 8, 9 — would have helped smooth things out. This would also have given the quote a better feeling of connectivity, each piece touching the next.

I enjoyed this one much more than typical quote or memorial puzzle (it's the 1940^th anniversary of PtE's death?). I've always been interested in myths, tales, the more ancient the better. If there had been more of a full story told — like Jennifer hinted at, dying in a noble attempt to save his friend! — I'd have given this some POW! consideration.

Lovely gridwork. I had a funny feeling something was going on, what with so many Xs popping up during my solve. An even funnier feeling made me worry that these Xs would force an inelegant grid, glopped together with dribs of crossword glue.

Not so! Such a pleasure to get only a bit of ANO STD. Not a lot of bonuses in just FUSHCIAS and YARDLINE, but for a tricky construction involving five Xs, I'd much rather get a clean 78-word grid than an audacious one showing its strain.

That last paragraph goes to the heart of one of the biggest differences between Jim and me (Jim and a great majority of solvers, probably). As a constructor, I value the technical merits of a puzzle as much as the theme, if not more so. Even if a theme doesn't catch my attention, I enjoy studying the craftsmanship. There's almost always something to appreciate there.

Can you tell I used to love "This Old House"?

It's a fun theme, connecting the Xs to form the constellation CASSIOPEIA. I thought Jennifer did a nice job of replicating the pattern as seen in the night sky. However, my long memory quickly recalled a brilliant BIG DIPPER puzzle, with a much more familiar image. I vaguely knew CASSIOPEIA was a constellation, but as to what it looks like ... good thing we have Wikipedia!

The theme didn't hit me that strongly, especially since we just had the other BIG DIPPER puzzle Jennifer mentioned. But I appreciated the stellar (ha) execution.

Let's see Jim top that astronomical pun!

I enjoy seeing how different constructors approach a similar idea, appreciating how the same seed of an idea sprouts into two different grids. I did this same concept for CrosSynergy back in 2015. It wasn't a surprise to me that Jennifer used mostly the same themers — I remember the search space not being very big, and only a select few phrases being snazzy, like LIQUOR CABINET.

I liked Jennifer's revealer, KILLER WHALE, better than my oblique one (a POD of orcas). I used POD because I wanted to prioritize smooth and colorful fill rather than pack in too many themers, at the risk of straining the grid. But KILLER WHALE is a more direct revealer, making the concept very apparent, a good thing in general for newer Monday solvers.

Jennifer packed in a whole lot more themers than me, and still managed to make the grid colorful. MS DEGREE, CODEWORDS, RACETRACK crossing DERBY — that's a lot of great bonuses, especially considering that it's hard to work in ANY bonuses when you have six themers to work around.

She did have to pay some prices, though. The top of the grid was so smooth, but then I hit NGO (non-governmental organization). I've wondered if educated solvers should be expected to know this? And then the bottom of the grid suffered more, with ALEE, AGUE, and BIER.

These weren't surprising to me — look how many answers have to work through that white space between LIQUOR CABINET and KILLER WHALE, after all. But BIER or AGUE alone might be a turn-off for some newer solvers, reinforcing the idea that you need to know weird trivia to do crosswords.

All in all, I liked Jennifer's execution. I think I would have given it the POW! if those pesky gluey bits had been cleaned up, even if that came at the price of one of the themers, or some of the juicy bonus entries. I know I'm awfully tough on Monday crosswords, but it's so important for them to be welcoming to newer solvers.

I NAILED IT is a great phrase, lively and colorful. Here, it's loosely interpreted to describe the process of manicuring one's nails: CLIP, FILE, BUFF, SHINE, POLISH. At first I thought it was a "words that can follow X" type theme, since my manicure process involves just CLIP (wouldn't that be quite the boring two-entry theme!). Took me a second glance to see that a full process was happening here. Much more interesting!

Impressive to pack six themers into a Monday puzzle. It's usually difficult to place two themers over each other, as with VIDEO CLIP and CIRCULAR FILE, instead of staggering them left to right. So many down answers run down through both VIDEO CLIP and CIRCULAR FILE! There is some flexibility, as VIDEO CLIP could just have easily been AUDIO CLIP, MONEY CLIP, MOVIE CLIP, etc. — I wonder if one of those could have made for a smoother start than OBI ALAR PRIER SEP in that corner.

Still, given that the BUFF and SHINE and POLISH steps are necessary in the manicuring process (there's really a difference? he asked semi-facetiously), the fact that there are six themers will nearly always force some of those gluey bits. I was bracing myself for more to rear their heads after that start, but the rest of the puzzle is quite well executed. Very smooth; much appreciated.

I wasn't convinced that SOCIAL POLISH and TRAIN BUFF are in the language (less than 50K Google hits each), but they are self-explanatory. Easy enough to grok, even for Monday solvers (and I'm sure there will be some people wearing engineer hats blowing their train whistles in celebration).

Overall, the revealer didn't quite work for me, as it's a bit too oblique a connection between NAILS and NAILED IT, but it is a fun repurposing of language. And working in BABYLON and its Hanging Gardens is a nice addition to an already theme-packed puzzle.