Ori Brian author page

I've heard so much about Animal Crossing and have been tempted to download it, but the last thing I need is yet another mobile app to get hooked on. I am curious if it involves CAROMING SNAILS or RAM-CASING LIONS, though.

(Anagrams brought to you courtesy of the Internet Anagram Server.)

"Animal Hybrids" and CROSS BREEDS are both hints to the theme: animal triplets in each clue are scrambled to form the grid entry. Some newer solvers — especially those not already suffering anagram fatigue — can probably use all the hints they can get!

Although straight-up anagrams aren't my thing anymore, I still appreciated this solve, as a themelesses. Ori and Will wisely infused the themer clues with heavy wordplay. Even if you don't want to bother checking that [carp, pig, snake] anagram to PARKING SPACE, you can enjoy the amusing [A little of a (parking) lot?] clue.

For those curious about the process of finding anagrams, this theme can be programmatically addressed by first assembling a list of animals to consider, then stepping through each unique trio via nested for loops, then since you've stopped listening to my technobabble, I'll stop.

(It's not trivial, but it's not difficult either.)

I had a few pauses. UMAR looked odd in the grid, but since so many names are transliterations, it makes sense to have a non-OMAR spelling. Then there was ON EASY and GO LEFT … are those solid phrases or disguised partials? As with so many subjective decisions, I'VE NO IDEA.

Ori worked in so many fantastic bonuses; THAT'S (not) A LIE! He wisely spaced them throughout the grid, both in Across and Down directions, but more importantly, he held himself to 8-10 letter bonuses. This length is such a sweet spot, allowing you to achieve many bonuses that can often sing as well or even better than much longer entries. For example, I'd happily deal DEAL ME IN in a themeless crossword.

This isn't a theme for the anagram-weary, but Ori's execution was strong enough that this puzzle entertained me more than some of the NYT Sunday themelesses.

GOSPEL TRUTH on top of SEX POSITIVE lying on a DESSERT MENU. Now that's some imagery — talk about EYE OPENERS!

SEX POSITIVE is difficult to clue in a kinky way, ironically requiring a straightforward definition for those unfamiliar with the term. DESSERT MENU, though — whoa! It's a stretch to call the waiter's menu list a "waiting list," but I appreciated the Hollywood-handshake-level wordplay.

Also in that Star Cluer mold is "nonstarter" — that is, a SUB who doesn't start the game.

BATMEN are British military officers' orderlies. Are they multiple Batmans? That's one for the Riddler.

I tripped on KASBAH because of Rock the Casbah, but it was interesting to learn that KASBAH is the preferred spelling.

Solid "stair stack" offering. OUTER SPACE and EYE OPENERS aren't fresh since they've been around since the dawn of the crossworld, and there are some tricky spots, like BONOBOS crossing DOGES. However, some great long Downs crossing the central stack — SO TO SPEAK, US PASSPORT, SLIM TO NONE, and BUTTERCUP are all standouts — helped to juice things up.

Another addition to our collection of Uniclue puzzles. Exactly like Eric's previous one, this one draws on X AND Y phrases, where the first letters of the X and Y words are the same. This one uses some great phrases, MIX and MATCH sort of meta; referring to the nature of the Uniclue approach. It's a shame that the previous one also used STARS and STRIPES, adding to the "been there, done that" feel.

As with all puzzles requiring crossing pairs of themers, Uniclues can be incredibly hard to grid around. Ori showed some masterful chops, polishing every last region with spit and shine. I've heard solvers complain that CETUS is a tough word to pull out, and if you haven't seen "Parks and Recreation," Leslie KNOPE might leave you with no hope. Fair crossings, though.

I appreciate a new Uniclue puzzle every once in a while. There have been some interesting riffs on the genre over the years, starting with homophones, going to synonyms, jumping to different definitions, even playing on foreign words. Such creativity!

It's unfortunate that this one came only a year after one so similar — it'd have been better if Will Shortz had accepted only one of these. There's still room for new Uniclues, but the next addition to the list needs to be innovative.

Literal wordplay in the clues, arrows pointing to Di in Di Gaga Godiva = FIRST LADY.

At first, the sequence of FIRST, SECOND, MIDDLE, THIRD, LAST didn't make sense — MIDDLE between SECOND and THIRD was jarring — but it turns out to be a tight set.

Consider this: With exactly three items in each list, what words would you use to describe each item? Besides Ari's five, perhaps FINAL or BEGINNING, but those are duplicative to LAST and FIRST. There's elegance in constrained sets.

Excellent gridwork, as I've come to expect from Ori. I appreciate that he worked hard to juice up his long slots — SNAKE OIL and SEMI-NUDE make for a vivid pair — while squeezing even more out of his mid-lengthers (LAB RAT, AD REPS). And such a smooth product, with no glue dabs showing through.

This genre is so developed that it takes a lot to make one shine, like this more complex clue playing on MODE. I enjoyed thinking about the set tightness, though.

"As smooth as a Berry" is one of the highest compliments I can give to a themeless constructor. This one had a scent of the craftsmanship and care the Great One might have shown. Even though a 70-word themeless isn't a difficult gridding challenge, finishing with no short glue is admirable.

(ABUELA might be tough for some, but it's fair game.)

One element The Master would never do on a 70-word grid, though, is to allow for such segmentation. Note how the four corners are choked off from the middle, creating five mini-puzzles. It's not the worst chunking ever, especially in the NW / SE, but it's not as wide-open as a 70-worder should be.

It's easy to understand since something like the NE corner becomes much easier to construct if you can do it separately from the rest of the puzzle. As always, construction is all about trade-offs.

Another aspect where Sensei Patrick is so good: aiming his content at a gigantic swath of solvers. As much as I liked several of Ori's entries — GLUE STICK stuck out, especially with its clue, pointing out the duplicative name — there was a lot of material aimed at DUDES:

• BEER KEGS
• LAD MAG
• MAN BUN
• MAILMEN (our delivery person is a woman)
• LARA CROFT

And some baseball clues. I loved ON SECOND's clue, playing on "halfway home," i.e., half the way along the basepath to home plate. It, unfortunately, added to the dudiness of the puzzle, though.

Still, there were enough solid entries (TALL TALE, PARAGON, PETER ROGET) and clues to keep me entertained.

JESUS, I was stuck on the [One with more than two billion followers] clue, especially after flubbing on INSTAGRAM FILTER (I still don't have an Insta; doubt I ever will). I was rolling my eyes on having to know all this social media stuff when the light bulb finally came on, that it was talking about JESUS's followers outside social media.

Just think how much more popular he'd be if he'd only get an Insta.

I haven't laughed so hard at a themeless entry in a long time: UP THE WAZOO! It might speak to my juvenile-at-heart personality, but it's such a funny thing to say. Along with POLICE RAID and STATE SEALS — with a delightfully obfuscating clue about where Delaware and Minnesota have farmers — it's a fantastic triplet.

I appreciate how careful Ori was in putting this grid together, too. Perhaps some will balk at SO RARE, but I'm okay with that song title. At least it's two recognizable words! Excellent craftsmanship, taking such pains to polish up the grid with elegance; so little crossword glue.

Speaking of two random words:

BLACK MIRROR. I've heard the title before, and a few friends gush over the show. I don't know how popular it is, but at least if you don't know the series, you can use the crossings to fill in what will be two recognizable words.

ICEBOX CAKE. I'm a huge "Great British Bake-Off" fan, having watched every episode of every season. I didn't know this term, though. Again, at least CAKE ought to be familiar. (ICEBOX refers to the fact that it used to be chilled in an ICEBOX, in olden days.)

LIVER EMOTE. I knew newscasts were trying to get jiggy wit it, go all modern and social media-y and all. I had no idea that they were commonly using emoji now, much less liver emoji. I bet they use these ... when they're presenting bad news, since, in myth, the liver was the organ ripped out of Prometheus every night?

(I kid. But I also got stumped by the wombo-combo of ICEBOX CAKE / LIVE REMOTE.)

Solid work, great craftsmanship. It felt too niche in places for me to give it POW! consideration, but I can see how a BLACK MIRROR fan might vehemently demand that I reflect upon my decision.

I stared at the revealer for an embarrassing amount of time, wondering what a bon fire could be. Some sort of French term for a great flame? Your first love that burned bright?

Ah, a BONFIRE.

*headdesk*

"Words that can precede X" theme. I like that Ori was consistent, always choosing words where the resultant FIRE themer was a single word (as in BONFIRE), not a two-word phrase (as in OPEN FIRE). It would have been willy-nilly silly, mixing the two types.

But still, there were a ton of additional choices — crossfire, Spitfire, hellfire, gunfire, etc. — so it's not a very tight set of themers.

I did like the grid execution. Ori worked in so much bonus goodies, super important since this was a theme type that Will has largely said he's not taking more of. KNEECAP, IRKSOME, UNCLE SAM, SITCOM, GUESS WHO, even LUIGI, who's always taking a backseat to Mario.

For a second — okay, more than a second — I wondered what the heck unclefire and guessfire were. That's the danger of weaving in bonus fill in the across direction, especially in a theme like this. I would have preferred more bonus fill in the down direction instead. As it was, it almost felt like too much bonus goodness, hazing the distinction between theme and fill.

I appreciated that this wasn't just a straightforward "words that can precede X" theme, in that Ori used prefixes (ish) that could start snazzy theme phrases. It wasn't enough for me, though, as this overdone theme type needs a lot to make it feel fresh.

PO BOX giving rationale as to why PO are smashed together into rebus squares = solid concept.

I like it when rebus puzzles do a little something extra to get noticed, and this one did that — so many entries contained two POs. POLAR OPPOSITES, SPORTS REPORTER were great, but to get PORPOISE, POMPOUS, HOP ON POP, and even POMPOM was pretty cool.

Especially neat to see the two POs in PORPOISE straddle SPORTS REPORTER. Such a tight job of packing!

Made me wonder — PO is a common enough letter combination, is there any phrase that contains three of them? The only one I could come up with was HIPPOPOTAMUS POOL. I *think* it's a real thing. But I'd have enough hesitation about it that I certainly wouldn't anchor a puzzle with it.

Well executed grid. Stuffing 14 instances of a rebus square is tough, no matter how common the letters are. I like Ori and Zach's decision to use the max allowable word count (78), to deliver a grid that's super clean. I picked out the LALA and SOTO gluey bits as I solved, and LOLO felt a bit esoteric (AMAL too), but that's a nice and low tally for this level of construction difficulty.

It's hard to blow minds with rebuses these days, considering how many have been done over the years, but I appreciated the craftsmanship in packing so many POs in today.

FYI, 14 is nowhere near the record for sheer quantity of rebus squares. But if you did a histogram, I'm fairly sure it'd be on the high side of average.

★ What a great debut! Theme is fun and consistent — all zippy phrases in the form of (part of the body) + OF THE + (noun). Some might grouse about the OF THE repetition, but I like it. Cool find, a tight set of four themers which just happen to fit into crossword symmetry.

The grid is strong compared to the average construction, and way above most debuts. Ori had to work with four pretty long themers, ones that forced placement of some black squares. Note that entries of length 12-14 are "awkward" in that they cannot go in rows 3/13, which usually is best for good spacing (try it and see what happens). Squeezing themers together makes for a tougher than usual challenge.

I'd usually expect a newer constructor to use a "Utah block" around a 13-letter themer, i.e. blackening in RAT to form a chunk of black squares to help separate themers. That's acceptable, but not elegant. Ori not only leaves things wide open, but manages to work in the beautiful HOVERBOARD on the side.

He doesn't stop there. Some constructors would be satisfied with maybe a pair of long entries as bonus fill. I like Ori's big thinking, working in HALF MOON too. POWDERED doesn't do that much for me, but it does get a nice clue, referring to how it can describe donuts or wigs.

All this while keeping his short fill perfectly clean — way cleaner than 95% of all crosswords. I had such an incredibly smooth solve. Even after scouring the grid, I couldn't find a thing I could point out as iffy.

Now, I would have liked BUTT OF THE JOKE and EYE OF THE STORM switched, so that the body parts would roughly mirror a person standing up. So it's not a perfect Monday puzzle in my eyes. But it's close. Extremely well done!