Kurt Weller author page

My daughter: Hey dad, want to hear a joke?

Me: (caught in the headlights, frantically looking for an excuse)

My daughter: What did the digital clock say to his mom?

Me: My phone is vibrating, I need to—

My daughter: Look ma, no hands! Ha ha ha ha ha — what does digital mean?

Me: (MAKing A FACE) Would you look at the time?

FACE, GEARS, HANDS made for an easy "Name That Theme" Monday. Usually you want consistency in themers, keeping them all singular or plural, but it would have been strange to have a CLOCK with two FACEs or just a single HAND.

I appreciated all the bonuses Kurt worked in to keep my attention after I grasped the concept so early. Great layout, spreading out and alternating his long Downs. ROCK OPERA, MNEMONIC, and ANTITOXIN are stellar.

ELEVATES ironically doesn't elevate things as much.

MNEMONIC is a tough word to spell. Its clue was even tougher to figure out. "How I wish I could calculate pi"? You don't have to wish — all you do is use Leibniz's formula to close in on 3.141592 … D'oh! The lengths of the words in the clue give the digits of pi.

Now, if Kevan Choset could come up with something to help us duplicate his feat …

Trying to spell MNEMONIC slowed me down, but not as much as a MUD FLOW. It's a legit term, though on a Monday with URIS, ESSEX, GREER, ELY, my solve was murkier than expected. For such a simple theme, it's great to match with equally simple fill.

Although the CLOCKWORK parts weren't as well-disguised as I wanted, I still enjoyed getting in GEAR for the week.

NOT NOW often would indicate "take away the letters NOW." What a fun idea to interpret it as NO T, NO W! I appreciate that a debut constructor make such an interesting mental leap.

I also appreciate that Kurt recognized the prior art in this theme genre. I had also thought of Robyn's puzzle, as well as several others, like this fun one from Tim Polin. It's great to see when a person has done their research.

Some of the clue/entry pairs worked better for me than others. The best ones are those where clue feels so inapt, or better yet, wildly incorrect — so much so that you want to dash off an angry email to Will Shortz.

"Tawny" means NO MATTER WHICH? No matter, my butt! Dear Mr. Stupid Shortz … (diatribe) … hit send!

Oh. That's "Tawny" going to "any"? Retract send!

I started in the upper right, knowing BACH's B minor mass, and I was off to the races. I filled in COARSE, imagining that sure, [Wrought] iron could be COARSE. Makes a lot more sense when you realize that the clue is actually [rough]! I bet a lot of solvers will miss that, though. We've highlighted the affected entries below. It's great that they're symmetrical, but it would have been better to make them stand out better somehow. Starring the clues would have given away the game, but that's better than solvers not realizing that there even is a game.

Not the smoothest grid in the world, with some wrought — er, rough — entries like OSMO, AMO, ERN, PALP (which I always confuse with PAP). It's an unfortunate byproduct of cramming extra short themers into the grid. Long across bonuses like SUPERCOP often create problems because they have to work in parallel with themers — no surprise that AMO and OSMO are direct results of the layout.

Overall though, great to see a debut from Down Under, and a fun one at that.