Kyle T. Dolan author page

Awesome clue in [Craft since ancient times]. I was so focused on various art forms that I completely ignored the (water)craft meaning.

Note how many long slots Kyle built into his grid layout! An average 70-word themeless has about 14 slots that are 8 or more letters, each ripe for juicy fill. Those 18(!) long slots do come at a price: a ton of short entries, which can create a choppy, start-and-stop solve. I love that trade-off if the long entries are snazzy enough. Kicking things off with LOCAL COLOR, I'M A REAL BOY, and DARK ALES (yum!) is a DOOR PRIZE-winning northwest corner.

DRY MOUTH, on the other hand, is a bit dry.

Ah, VUVUZELAs. I remember wanting to blare one at Ed Sessa when he debuted it a decade ago. I'd heard them on SportsCenter but had no idea what they were called. I appreciate the word more these days — thanks Ed for introducing me to it — since those Vs and Zs do zhuzh up a grid.

Aren't you amazed that I used ZHUZH properly?

What do you mean my DOOR PRIZE is a ZERO STAR review?

I'll zhuzh you good.

(Interesting word. I'll probably be thanking Kyle a decade from now.)

I take a decades-long outlook on stock and bonds returns, so I don't blink at short-term downturns. I sure have been fielding many fearful questions from friends and family about the current BEAR MARKET. The punniness of [Bad time to take stock?]'s might suffer from poor timing.

Some fantastic long entries, but none of them stood out as five-star marquees. I enjoyed learning ZHUZH, although along with the struggles of spelling VUVUZELAS, this Saturday solve was more than a bit DAUNTing.

The Great British Bake-Off makes me happy. I didn't know what LEMON CURD was before bingeing every season, and now I've tried my hand at making it! Although my resulting lemon curdle haunts me to this day, I still say GODSPEED to delightful Mary Berry for all the innocent joy she's given me.

Funny that Paul Hollywood's yin to Mary Berry's yang shows up today. IRON RULE indeed. My nightmares are filled with him unable to keep from gagging upon tasting my signature bake, tsking a great British IT'S TOO BAD, WHO'S NEXT?

My GBBO obsession might have made me go a bit NUMB.

Star Baker clue in [Place to drive, if you're so inclined?] That's inclined, as in an ONRAMP tilting down! That's some "tricky" MAGIC ACT, all right.

I appreciate the creativity elsewhere, although I burned so much time for [Drugstore brand named for its target area]. What brand is sold only in one U.S. region? Ah, that's the target area of the body, i.e., upset tummies treated by TUMS.

And BITON is a cross between … bichon and "Coton de Tulear"? Almost as baffling as the clue for QUBIT (quantum bit). It is tough to clue the latter more directly … I might have bent the rules and used "quantum" in the clue to make it friendlier.

Smart use of "pyramid blocks" on the sides of the puzzle, allowing Kyle to get down to 68 words. The NW and SE corners would typically be a factor of three bitonqubits harder to fill cleanly without them.

I like my Friday themelesses to be more accessible and breezier than struggling with so much Saturday-level gridding and cluing, but there was still a lot to enjoy.

Sometimes constructors wanting to hit for the cycle ask me how they can get their themeless targeted for a Saturday instead of a Friday. SPREZZATURA is a sure way to do it! Will Shortz tends to reserve Fridays for grids where all the debut entries are phrases composed of regular words, whereas Saturdays tend to feature those debuts that are either proper names or terms where it's critical to ensure that every cross is fair.

OMAKASE and ISFAHAN push this one toward Saturday territory, too. After ten years of frequenting sushi bars, I hadn't heard of OMAKASE until my boss took me out for a business dinner once AND BLEW MY MIND. You tell the chef to prepare whatever he or she thinks is freshest and most interesting? Yes, please! (As long as your boss is footing the $250 bill.)

I enjoyed some of the long fill today, SPRAY TAN, WIZARDRY, NO CAMERAS, STREET SMART, and DEATH RAYS in particular. Nothing that I'd tweet about, but a lot to admire.

Even better: some of the cluing delights. Most of it was of the telltale question mark variety, like [Met someone?] playing on an OPERA GOER attending the Met. However, the highlight was a baffling statement, [Color not generated by light]. This physics nerd spent far too much time reviewing principles of refraction before eventually landing on the SPRAY TAN as an artificial color that (sun)light does not produce. That's the kind of Saturday deceit I love.

And some of it went over my head, so I'm glad that Jim Horne pointed out the delight of the DEATH RAYS clue. I read "beyond stunning" and figured it referred to incredible special effects. Nope, that's as in setting your phasers beyond stun, to kill!

BLACK HOLE is not a fresh entry, having been used many times over the Shortz era, but that clue sure sucked me in! So many wordplay angle for this entry, and describing a BLACK HOLE as "one having lots of pull" is so attractive. There's no escaping my humor!

A couple of other wickedly clever wordplay clues, too. As a writer, I use a lot of [Tan writing books], so that had to be MOLESKINES. No? The cover of my dusty old DICTIONARY is tan. Wrong again? Dang it, I've fallen for this "hidden capital" trick so many times, even with AMY Tan, but Kyle got me again. Nice!

I laughed about "finish a nursing program" = WEANS. Jill and I got so much societal pressure to continue nursing our kids until they were sixty-two, though — I wonder if this clue might strike a bad chord with some. Maybe even RAISE some HAVOC.

New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles are ... ? I debated, could they be names of Russian MiGs? Last names of famous MEGS I didn't know? Thankfully, I finally recalled learning about AUDRE LORDE through a gentle nudge in a Melinda Gates puzzle. City MAGazineS.

RANGY and SHROVE … not a surprise that I picked those up through working Saturday crosswords.

There wasn't quite as much juice as I expect out of a 72-word themeless, but a couple of strong, long entries in RAT TERRIER / BODY SCANNER, MAGIC CHARMS, SCRAP METAL / THAT'S AMORE helped keep up my interest.

I've seen a couple of these "letter building" puzzles before, and I've even brainstormed something along the lines of I KNOW RIGHT? to PA KETTLE to PAI GOW POKER to PAIR OF JEANS …

Ahem. Probably safer to go with GROW A SPINE.

I'm not sure that newer solvers will pick up what's going on here, so we've highlighted the relevant words. I'm impressed by how deliberately the SPINE grows, starting in the middle, then picking up a letter on alternating sides. You might even say it's neat as a HAIRPIN.

I'll be here through Sunday, folks!

It's a fine theme, but the grid is outstanding. Such fantastic use of so many mid-length slots! Constructors often end up with a ton of boring, overlookable mid-length material. Check this out: CAKE POP, FAJITAS, BB KING, DIY KIT, OIL RIG. OH GREAT is right, and with no sarcasm!

I wasn't as wild about LATERGRAM. I bet the Twitterati will be all aflutter about this, but …

Darn it, I just heard a resounding "ok, boomer." Apparently, no one says "Twitterati" anymore, and LATERGRAMs are more apt for Instagram. Which apparently is mainly called Insta.

Later, gram(pa) is more like it.

Some fantastic clues, too. I love clever wordplay, and when you can make it as newb-accessible as a MINER = a person who "digs working," that's a big win. Entertaining way to describe MOTIF, too, referring to the distinctive "da-da-da-DUM" for Beethoven's Fifth.

Odd clue for PEDS, although the way I usually think about it — performance-enhancing drugs — is even less appealing.

ADDED NOTE: reader Gerry Wildenberg points out that PEDS (pronounced "peeds") is pointing to the medical discipline of pediatrics, not the meds themselves. Makes much more sense!

A fine example of the "letter building" theme type. And in some weeks, it'd earn a POW! for the grid sizzle alone.

Fans of A E I O U sequence puzzles call them "vowel progressions." Haters gonna hate, but how can you not clap when they come up with a phrase like "vowel movement"?

When I worked on my first VM, I was baffled by the long U sound. People much smarter than me said that no, a long U doesn't sound like U.

Wha ... ?

U isn't U … it's more an "OO"?

I had to be getting punk'd. Most boring punking in history!

Turns out, linguists say that OO is correct. I suspect a conspiracy. I'm not paranoid; you are!

For today's theme, I would have automatically turned to BUTTE or BEAUT to finish off the puzzle — ITS A REAL BEAUT would have been a real beaut! But confusingly incorrect.

I can hear those jerks snickering, sticking out their linguals at me.

I enjoyed Kyle's progression; BAIT BEAT BITE BOAT BOOT perfect long vowels (at least according to those snoots). I might have gone with CUTS BAIT and GOGO BOOT to upgrade the more ho-hum ANKLE BOOT, but the others shined. Even linguists will cut loose on the PARTY BOAT.

Great gridwork, too. See how Kyle made his life easier — and your solve more colorful — by adding four "helper squares," like the one after HUE? Nibbling away at the big white spaces allows for so many more possibilities in each region, making it that much more likely to land on a great solution. Such strong results. In the NE, for example, STOOLIE, ISRAELI, KOOLAID, MET LIFE, LURID hardly BORES!

Along with a rock-solid VM (that's a good thing in this case), it would have been POW! material in some weeks.

I greatly appreciate being able to talk through puzzles with someone as bright and thoughtful as Jim, in an easy and non-competitive way.

Jim: Nice entries, although I didn't know some. What are LONGBOARDS?

Jeff, in a not-at-all-smug manner: Oh, Jim. Jim, Jim, Jim. JIM! Have you never surfed the roads, like HyojooKo? JEFF 1, JIM 0!

Jim: Didn't you fall off a longboard once? While it was stationary? And you were holding onto someone?

Jeff: (pause) I'm willing to subtract 0.05 points for that. What I didn't get, though, was the clue for POP UP STORE.

Jim: That seemed fine to me. Halloween is seasonal, so a seller of costumes might pop up for a few weeks.

Jeff: A-ha! Have you ever been to a Halloween pop-up store?

Jim: Well, no.

Jeff: Ever seen one, hmm?

Jim: Theoretically speaking, it's possible.

Jeff: JEFF 1.95, JIM 0!

Things went quickly downhill for Jeff from that point, Jim knowing exactly what a TROLLEY BUS was, having a better idea of what a BALL RETURN mechanism looked like, and Cave CANEM not making him whimper. Final score was … well, keeping score is silly.

Point is, sometimes themeless entries can seem outstanding from one perspective, not as much from another. It's preferable to prioritize entries like PROM NIGHT, especially since the clue made this common phrase as stunning as my prom date's dress. (Not so much my misfitting hand-me-down tuxedo that my Taiwanese aunt made out of recycled diapers.)

There were enough strong entries, and a lot of fun clues — the BIRDSONG / THREAD echo is delightful! — but a 72-word themeless has to be near perfect, with stratospheric color everywhere, to stand out.

JUST THE TWO WOOFUS! Phrases that contain two ARFs, right?

Just joking! I didn't really think that!

(Okay, I did.)

I liked that Kyle stumped me at "Name that Theme." I taxed my brain for almost five minutes before giving up. Ah, two instances of ARF. GRR, I mean, US!

(See what I did there with GRR? No wonder people call me Wonder Boy.)

(Well, they should.)

I appreciated the consistency of the theme — all three themers had two words, with one US contained within each word — but it lacked tightness. If you go to our Finder and put in the search string *US*US* (the *s mean "anything"), you'll find dozens of entries that contain two USs. From our Private word list, I liked CIRCUS MUSIC, SUSHI MENUS, USUAL SUSPECTS.

It's not critical that every crossword theme is tight. This one works fine as is. But it's harder to generate a feeling of elegance without tightness.

Some delightful grid bonuses, KARAOKE with its curious / descriptive clue, "empty orchestra." ICED COFFEE. SOCCER BALL with a hilarious clue — something needed to achieve one's goals, indeed.

A lot of strong cluing work. WAX as [Material for Icarus' wings]. The drama in [Oh. My. God!] for GASP. Gives the puzzle personality.

I wasn't hot on overall execution, though. SEDUM is tough to choke down even for this die-hard solver, so I can't imagine what poor early-weekers would think. Probably something along the lines of I HAVE TO KNOW THE SPANISH WORD FOR BEAR? SRSLY? (That's what the kids say these days. Srsly.) And sadly, ST:TNG is something only old people like me know now. (Picard would kick Kirk's butt, for the record.)

A 14x15 grid sometimes brings the allure, the potential to reach for the stars, to get down to themeless-level word count. This is rarely a good idea for an early-week puzzle. A biggish SE corner + a long down in ICED COFFEE often is a recipe that requires unsavory trade-offs.

Grid concerns aside, it's still a fun, if not elegant, idea.

Finally, the NYT allows HARDASS! Some longtime solvers frown upon the NYT crossword becoming the NYT crassword, but I'm personally hoping BADASSERY will soon see its debut.

Neither Jim nor I were fooled by the CLINTON ERA clue, but both of us stopped to admire it. Bushes are found on either side of it … as in GHWB and GWB. Great way to innocently hide the capitalization of Bush.

On the other hand, Jim and I had opposite reactions to PEACE TOWER. XWI's resident Canuck got that wonderfully delightful sense of smugness, able to drop it in almost immediately. While XWI's resident Ameriboor struggled for each letter.

That pair of entries epitomized my experience in solving this puzzle.

YAY! GRAD SCHOOL = great entry, plus a fantastic clue — I got my "third degree" at UW.

HUH? PORT SALUT. I wondered if it might be PORTS A LUT. Apparently not.

YAY! SAUSAGE DOG, they're so awesome.

HUH? IT BURNS? Does that open the door for IT ITCHES? ITS CRAMPING? Speaking of doors, PICKS A DOOR … as much as I love the Monty Hall Problem, PICKS A DOOR feels a bit arbitrary as a stand-alone phrase.

Along with some HOLO APIA PICT MAIA (anyone else drop in GAIA and never think to correct it?), it wasn't the cleanest of grids. 72 worders are the easiest of themelesses to build, so I put them under the highest scrutiny.

But overall, some solid feature entries and two fantastic clues to help see me through to the end. Sometimes it just takes a handful of mind-blowing clues to make a themeless stand out, so I wouldn't be surprised if some solvers adore this one.

The most basic themeless pattern starts with a set of triple-stacked mid-length answers (8-10 letters) in each of the four corners. You don't want to totally separate them from each other, because that makes for choppy flow for solvers. But the more separation, the better — it's so much easier to construct an individual corner when it doesn't affect what's going on in the other three corners.

Running a grid-spanner through the middle makes things so much harder. Wouldn't seem so, perhaps. What's the problem of starting to nail two of the corners into place? NO BIGGIE, right?

It's surprising how much more difficult it is to fill a single corner with just a couple of letters fixed in. But the WHI- of WHITE BLOOD CELLS makes things tougher because of the W, restricting choice a great deal.

And even the -LLS at the end — you'd think that the letters are common enough that it wouldn't take away many options at all. But using two consonants together adds difficulty, messing up the preferred pattern of vowel-consonant alternation that makes things easier on constructors.

I like Kyle's decision to add "cheater squares" at the ends of SNO-CAPS. Eating away at the margins of the grid makes filling so much easier, probably a factor of two or even three in the SW / NE corners. I don't mind the visual either, although Rich Norris over at the LAT has said that he wants constructors to avoid black squares in the corners of themelesses.

It's a tough construction, and Kyle did well to keep it generally free of short crossword glue. I wish there had been a bit more sizzling stuff like DONUT HOLE and SLIME MOLD though — stuff like THREE STAR and SHOUTING aren't that exciting — but NO BIGGIE.

Still, a solid grid.

★ I've had a few people tell me that I overly criticize rebus puzzles. It's true, I do. So many rebuses have been done over the years that a standard one feels uncreative and sometimes even lazy. So it's a real pleasure when I experience something new(ish) in the rebus arena, like today's CROP ROTATION idea. I enjoyed the combination of rebus + turning, with an apt revealer.

Such a tough puzzle, so hard to figure out what was going on, especially at the STO(RY E)DITOR / BETTE(R YE)T intersection. But working that hard to figure the tricksiness out made the a-ha moment super satisfying.

This is what I want out of a Thursday puzzle — the payoff to be worth the struggle.

Such strong clues, too:

ELECT(RIC E)ELS are indeed stunning, both figuratively and literally!

SCABS' work is indeed "strikingly" controversial. (groan)

Going hog wild on a Hog (slang for a Harley) is indeed what a BIKER does.

I would have loved one more CROP included, but I appreciated how snazzy and clean Kyle's grid was. I'd much prefer this end result than a puzzle with a fourth crop plus a whole lot of gloppy crossword glue.

Took me much longer than an average Thursday, but it was well worth the effort.

Love this take on word ladders. We've seen so many crosswords with individual rungs of word ladders in the grid, like a recent BLACK to WHITE one, so Kyle's approach felt fresh. Excellent a-ha moment when I realized that the curious [... SLID SAID SAND SANE SINE NINE ...] clue was the middle of a SLIM to NONE word ladder!

Nice selection of themers, each of them snazzy. I say NOTE TO SELF all the time, in a humorous (or so I think) way, and HERE TO STAY and AMEN TO THAT are great too.

I would have liked a more lasting a-ha moment somehow, as once I got the trick, it was too easy to fill TO into spaces 5-6 of each themer. But it was a strong enough click; an innovative idea that managed to mostly hold my attention even after I got what was happening. Certainly memorable, and that's saying a lot.

I was curious to see how many other themers might work: COME TO PAPA, WENT TO TOWN, DAWN TO DUSK, NUTS TO THAT! Most every pair of four-letter words can be connected via word ladder, although it may have to be a very long word ladder.

Speaking of length of word ladder, check out the 11-word ladder connecting AMEN to THAT! Curious if a shorter one could be generated.

Nice gridwork. Only two feature pieces of fill in REPORT CARD and ANTISEPTIC, but both were solid. And BREXIT, SYNAPSE, O HENRY, added to the quality of solve too.

Not much to report in terms of short fill, which is exactly what you want. Short fill is like a baseball ump — he/she does a great job only when he/she isn't noticed. Some may balk at IBN, but it's a common enough word in Arabic. Minor dab of crossword glue. (BTW, LSU = Louisiana State University if you didn't know.)

I liked the twisty take on word ladders. If the a-ha moment had persisted a bit longer, or if Kyle had managed to work in a couple more long pieces of jazzy fill, this would have been my POW! choice.

As a latchkey kid, I watched an embarrassing amount of terrible TV (which was *ahem* incredibly enjoyable). Sometimes I wonder what I could have done if I hadn't spent those three hours a day watching THE PRICE IS RIGHT. Sorry about that, world hunger, but the showcase showdown was on.

Is the show still popular? I sort of paid attention when DREW CAREY took over, but quickly forgot about it again. It seems a bit too niche to have an entire puzzle based around it, but then again, I do know a couple of die-hard fanatics. A few years back, a good friend of mine made it her mission to get her grandmother on the show (accomplished!), thus achieving the top line item on her grandmother's bucket list. Apparently ending world hunger was number two.

Neat representation of the showcase showdown wheel. I especially liked how it intersected THE PRICE IS RIGHT — so fortuitous to have those two H's in exactly the right spots. And I liked the symmetry of BOB BARKER on one side, representing the old guard, and DREW CAREY as the show's attempt to draw in another generation.

It would have been nice to have more theme density, as I was left with a sense of wanting more. I'm not sure what that would be — I'm sure I'm forgetting some catchy phrase related to the show? Also, I found the start position and direction of SHOWCASE SHOWDOWN odd. I tried to read it from the top, clockwise, but that gave the almost-making-sense DOWN SHOWCASE SHOW. The other natural orientation would be to start it where it is but go counter-clockwise, as is the standard with angular measurement. Either could have been possible, the former achieved by running THE PRICE IS RIGHT vertically.

Given only 47 letters of theme density, I'm glad Kyle made strong use of longer fill, giving us some great entries to give the puzzle more meat: LOVE BITES, BREWED UP, BEER CANS, even the kooky but great OK, SO… well done. The constraints are a little more difficult than usual, so Kyle does well to keep the glue bits to the esoteric TERCE and a bit of minor ATA MEI kind of stuff.

Rats, can't think of the catchy phrase. I have to come on down to the conclusion that my memory isn't what it used to be.

Very fun puzzle today, aside from my willful ignorance of "Jersey Shore". I couldn't finish the NE corner of the puzzle and am proud of it. Don't tread on me, DJ PAULY D!

What a beautiful SW corner. I loved the crossing of STONEWALL and PATDOWN with its fun clue, "Touching scene at an airport?". Brings back hilariously unpleasant memories of going through security at a Netherlands airport back when I had my devil-length goatee. Good times. And I find CODON to be a great entry, too infrequently used given its crossword-friendly alternation of common consonants and vowels. I couldn't totally recall what a CODON was, but it came back easily enough with four letters in place. Okay fine, with five letters in place!

Overall, I really appreciated the smoothness of (most of) the grid. The NE corner was the roughest bit, with ATH and the awkward LEND A partial. If I had paid the slightest bit of attention to pop culture, I might have rolled through it. I wonder if DJ PAULY D will persist in American culture? Get on that; make yourself honestly famous, mister! Or is Pauly D a missus? Wow, am I out of touch with "popular" celebs.

Nice work today from Kyle. There were a few bits I didn't care for, PREFIGURE in particular, but I really liked all the snappy short fill accompanying the marquee answers: JET SET, PACK RAT, RUB OUT, BIG TOP all added snazz to the puzzle.