Kathy Wienberg author page

★ It's a pleasure to encounter a set of connections I'd never thought of before — especially when it involves items that are in my fridge. I have a full bottle of RANCH DRESSING and a container of COTTAGE CHEESE that have been sitting for a month because my kids thought they sounded delicious ... and then they spurned both after tasting a fraction of a molecule. Stupid marketers; so annoyingly successful.

I wasn't impressed by the first themer, since there's a picture of a log cabin on the bottle — so much for subtlety. Then, I realized that it wasn't just LOG CABIN SYRUP that was named to give it a rustic feel. The words RANCH and COTTAGE are also employed to get at their foods' humble beginnings.

And HOMEMADE MEALS is a great way to tie the three foods together, plus make it all work with crossword symmetry. Love it.

I wasn't as wild about the gridwork. Four 13s is no joke, as each one forces two black square placements. Almost any four-themer grid can be executed with some long Down bonuses and a completely clean grid, though.

I appreciate the effort to work in great bonuses like MIND MELD, HABANERA, STILETTO, but even a single crossing like ORU (Oral Roberts University) / HABANERA can leave newer solvers in a TAILSPIN.

Okay, that is a ton of bonuses. I prefer a cleaner product to serve the NYT's broad range of less-experienced solvers, but I can understand the opposing philosophical viewpoint.

Most importantly, an excellent theme is an excellent theme. I spent an hour trying to come up with a single other possible entry but failed miserably. (KOZY SHACK PUDDING was the closest I got.) That element of tightness made this theme stand out.

WONDER WOMAN / DIANA PRINCE + two iconic actors to play the role + DC COMICS, all fitting within crossword symmetry? Apparently, WONDER WOMAN's mom — Hippolyta of Greek mythology — and Crucivera, goddess of crosswords, are tight!

Although, WONDER WOMAN has so much lore that there's plenty of themer choices to draw from. Her invisible jet, lasso of truth, the Justice League … and DC COMICS feels weaker thematically than all of these. I may be tempting Crucivera's wrath, but —

(sound of an interrobang shaking the heavens)

I was a fan of the old show, but the GAL GADOT movie blew me away. So much more than a retelling of the same-old, same-old origin story, "Wonder Woman" (2017, I haven't seen the new 1984 yet) was unexpectedly funny. Humor was a big element of why the Avengers movies worked and why so many take-themselves-waaaaay-too-seriously. Superman remakes have been unwatchable.

I'd have loved some humor or wordplay in today's puzzle. A listing of WONDER WOMAN info does work, but how about playing on her invisible jet, with WW somehow invisible inside? A lasso of truth made out of black squares, used to turn F into T? A friend and I spent a bunch of time brainstorming ways to transform DIANA PRINCE through world-ladderish steps into WONDER WOMAN elegantly. No success yet, though. Maybe a Schrödinger?

Kathy's note about Utah blocks ... Utah blocks are five black squares, what she has today, without the panhandle extended. Those elongated chunks do look a bit funny — sort of a sideways set of single-quote marks — but they do help separate themers.

What might have been more effective: moving DC COMICS up one row, or even two. When your middle themer is an awkward length of 11 or 13, smashing three themers together in the middle often results in some compromise — in today's case, OCTAL. Along with other oddities like ALIENEE, ROUTEMEN, better spacing, plus breaking up the big corners, would have resulted in a more inviting Monday product.

Hard to argue with GAL GADOT, though. Her chemistry with Chris Pine was (sorry in advance) wonderful.

ATHLETIC CUP, amusingly interpreted as "major sporting events in the form of ___ CUP." I've followed sports less and less (as I've had to spend more and more time protecting myself from my toddlers trodding on my regions requiring ATHLETIC CUP protection), but all of these cups were somewhat familiar:

STANLEY CUP: Hockey. See how easy this is?!

DAVIS CUP: Uh. Maybe rugby? Golf? Snooker? Ha ha ha, just joking, of course I knew it was snooker! Er, tennis.

RYDER CUP: This one is tougher. The Ryder Cup is … polo? Tennis as well? What, golf, you say? Is the Ryder Cup the little white cylinder in the green that catches the golf ball? Ha ha ha, just joking again! Ahem.

WORLD CUP: We have French friends down the street, so their cheers from France winning the soccer title this year were oui oui tres bien!

Very cool that all these ___ CUP words can be so well disguised within phrases.

Being a middle grade book writer, FLAT STANLEY was a gimme. Pretty sure the general solving population won't have such an easy time as I did, but the crossings seem fair.

Well, there is GALENA. I suppose you could grumble if you put in FLAT STANDEY / GADENA. But then there's the theme … ah, right. No such thing as a STANDEY CUP. GALENA, what an oddball word (but so constructor-friendly with its vowel-consonant alternation!)

CROSSE, CRECHE, COULEES — should newer solvers know these? That's a tough call. At a minimum, I would have liked to see fewer of those in a Tuesday puzzle. Not super-welcoming for newbs.

Overall though, a solid theme, with well-disguised CUP types. Even looking back at them all, I'm still surprised that all those CUPs have hideable names. Great theme discovery.

I've seen plenty of anagram-themed puzzles — even made a few myself — but darn it if I haven't seen LYDIA as DAILY JUMBLE (the letters D A I L Y jumbled up). That's a great one!

Kathy's a fairly new constructor, but my goodness have her skills shot up. Her theme is consistent and orderly — themers 1, 3, 5 with the first word scrambled, and themers 2, 4 with the second word stirred. Most solvers probably won't notice this, but I sure did, and appreciated it.

And her construction skills! Most experienced constructors would shy away from a 11 / 9 / 15 / 9 / 11 theme set, for good reason. Notice how carefully Kathy deployed her black squares, separating her themers to good effect. Many constructors would have left more open space between MAD SCRAMBLE and STIR FRIED, and accepted some gluey bits. Not Kathy!

The drawback to deploying so many squares in the middle is relatively big NW / SE corners. They may not seem that hard, but they're of themeless-esque difficult to fill. I love DOGGY BAG worked into the precious long slot in the SE, along with the smooth results surrounding it. The NW wasn't quite as nice, since ENDING UP is more neutral and WEAL seems a bit weird, but it's still pretty good. No chalkboard-scratching entries, at least.

The one hiccup was in the middle, with RRR. Peter Gordon over at the Fireball told me recently it's one of the three-letter entries he would never use. I don't mind it myself, as I've seen it sometimes written down as RRR (maybe?), but I do have a lot of respect for his opinions.

Overall, super solid gridwork, especially considering the high theme density. The theme didn't catch me personally since I've seen so many crosswords like this before, but I can see how a solver just breaking into Wednesdays could deem this as POW!-worthy.

ADD TO CART is a modern phrase, fun to build a puzzle around. In this case, TEA cart, SHOPPING cart, GOLF cart, APPLE cart.

I like that it's a fairly tight theme — how many other ___ CART phrases can you think of? I got HAY cart and PUSH cart, but that's all. Elegant when a theme covers (almost) an entire set.

Not as elegant is the theme type in general. Most editors don't take "words that can follow X" themes anymore, because they've been done to death. Some new and amazing layer needs to be added to make a puzzle of this type stand out. As much as I like the phrase ADD TO CART, I don't think it's enough.

Kathy did a nice job of choosing snazzy themers though, TEA GARDEN (I loved traveling to Japan for work years ago!) and APPLE STRUDEL (constructors take note, I'm not above food bribes) my favorite. All solid.

As much as I enjoyed SOLAR PANEL and SEAPLANE, I wasn't sold on CAPRIs. Er, CAPRI PANTS. Not that this most unfashionable of folks would know, but aren't they just CAPRIs?

Also not so enjoyable: EBON ANON ETH TRA DST. None are impossible for a newbie to get, but it's a bit gloopy overall. I'm not sure that the UNAGI / GTOS crossing is fair, either. I'd be sympathetic to a newer solver grumbling about that. And newer solvers grumbling = no bueno.

Overall, I like the attempt to modernize an old theme type. Not totally successful, though.

Nice example of a standard theme type done well. Kathy adds AT to the ends of four themers, giving kooky results. MAMMOTH CAVE to MAMMOTH CAVEAT was amusing, as were most all of the transformations.

Sometimes people ask me to clarify what I mean by "consistency." Today, Kathy adds AT to the very end of each theme answer. Consistency! She also makes sure that the pronunciation of the changed word gets a big change — CAR and CARAT are very different-sounding words, for example. Consistency!

Two minor inconsistencies: 1.) HONEYCOMB is the only single word base phrase, and 2.) CAR is the only three-letter transformed word (the others are four). Realistically though, not many people will notice (or care) about this.

We perfectionists are an annoying bunch.

And ultimately, the most important aspect by far is whether or not a solver enjoys the theme. I think Kathy did well on that measure.

Strong gridwork. I was particularly taken with how easily she worked in SCREEN TIME and WHITE ROSE without compromises. (U TENN seems to be in use, and I'm a Doctor Who infidel who doesn't care if it's written that way or DR WHO. I know, I just lost all my nerd cred.)

I did want to see a smoother NW corner. A 4x5 region like this, with a long themer and a mid-length entry (IMPALA) sticking out of it, is often tricky. SIX AM felt arbitrary to me, and AXIL — oof. These type of Maleskan words tend to turn off modern solvers in a big way. An extra black square at the I of IMPALA or the S of SELMA could have helped smooth things out.

Even though this is a theme type that's been done over and over and over again, the interesting pronunciation changes and mostly strong execution resulted in a fun solve for me.

Straightforward theme, adding the T sound in the form of TY. I like how consistent Kathy was, always adding the TY to the end of the first word of a two-word phrase. It's pretty easy to find words that turn into another word when you add TY (BEAT, BEAU, CHAN, HEAR, etc.) so tightening things up by following the same pattern every time is nice.

And some entertaining results. SAFETY CRACKERS made me smile at today's world filled with overprotective people. Let children cut themselves on Triscuits, I say! PATTY DOWN was funny too, making me visualize an overly dramatic cook. BUSTY FARE, though … ick. Yes, people don't go to Hooters for the wings, but this entry/clue ... ick.

Impressive theme density. Very few constructors can make a Sunday 140-word puzzle, and even fewer will dare to stack theme entries, like CASUALTY FRIDAY and PATTY DOWN, in order to pack ‘em in. Great that Kathy cottoned to the little-known secret that stacking themers is not only pretty easy (if there isn't a lot of overlap), but it makes puzzle construction smoother by creating more space for other themers.

Adhering to the 140-word maximum means incorporating some long fill. Very nice to get some entries like SMIDGEN, CHOW MEIN, TORPEDO, but it felt to me like there was a lot more potential. Entries like LENGTHENS, OPPOSITES, BIMONTHLY … they just aren't the FLASHIEST things in the world. It takes time to develop this skill, and constructing themelesses helps that along. I have a feeling Kathy will get there, as my interactions with her makes me think she's the type of driven individual that can tackle whatever she sets her mind to.

I much appreciated Kathy keeping her grid relatively clean, a very difficult task even for seasoned constructors. The only thing that made me groan was RSTU, as random strings of letters seem like the some of the most inelegant of all crossword glue to me. The minor things like HALER and RES are much more palatable, and there are very few of them. Well done, indeed.

Impressively smooth debut from Kathy, whose husband got his debut in the LA Times just over a year ago. She gives us POETRY IN MOTION, or the letters P O E T R Y mixed up within phrases. I love the phrases Kathy chose, as MINORITY REPORT was one of my favorite Tom Cruise movies, and PYROTECHNIC is just plain fun. Was anyone else addicted to "Dance 360," with Kel shouting out to the PARTY PEOPLE as DJ K-Sly dropped the beats?

No? Me neither. Ahem.

Even experienced crossword constructors tend to have a rough time making Monday puzzles. I think an ideal Monday puzzle should be accessible to all sorts of newer solvers, which means all crossings should be very fair, with leeway for gaps in people's knowledge bases. They should also strive to keep the crossword glue to a minimum, as these ugly bits can elicit a head-scratching reaction from newer solvers. So I was a little worried when I opened up the file to see a 74-word puzzle — most new constructors stick to a 78-word puzzle, which is much easier to execute on.

There was a bit of A TALE / ASEA in the east section, but that's all I noticed during my solve, aside from a stray AGA. And for Kathy to work in such nice vocab as MAELSTROM, RENEGADES, CADENCE, even SPARROW with its interesting clue [Fictional pirate who shares his name with a bird] — that's really nice work. It shows how much care and time she put into making this puzzle.

I wasn't as taken with the theme concept, as POETRY IN MOTION doesn't quite say "anagram these letters" like MIXED or SCRAMBLED would. Additionally, there's so much flexibility in arranging six letters anywhere inside a phrase that it feels a bit too easy to come up with themers.

Still, Kathy chose vivid themers, and she did quite a nice job of pulling together a smooth Monday puzzle, one of the tougher construction challenges out there. Looking forward to more from her.