Peter A. Collins author page

I'm a huge fan of grid visuals, and Pete has given us some fantastic imagery over the years. One of my favorites, playing on Benjamin Franklin's kite, also focused on diagonals. Today, I enjoyed the picture of the TORTOISE plodding along, slowly but surely, his perseverance prevailing over the egotistical HARE. Clever idea to space out the TORTOISE letters, creating such an apt picture.

I wasn't as hot on how Pete portrayed the HARE. Having him without spaces is appropriate, but in the story, he gets halfway — or in some retellings, close to the finish line — before stopping for his break. Pete's execution makes it look like the HARE did a 100-meter sprint before he TAKES his NAP, which didn't mesh with the arc of the story.

What would have been better? I thought about that for hours. The best I came up with was to repeat HAREHARE on a diagonal below TORTOISE, then have him TAKE A NAP toward the bottom of the puzzle. Then, it would be perfect if the TORTOISE crossed TAKE A NAP, as if he were hopping over the HARE! However, solvers write in to Will Shortz with the kookiest "corrections," so that might have triggered THERE WAS ONLY ONE HARE IN THE STORY, SHORTZ YOU MORON! emails.

Diagonal entries cause so much inflexibility, and when you fix eight letters of TORTOISE in place — then add in other themers — the grid strains so much. Pete did well to place so many black squares around the center, but even then, ECTO STN kicking off the filling process isn't ideal. There's too much crossword glue everywhere, an unfortunate side effect of not having as many black squares to deploy around the perimeter.

I'd have been fine with only SLOW AND STEADY ... with "wins the race" implied.

I enjoy crossword art, and there's something mesmerizing about watching the TORTOISE make its way to the end. I rarely think about a puzzle for more than five minutes after finishing, so making me ruminate on this one for several hours is a testament to the creativity of the seed concept.

A themeless skeleton featuring THRILL, EXCITED, KICKS IT UP? It's not exactly a mini-theme, but it's neat to get so much joyous long material interlocked. Curious choice not to clue IM SO EXCITED to the Pointer Sisters song, but that might have turned off people not into oldies.

Not at all curious was CURIOUSER! Terrible -ER addition entries are common in low word-count themelesses — they make filling so much easier — but CURIOSER is the opposite; a rare standout. "Curiouser and curiouser" is not only a memorable "Alice in Wonderland" quote, but it's become a bit of a meme.

I haven't heard ALL TATTED UP, but I'm not the target audience since I only have one tattoo. It's a self-explanatory phrase, though.

The one place I bogged down was the lower left. It's perfectly reasonable to include highly-populated foreign cities, but Almaty hasn't been known as ALMA-ATA since 1993. I'm a basketball fan, so eventually ATEN = A-TEN = A-10 = Atlantic-10 fell. I always see it as A-10, though, so ATEN looks bizarre. There is a camp that loves tricksy entries like this — VSIX, TENK, AANDE.

I wanted more juice out of the rest of the grid entries, but luckily, some of the cluing helped fill that gap. [Worn down apparel?] uses (feather)down in such a clever way. IPAD is usually neutral in a grid, but with a delightful clue like [Pro in tech …] — that's the IPAD Pro.

Two clues I ought to explain:

I understood that the TROPIC of Cancer and TROPIC of Capricorn circle the globe, but apparently, referring to either solely as TROPIC is acceptable.

I don't know everything about baseball, so I figured there was some reason an UMPIRE might sit in a high chair. To get a better viewing angle if the pitcher is short? Ah! It's a derogatory thing, where fans put an effigy in a high chair because the ump is acting like a big baby.

They have UMPIREs in tennis?

I knew that.

-ON and -EN celebs, reimagined as -IN' verbs. I listen to a fantasy basketball podcast where the host uses a fake MICHAEL BOLTON intro so that one doubly amused me. Funny to imagine Michael Bolton boltin' across the basketball court.

Neat to see JANET YELLEN featured, the first woman to be Secretary of the Treasury and also the first woman to be Chair of the Fed. It's also fun that she hardly seems like someone who would be yellin'. It's the kind of humor where you call a bald dude Harry. (Or Jeff.)

Loved the clue for PINATA. We had another delightful clue for PINATAS earlier in the week, and this one amped up the deviousness. "Hanging around at a party with swingers" is so clever!

I didn't get the STOAT clue's wordplay at first because I have a hard time keeping straight animals I never see in real life. Nice a-ha when I looked it up, recalling that the STOAT is a relative of the weasel. What a weaselly pun!

I appreciated that Pete kept the names in the fill to a minimum. I often see a ton of (really angry) complaints about name-based themes, that it's not a crossword but a trivia contest. More names might have helped Pete fill certain regions more smoothly, the SW corner, for example, but I like the trade-offs he made.

It would have been great to see at least one minority, so at least this minority solver could develop more of a connection to the puzzle. It's hard to say how difficult it would be to think of one with an -EN or -ON ending that transmogrifies into a workable -IN' ending, though.

I enjoy when constructors take two ideas that seemingly have nothing to do with each other, and mix them in an interesting way. Halloween creatures … and theater? Cool! It reminded me of "Werewolf Bar Mitzvah." Solvers becoming wolves, wolves becoming play-actors!

I'd heard many of these before, witches referenced with respect to WARTS AND ALL in particular, but also VAMPIRES and their lack of reflections, and mummies at a WRAP PARTY. Still, there was something fun about linking them through a play-centered story.

Hoo boy, did I have trouble finishing. The theme answers mostly aren't "in the language," which is fine given the theme, but it's tough to fill in NOBODY TO ACT WITH until you have most of the crosses in place.

ADDED NOTE: Pete mentioned that it's "NO BODY," not NOBODY — makes more sense!

Then, if you don't know BOLGER, MYLANTA, SERAPE, MOTETS, HAKEEM Jeffries, ARRET, ANSE, APIA, and/or get tripped up in the usual suspects of ACRO, ELO, GENL, MME, MMS, MRE, OSSE, among OTRA gluey bits, too …

A 21x21 140-word grid is nothing to sneeze at, even for the most experienced of constructors. It'd be great if Will relaxed his specs, perhaps amending it to 142 or 144 words if you have long theme entries.

I was baffled by ASHOE's clue, too. Why is A SHOE apt to wear in allergy season? Probably … because it prevents your feet from picking up pollen? Jim Horne explained this one to me, that it sounds like "achoo."

Speaking of nothing to sneeze at …

It's not my favorite of Peter's work, but I did appreciate the entertaining juxtaposition of creatures playing roles in a Halloween production.

Ah, the periodic table, we constructors know thee well. A chart filled with one- and two-letter symbols begging to be used in codes? Yes, please! I thought I'd seen everything in this genre, but what a great find in MILITARY JARGON, ARGON so neatly tucked away in JARGON.

I wasn't as wild about the others — I wouldn't say ISN'T IT EXCITING about a baseball player whose nickname, "Goldy," gives away the game. SAFE ENVIRONMENT works, but it's not colorful. This is a common issue when having to conform to a tough constraint.

I thought I was going to flummoxed at the GOLDSCHMIDT / OLIO crossing, since OLIO / OLEO is easy to get wrong. It'd be tough to argue that GOLDSCHMEDT looks more correct, but I'd still prefer a cleaner set of crossings all the way through that name. As much as I loved DUCT TAPE and BUM LEG, I'd gladly lose one to achieve safer crossings.

Similar thoughts on the COMO / EMI crossing, and even XTERRA / SANA (these days spelled SANAA). While it can be argued that mid-week solvers should be able to figure these out, why not avoid the issue completely?

I don't care about "dupes" as much as others, but DIG INTO and RIP INTO feel at the least like untapped potential left on the (periodic) table. What's the point of working in some extra mid-length slots if they end up containing neutral entries?

Great clue for DIOR — man of the cloth, indeed. Fun visual, priests clothed in DIOR!

I loved the MILITARY JARGON find. If others were of that level of snazziness — AURIC GOLDFINGER, SNIPE HUNTING, LIFES LITTLE IRONIES, NINE ONE ONE — I would have classified this puzzle as less inert and more noble.

ADDED NOTE: Astute reader Alina Abidi pointed out that my suggestion of AURIC GOLDFINGER wouldn't work, since AURIC shares etymology with GOLD. I should have clarified that that was the reason why it might have made for a sly "revealer"!

I'd never have thought to link FRANK SINATRA and ELVIS PRESLEY. Yes, they're both icons in POPULAR / MUSIC. They both sang MY WAY. And they do have the same 5,7 letter enumeration. That's not enough to build a puzzle around, though, so I appreciated Pete's effort to do something more.

Splitting these guys inside a single crossword row... why? Even after reading Pete's thoughts, it still didn't click. If they had been roommates in college, or better yet, were known for performing MY WAY together, that would have made much more sense.

Would a Schrödinger have worked? I doubt it since Schröndingers have to point equally at both answers. Even this pop music idiot knew FRANK SINATRA sang MY WAY, but ELVIS? I could name ten ELVIS songs and not get anywhere near MY WAY, so I'd have filled in FRANK SINATRA, never realizing that ELVIS entered into the quantum duality.

This execution didn't excite me, but I enjoy something different on a Thursday. Slashes in boxes count, for sure.

I did love a few clues. Moon or Mercury is a brilliant way to describe a ROCK STAR, reminding me of a recent NYT crossword theme. ROCK STAR is such appropriate fill for this theme, too!

And the clue for TATER, [Many eyes are on it, informally]. Delightful way to misdirect away from the literal eyes on a potato.

I like when puzzles have something for everyone, perhaps the latest rapper balanced out by a physicist and a Broadway number. This one targeted an older crowd, with GOMER PYLE, NASH as a bygone automaker, NOLTE as the Sexiest Man Alive from decades ago, Casey KASEM, EDERLE from a century ago, to go along with ELVIS and SINATRA.

It's not MY WAY, but I can see how an older generation might delight in having their day to reminisce about a bygone era.

I'd love to know what percentage of the NYT solving population realized that the grid art was supposed to be Ms and Ws. Anybody? Bueller? I love grid art, such fun ways to snazz up a solving experience, but the M / W thing didn't dawn on me until long after I filled in the last square.

Reminds me of an M / W puzzle Alex Vratsanos and I did years ago. So many people asked me, what's up with the weird chunks of black squares?

(sigh)

(Yeah, looking at it with fresh eyes, I don't totally see it either.)

There was a lot to love about this theme — once I figured out what was going on. I'd have never thought of spoonerizing M / W phrases! Even if I did chance upon the concept, I wouldn't have had the foggiest on how to find appropriate themers.

Okay, I did think of a way, after prolonged rumination. I enjoyed the challenge.

The first and last themers worked wonderfully. "But wait there's more" to BUT MATE THERES WAR? Hilarious! "Care to make a wager" to CARE TO WAKE A MAJOR? Equally uproarious! Delightful base phrases and even more delightful results.

The middle one wasn't as strong. MEN'S DAY WARNING didn't make me laugh, instead making me wonder what a MENS DAY might be, and why it might require a warning. Frat-type hazing? Then, the base phrase confused me. Wednesday morning seems arbitrary.

Ah, there's a Macklemore song called "Wednesday Morning". I probably should be embarrassed, given Macklemore lives maybe 15 minutes away from me.

Even more embarrassing: I also missed that "Wednesday Morning, 3 a.m." is Simon & Garfunkel's debut album. Drat.

As much as I enjoy grid art, these M / Ws let the puzzle down. It'd be one thing if they screamed M and W and thus felt worth it, but 1.) I doubt many people will notice them (we've highlighted them below to make them stand out), and 2.) they forced so many compromises. Crossing CAEN with CANA is deadly, not to mention ETERNE, EPHEDRA, ACH / HUTTON, etc. There's a lot of great material, BEST BUD, MUST HAVE, ROAST PIG, but I'd have enjoyed the puzzle more with no grid art and smoother fill.

Fun to see a concept I'd never have come up with on my own, though.

When I make a paper crane for my kids, they think it's incredible. A magic trick. A disruption of the laws of physics.

When I make a paper crane for any adult, they give me a look of pity and openly wonder whether euthanasia would be the kind option.

For the crane, not me!

Okay, me too.

Quip puzzles are like this. First time you do a quip puzzle, it's entertaining. A crossword that has a sense of humor, zinging me with a witty one-liner? Yes, please!

The next 6,723 times, not so much.

Today's is a decent quip, although the creases aren't sharp and the folds slightly off-kilter. If you asked a comedian to write a one-liner using FOLDED and INCREASING, he/she might come up with "I heard the origami club folded, but interest in it is increasing." Now that's pretty good!

So what's with the "we" start? This is a pairs-comedian act? And "in fact"? What kind of comedian says "in fact"? (Okay, fine, Jerry Seinfeld, among dozens of others.) Why all the weirdisms?

Crucivera (the god of crossword symmetry) is a cruel mistress.

The good thing is that Pete is a professional, knowing that if you're going to make a standard quip puzzle, the rest of the puzzle needs to dang well be smoother and snazzier than usual, so people who hate quip puzzles have something to do.

• Smooth? Pretty much, with only minor offenders: DIAS ICI SEN STN. (LENI might be tough, but she's crossworthy.)
• Snazzy? DEATH STAR, ELECTRONS, HEAD GAME, REPLAY and INCUBI. I'll take it.

And TACOS, something people make a stand for. Heh, good one.

Quip puzzles are tough. You have to make them absolutely perfect, or perhaps branch out from standard cranes, folding a shape no one's ever seen before — a Schrodinger element helped a previous one stand out, for example. Even if it's not perfect, it'll certainly be different.

Figuring out the starts of the two marquee across entries was such a treat. I blanked on ___ HOME RUN for the longest time, scouring my mental archives for types of homers. Walk off? Inside the park? Great moment of relief to finally land on PINCH HIT HOME RUN.

Although, I'm still furious with Kirk Gibson, even 30 years later. FIST PUMP ALL OVER MY A'S, SERIOUSLY? WELL JUST REMEMBER, KARMA'S A BITCH YOU FRIGGIN' (censored).

Not that I'm bitter. What does my therapist know, anyway?

The second horizontal grid-spanner was so much fun, as I was stuck on ___ DELIVERIES for five full minutes. My deficiencies in golf are only overshadowed by my atrocious knowledge of golf terminology, so I could only think of OPEN DELIVERIES. Brilliant a-ha when I realized "slices" meant PIZZA slices. The clue's grammar is as tortured as my golf swing, but heck, it was worth it.

Great vertical backbone connecting the two feature entries, DETAILS TO FOLLOW.

I wasn't as hot on SENSATIONALIZE, as it's a one-worder that feels pedestrian. I begrudgingly read up on VIRTUE SIGNALING because I supposed I should, but it frustrated me during my solve, as I struggled to piece it together, letter by letter.

Breaking up these last two vertical grid-spanners would have given a better overall result, since such a massive and rigid skeleton places too much constraint on a grid. In the SE, for example, BOOTLEG is good, but fewer constraints could have eliminated something no one likes, EDATE.

If only Siri did crosswords.

In my early crossword construction days, I was so proud of making an M W out of black squares, hinting at the M* W* theme. But not a lot of friends actually noticed it.

Initialisms have been mined for so many crosswords over the years, including S O S itself. I like that Pete tried to go above and beyond, using a grid pattern that looked like S O S — I'd give it a 7 out of 10 on the recognition scale. If the central O had been more closed-up, it would have been unmissable.

Tough to close up the O any more, though. Perhaps "filling it in" with grayed-out squares, and having those three-letter answers be OOO? [Winning tic-tac-toe line] and [Ghostly moan]?

Amazing that Pete got the visual to work. The S can't get any smaller without creating two-letter words, and you can't move them any closer to the edges of the grid. Fascinating that it appears to be a singular solution.

So hard to fill around the S O S. A lesser constructor might have added black squares jutting off the S's, in order to help break up the surrounding fill. I like that Pete avoided this, working in sparkly goodness like KANSAS STATE, RADICCHIO, EASTER WEEK, OKAY SURE, etc.

There is a glut of gluey short fill — ABT AGRO ASON EDD EEC ENE ETO just to start — but given the technical constraints, it's understandable. Filling a grid like this is as difficult as filling a low-word-count themeless.

I would have liked something less straightforward fpr the theme. It'd have been fun to brainstorm a more clever and fun angle — maybe playing on the Morse code for SOS — DOT DOT DOT / DASH DASH DASH / DOT DOT DOT?

It's a neat grid, and I do like the phrases SNAKE OIL SALESMAN and SAME OLD STORY. But I wish the theme had been as neat. A bit too much like his previous Sunday initialisms puzzle, too.

I like Pete's take on the now-standard "stair stack" grid layout. DO THE SPLITS / PERSONALITY / PR NIGHTMARE make for a great foundation. But check out what he does in the SW / NE corners — they're so wide-open!

Typically, most stair stacks have a black square (or more) to break up those corners. Possibilities: somewhere like the final E of GREENE or the G of CHLORINE GAS (with other black squares moved around accordingly). It's so tough to run adjacent long down entries through stair stacks, but CHLORINE GAS / LETS GET ON IT weave their way through.

I wasn't hot on CHLORINE GAS, as it brought up unpleasant images. And like Pete, I was elated that the song LETS GET IT ON was in a crossword!

Except that it wasn't quite there. No doubt, there are almost always going to be trade-offs involved with audacious grid design.

I like what Pete did with his mini-corners (the NW / SE). Not a lot of room in either for jazzy material, but a Z in one corner and two Zs in the other make things spicy. ERSATZ and ZYDECO are fun to say.

Loved RABBIT HOLE, too. I go down so many internet rabbit holes every day.

Continuing the animal mini-theme, I was delighted by the NEMEAN LION. I was enchanted by the stories of Hercules as a kid.

Couple of great clues. ENZYME was already a nice answer due to that Z, but the innocent [Food processor] got me clapping. (Enzymes help process food inside your stomach.)

If it hadn't been for CHLORINE GAS and the cringey HALER — and if the last two words of LETS GET ON IT had been switched — this would have been right up there for the POW!

I have to admire how kooky this idea is. I'd never have thought to ask myself what the digits 2 1 2 could represent. Boiling point of water (in Fahrenheit), yes. With a slash (as in 2/12), LINCOLNS BIRTHDAY? How interesting! And (212), New York City's area code? I'm impressed by the leaping mental connections Pete made to assemble this theme.

With those big NW / SE corners, you might think Pete tried to go for a low word count; themelessesque. Running into OSIS RECTO AMI ONS OSS SEI TIO reinforced that impression for me.

Not so! Shows you what I know! I was surprised to see it at 81 words.

This is partly because of the lower left corner — note how Pete had to section it off so he could fill (mostly) cleanly around A1 SAUCE. But he also spent a lot of black squares in the middle of his grid to separate his themers. This is generally a good practice, but it means that he didn't have many black squares left to use to break up those big NW / SE corners.

I'd have preferred a rejiggerment — moving some of the black squares in the middle toward the NE / SW, which could have smoothed a few things out. It's so tough to "turn the corner," i.e., have three long across answers intersect with three long(ish) down answers.

It's not quite a "dictionary definitions" puzzle. It's not strictly playing on using numbers instead of letters. It's even got a touch of parsing (using the slash in 2/12). It's a unique idea.

I like unique.

I'm a big fan of two feature entries: UNION CARD and WHERE'S WALDO. The former got a lovely clue playing on "labor party," making for such a nice "click" when I finally got it.

The latter might have hit me more strongly than others, being a children's book writer. I've read close to 1000 middle grade / young adult books in the past ten years, and yet it was the ubiquitous WHERE'S WALDO that I couldn't locate in my memory banks. How appropriate!

72-words, the max allowable for themelesses — not daring, but still fine if executed very well. Standard triple-stacks-in-each-corner … except for one major difference.

Look at the NE vs. the SE. Both are sort of choked off from the rest of the grid, so they might seem about as easy to fill. But see how the SE has to "turn the corner" with BELLI / ARDEN / GEORG, and then keeps on going with BODY BAG? Makes it much, much harder than the NE.

Not surprising then, to see the killer cross of HULLO / UREY. I couldn't remember the spelling of Harold UREY (okay, this physics nerd sheepishly admits that he didn't know him), so HALLO / AREY seemed like the best option. A constructor's job is to set up solvers for a win — I think this is a fail.

I think solvers ought to at least hear of POLSKA kielbasa, but I'd be sympathetic to complaints about that UREY POLSKA BELLI GEORG concentration.

The NE came out much better, although Steve VAI = whoa. The entry hasn't been used since the Maleskan era in 1979, and every time back then, it was clued to the effect of "Liberian native." Huh.

Some nice moments in my solve, the clue for HANDS in particular — [They operate around the clock] had to be PARENTS OF TWO TODDLERS CLINGING ONTO MY LEGS, right? But overall, I would have liked a smoother grid, especially given the mostly standard themeless layout.

ADDED NOTE: I read Pete's note with curiosity. After studying the grid, I asked him if his wife's name is Dorothy? Nope. An hour of searching later, I finally saw LIONS, TIGERS, and BEARS — OH MY! Fun mini-theme, although I think the effect would have been much stronger if DOROTHY had been in the center of the grid, not unlike another of Pete's hidden themes. I would have forgiven a lot more of the grid trade-offs, too.

I PUT A SPELL ON YOU = HEX atop YOU, three times in the grid. Even though HEX and YOU are both shorties, they're tough to disguise, so some nice finds. TOOTH EXTRACTION made me reflexively wince, but it's a solid answer. MATH EXAM probably made others wince, but this former mathlete approved. And CORN CHEX was a good way to finish it off.

EMPTY OUT did a good job of obfuscating YOU, JOYOUSLY as well. They're both long entries, though, and stacking pairs of long theme answers can be problematic. So many pairs of letters to work through!

See: EOUS in top stack, and AIT in close proximity. ESAS / MLLE in middle. BURL / NONU in bottom.

Pete and Bruce made the grid 16 rows high to center MATH EXAM / JOYOUSLY, but I'd have been as happy with MATH EXAM in the center of a 15x15, with something like YOUTH below it. Might have smoothed things out a bit.

Typically, placing long theme answers in rows 3 / 13 (third to last) is the smart choice, giving yourself the most space possible. Here, I think moving them inwards one row apiece could have helped, giving Pete and Bruce more flexibility in filling around all those letter pairs.

For me, EOUS would automatically force me to restart a puzzle. BURL or NONU I might let slide if they were the only offender, but I'd work mightily to make sure there wasn't some better option.

I did appreciate the big corners in the SW / NE. BASE HITS / ASTROPOP / APERTURE, yes! ANIMALIA / TROOPERS / SYNOPSIS, triple yes! That's the way to use those relatively unconstrained sections of a grid. I don't like ENRY much, but I felt it was a price worth paying for the wide-open goodness packed with juicy answers.

I think the best stacked-themer puzzles are ones where you need to figure out the theme in order to finish the puzzle. Tracy Gray had a memorable such one. Finding the HEX atop YOU instances was more of an afterthought for me.

Appropriate theme for a math teacher, the six TRIG functions hidden within phrases — in order! Not that there's an absolute right order in which to present the six, but SIN COS TAN, COT (cotangent) SEC (secant) CSC (cosecant) is how math books go over them.

(CSC is the inverse of SIN, SEC inverse of COS, COT inverse of TAN, in case you're interested. I know you're probably not, but I am. So there.)

On one hand, there's something impressive about packing in the seven themers. In order! I particularly like HIT A NERVE hiding TAN; great phrase. And there's something awesome about SEC hidden inside MORSE CODE. Feels like the plot of a Dan Brown book.

On the other, so many constraints producing so many compromises in the grid hit a nerve for me. I personally wouldn't allow THAN I (partial) crossing LENAS (plural name). Then you get ANS, LTR, DIAS, the oddly related seeming ECCE ESSO OSS, RETOW … that's not good at all.

And LEFT RIGHT … I get that you need a middle themer hiding TRIG. But LEFT RIGHT was last used in the Maleskan era. Is it a valid phrase? Dunno. At the very least, I had enough hesitations that I would have much preferred something different. JUST RIGHT would have been a lot better to me, but that J would have stressed the grid even more. PATENT RIGHT is better too, but it's more common in the plural.

Maybe even leaving out TRIG would have been better. SIN COS TAN tells the story pretty well without TRIG, anyway.

I did love the clue for TACO STAND. [Shell station?] hinting at the Shell gas stations, misdirecting from TACO shells = brilliant.

And that clue for MORSE CODE! I fell into Pete's trap with both feet. Part of me still wonders what that ellipsis is leading to!

The math-lover in me enjoyed seeing the TRIG functions in proper order. The crossword-lover in me had problems with the execution.

MEAT IN THE MIDDLE really ought to be a thing. A restaurant chain specializing in turduckens?

A couple of good finds, BEEF in the middle of STROBE EFFECT particularly strong. Always neat to see longer words with rare(ish) letters smack dab in the middle of snazzy phrases. VEAL inside LIVE A LIE was good too.

I wasn't as hot on LAMB inside CLAMBAKE as 1.) it's not as interesting to me to have a word hidden completely inside a single word (across two words feels more fun), and 2.) isn't CLAM another type of meat? Sort of? The other, other white meat? Felt a little odd to have the double meatiness.

And HAM is easier to find within phrases like FIFTH AMENDMENT, LAUGH A MINUTE, ALPHA MALE, etc. Three-letter hidden words don't catch my attention as much since they're easier to uncover.

I loved ANTI TANK and ZOOT SUIT! Great bonuses. Typically I'd be worried about them laid out in the across direction since that could muddy up theme vs. fill. But since there aren't any shaded letters in these guys, it's fine.

Other goodies in SPRAY CAN, SKORTS, and SPACE X. Excellent bonuses for all the vegetarian solvers out there!

Not as smooth as I'd like in an early-week puzzle, though. I hitched early on with ARPEL, but thank goodness all the crossings were easy. I'm okay to learn a new brand name. Not as okay to run into OTB, SDS (I think it's a fine entry, but many newer solvers might not be familiar with Students for a Democratic Society), IT OFF, SNO, ITE, SKED. Two or three of these and a puzzle loses its feeling of elegance and craftsmanship.

It's hard to say what might have helped. Maybe not stacking NORTH AMERICA and LIVE A LIE? Putting LIVE A LIE in row 3 and NORTH AMERICA in row 5 might have spaced things out better.

Overall, a solid hidden-word theme using a fun reVEALer, but I would have liked some rework to improve smoothness, even if it meant reducing some of the snazziness.

COOL / HAND / LUKE, one of the classics! Pete gives us the (oft-misquoted) WHAT WE HAVE / HERE IS (a) FAILURE TO / COMMUNICATE. Imagine how much it would stink if you were that actor, having delivered an incredible line … only to have people say that you said it wrong?

Both work, grammatically. There's a good case for the line as is since that implies multiple instances. Given Paul Newman's constant needling of authority in the movie, that's clearly the case. So why do so many people insert the "a"?

I DON'T KNOW, BUT WE JUST DO.

Theme felt thin, what with just the movie title and a single quote. But the quote does take up a good amount of real estate: 11 + 15 + 11 = a lot of squares. And when you consider how difficult splitting up COOL / HAND / LUKE makes things, I can see why Pete didn't try for anything else.

Wait, wait, wait, failure to communicate, you say! What's the big deal about putting in three little teeny tiny itsy bitsy words? Well, let me tell you! Check out that south section, bounded by COMMUNICATE and HAND. Fixing a ceiling and a floor into a region like this is akin to eating 50 hard-boiled eggs. (I love that scene, Pete!)

It is true that Pete could have shifted HAND over one space to the right, so that did give him a little flexibility. But not a lot. So, not a surprise to get a rough crossing in MITA / OTOE in that region. This isn't a friendly crossing for novice solvers. Perhaps on the order of eating ten hard-boiled eggs.

Along with some USE NO, ETE, OF IT, and the dread OSO (O SO unfriendly to newbies), it's too much for a Monday puzzle. I did appreciate Pete's efforts to work in some extras, though — I CALLED IT, OLD FLAMES, and LETS SLIDE. Important, given how thin the theme felt. So tough to find the right balance.

I enjoyed the shout-out to one of the greatest movies of all time. I would have loved something more, though. Hmm … hard boiled eggs look like Os…

This is Pete's 100th NYT puzzle! Congrats, sir. He sent me a post Jim did about him from almost a decade ago, which was funny to read. I guess he didn't run out of steam after all!

The GANG OF FOUR played upon today. (Never thought I'd say those words, considering their infamous place in history!) I like Pete's novel take, using 2x2 blocks — GANGs of FOUR squares, if you will — that intersect their defining answers. (four) STAR = GOOD RATING, the (four) TOPS = MOTOWN SINGERS, etc.

I usually don't care for dictionary definitions — it's not much fun to struggle and toil, with only something as stilted as GLASSES WEARER as your reward — but I appreciate that Pete found definitions that can contain the appropriate GANG OF FOUR. MOTOWN SINGERS is a good phrase, so to work the T O of (four) TOPS in there is neat.

For those of you non-baseball fans, SLUGGER gets a fun clue, referring to Barry BONDS. Nice way to disguise Bonds vs. bonds by having that word start the clue. (Assuming you knew who Barry Bonds was, of course.)

With definitional themes, I think it's even more important than usual to include a ton of bonus fill to jazz up the solving experience. I love QUIZ SHOW, CARGO NET, even BORZOI and HAGGIS are fun. But my favorite was the confusing AND SOON … er, AND SO ON. Great use of a mid-length slot, providing a mini a-ha moment when I finally parsed that correctly.

Given the extra constraints put on by those three GANGs of FOUR, and the need to include all the bonus fill for spice, I think some ISR, TIA, OTC (over the counter), FAS, QAT (what a Scrabble-friendly word!) is not bad in terms of crossword glue.

This one didn't quite clear my (very high) threshold for the definitional theme type, but I appreciated Pete's interesting pairing of the definitions with the literal GANGs OF FOUR.

Themers following the "X A Y" pattern, where X and Y rhyme. Some nice finds, Pete utilizing all common, everyday(ish) phrases. SNEAK A PEEK is a perfect one, and BAKE A CAKE … who doesn't love CAKE? I did want SEAL A DEAL to be SEAL THE DEAL, but what can you do.

With six themers, I wouldn't have expected too many bonuses in the fill. What a nice surprise to get six(!) long slots, filled with juicy material like US HISTORY, ROLODEXES (obsolete, but they were culturally important), CHEAP DATE.

BORDELLOS … what would the Gray Lady say? I think I like this entry, although part of me wants the NYT crossword to stay away from certain unsavory references. No doubt, BORDELLOS is a colorful answer.

Some trade-offs to make this all happen, though. So much is going on in the lower left corner, for example — GRAB A CAB, BAKE A CAKE, BORDELLOS, and WELL BORN all have to be filled around — that there's inevitably some NONOs. Any five-letter entry ending in STAR is a constructing crutch, as that first letter can be so many things (each one of them arbitrary to most solvers), and there's enough tough material packed down there that I fear it might turn off newer solvers.

I do think all of BWANA, KLINK, AEROS, EWERS, ARIL, KNOTT are fair(ish), but whoo, that concentration might not be satisfying for an early-week solver.

My philosophy is that short fill does its job when it goes mostly unnoticed. There are occasionally awesome bits of short fill that help a puzzle stand out, but I don't think any of these fit that bill.

Along with some other toughies — I was in National Honor Society, but I struggled to piece together NHS — I would have liked more smoothness in exchange for fewer snazzy long answers.

Some neat rhyming finds, though. People ask me about rhyming themes all the time, and generally, they're way too overdone to be viable. But adding a layer like this "X A Y" pattern can work.

The DOUBLE / HELIX is so ripe for crossword brainstorming. One of Liz Gorski's a while back was particularly memorable, as was one of Joel Fagliano's. Today, Pete gives us something similar but goes with the letters D N A filling out the more-single-than-double-looking (sorry, Pete!) helix.

Nice find that WATSON / CRICK / DOUBLE / HELIX exhibit crossword symmetry!

I did find it inelegant to have to jump across the grid to connect the word pairs, and it was weird to get CRICK before WATSON. Using mirror symmetry would have helped this — both WATSON and DOUBLE could have been in the top half of the puzzle, with CRICK and HELIX at the bottom. (Back to the bottom where you belong, CRICK!)

Some nice bonuses in the grid, ARACHNID and ON THE GO my favorites. NOT A SOUL and FOOTSTEP = good stuff too. Much appreciated to get the extras, given that the puzzle felt a bit theme-thin.

Oh! As a macro econ junkie, I loved seeing REAL GDP in the grid. Except that it was REAL GNP! (Domestic vs. National, don't ask me what the difference is. My macro prof is now rolling in her grave.) That crossing with BRINDISI was a killer. Perhaps a case can be made that it's fair since the Appian Way is very famous, but that didn't stop me from grumbling.

It's so tough to work through that center of the puzzle, with so many D N A letters fixed into place. So the gluey results of INRI, SANI, ENDO, BANOS … not unexpected. And having a theme word fixed into place in each of the four corners, getting more ACOP, TASS, MDLI, ROIS, LIBBER, ERO … again, it's not unexpected, but it doesn't make for an elegant, smooth solve.

Finally, as a biochem junkie, I would have loved to see base pairings of A-T and G-C (adenine-thymine and guanine-cytosine), reflecting the actual building blocks of DNA. But I can only imagine thousands of solvers wondering why there were so many of these four letters in the grid. And other thousands in an outcry yelling BUT THAT AT-GC-GC-GC-AT-AT-GC SERIES IS NOT AN ACTUAL GENE SEQUENCE! Can't make everyone happy.

Song titles of three words, the first and second words identical. As a pop music idiot, I really appreciated that Pete stuck to fairly well-known songs. I might even be able to sing them. Okay, maybe hum them. And if I was forced to go to a karaoke bar I could probably throw in a "mercy" here and there, in MERCY MERCY ME.

I wondered how hard it would be to find examples fitting this pattern. Turns out, pretty hard! I didn't spend a lot of time looking, but Pete seems to have unearthed a pretty tight set of popular songs that stick to this idea. Very nice.

Even though he has to work around five long themers, Pete still makes the extra effort to put in some long bonus entries. None of them jumped out at me (MENS CLUBS isn't as vivid as "old boys' club"), but FRENETIC and SITCOM are fun, and EXCISING is an interesting word.

I felt like the grid got too strained, though. I wouldn't give this one to a relative newbie, as it might elicit a "I have to know what ELOI, AWN, and STERE are in order to do crosswords?!" reaction. I explain to people that you don't actually have to know these things, since you can just ignore them and rely on the crossing answers. But although that's a logical argument, I find that these types of entries don't go over too well, and certainly don't engender a feeling of wanting to do more crosswords.

For a Monday puzzle, I would have liked a different trade-off in snazzy long fill vs. sparkliness. I do like it when constructors go the extra mile to work in several pieces of long fill, but entries like ABANDONED don't feel worth the price of AS I, EIN, ANO, etc. plus the aforementioned.

In the end though, I found the five themers to be a tight-ish, entertaining set.

★ Very pretty graphic, with a THREE / STORY / HOUSE and its SLATE ROOF memorialized in NEEDLEPOINT. HOME / SWEET / HOME indeed!

I was amazed by how much Pete packed in today, especially THREE / STORY / HOUSE right atop each other. It's very hard to stack three specific answers when you have no flexibility. Then you throw in SLATE ROOF to further constrain things. I was worried at how many compromises Pete would have to make — and that was before I realized NEEDLEPOINT was part of the theme!

Pete did a nice job of deploying his black squares to separate the themers. You absolutely have to use some so THREE / STORY / HOUSE doesn't interact much with the SLATE ROOF. Then, the NEEDLEPOINT intersecting the SLATE ROOF has to be separated from HOME / SWEET / HOME as best as possible, otherwise you're forced to make a ton of compromises.

What with the enormous level of inflexibility — I can't remember when I've seen a puzzle constrained to this level — I like Pete's result. Sure, I hit RUHR / OTOE, SHERE, MEECE (ugh), ISERE right off the bat, but none of them are horrendous. And throughout the puzzle we get some of the usual suspects like ESSO, OPEL, DER, MAI, STE, but there's not a major offender in there. Some would even argue that ESSO is perfectly fine, since it's a major Canadian gas brand.

PHOEBES … apparently it's a fairly common bird in the Americas? Even after piecing it together from the crosses, I stared at the word in DISbelief. Some poor older solvers might choke on the OTOH crossing, four letters that will look random to non-texters. Even knowing that one, somehow PLOEBES seemed more plausible to me.

ASHTONS is a more clear-cut case. Not only is it a pluralized name, inelegant to start with, but it takes up a valuable 7-letter slot. Missed potential; could have been something as fun as CEDILLA.

All in all though, it's actually MUCH less crossword glue than I had expected, given the off-the-charts level of constraints. It's such a fun and pretty image; well worth the trade-offs to me.

DOGLEGS today, four types of dogs "bent" into the shape of golf course doglegs (when a fairway takes a bend). Pretty, those sets of circles in the grid. Something graceful about them, and they sort of evoke the image of a big golf course within the grid. (Sort of.)

GOLF COURSE is more or less essential to include as a revealer — just DOGLEGS might leave too many non-golfing solvers scratching their heads. Tough to find something equally perfect for the symmetrical spot. LADIES TEES are definitely real, where we horrifyingly poor golfers pretend we're are allowed to tee off. To Pete's point, it felt pretty shaky as a themer.

I might have preferred something like DOGLEG LEFT to match GOLF COURSE. Of course, that would mean all the dogs would need to bend left, making it very difficult to achieve symmetry in the sets of circles. But as pretty as that looks (SETTER symmetrically matching COLLIE), this is a rare case where I might have voted for asymmetry. Golf courses are never (rarely?) laid out to have rotational symmetry, so more random placements of the DOGLEGS might have been more evocative.

That could have also helped with the difficulty involved with placing diagonal entries in a crossword. Diagonal entries are notorious for necessitating crossword glue; such a tough task to fill around diagonal entries. Peter already does pretty well though, with really just an I GOT around one of them and an INGLE (I'm still undecided on that one), using his black squares really wisely to separate the sets of circles.

Solvers may have missed the bonus entries, ON A PAR and CARDED, placed in symmetrical spots. They don't directly tie into the DOGLEGS theme, but they do add a little more golf-y feel to the puzzle.

Loved the clue for HAT. "Overhead expense" is common in business-speak, so to repurpose it for a hat purchase is clever.

Some pretty grid imagery today, along with solid execution.

Neat idea, the HORIZON separating the SKY from the SEA. I really liked the picture of the FLOCK OF BIRDS up above and the SCHOOL OF FISH down below. It all comes together with an artistic flair, almost like it's a painting.

Usually, a puzzle needs more theme density than just the aforementioned, so I enjoyed seeing CORAL down below. But if only Pete had kept CLOUD instead of PLANE to complete the picturesque scene! It felt odd to have a PLANE streaking through as the only man-made entry.

It also felt a bid strange to have an EAGLET and an EEL randomly in the puzzle. Some people enjoy "bonus theme material," but I find it inelegant to have small entries that are sort of related to the theme.

It's often tough to fill a grid cleanly and with color when you're working with short theme answers. So it was a nice surprise to get NETFLIX, MOSAIC, and a bunch of goodies in the big corners: AVARICE, WILDCAT, HIPSTER, TRACHEA, EARHART. Working with those big 7x4 corners is rarely easy, so Pete's execution impressed me in that regard. I don't care for H TEST, OKEY (how else can you clue this one?), and LA VIE, but I think those are reasonable prices to pay.

I didn't care as much for MACH TWO. It's usually written as "Mach 2," so to see the T W O was weird. And MACH TWO itself isn't nearly as important as MACH 1 to me. Breaking the speed of sound is major! Going twice the speed of sound seems kind of arbitrary.

There was some crossword glue I didn't care for — TOILER feels made-up, ORONO gets overused relative to its real-life importance due to the crossword-friendly vowel-consonant alternation, SSR is outdated, etc. But that's not uncommon when working with so many short answers like PLANE and SKY and HORIZON fixed into place.

Very cool idea, with some compromises here and there.

I enjoy mini-themes in my themelesses; an unexpected bonus. I got stuck in the NW corner, so it was great to realize Pete's DREAMGIRLS / JERSEY BOYS link. I don't know either, but I like the connection a lot. I'll have to check out DREAMGIRLS especially — Jamie Foxx, Beyonce, and Eddie Murphy = all-star cast! It would have been perfect if the gap between musical and movie had been exactly the same for both shows, but what can you do.

Pete shoots for the moon, with 18 long slots. It's a very tough arrangement, since there are long entries running through the triple-stacks and interlocking into each other. Check out how I DID MY BEST, ABSORPTION, POCAHANTAS, and COTTON SWAB link together in the middle of the puzzle — that restricts flexibility in filling, since so much of the puzzle's skeleton is locked together, one answer affecting many others. Very tough to convert all 18 slots into assets.

Pete gets a lot of strong material dotted in, from DOGGIE DOOR to OSCAR WILDE to BREAKDANCE to PILOT ERROR. There are a few long entries that didn't hit for me — ANOINTINGS, STARTS OVER, LETTER TRAY, LACERATED — which isn't surprising given the high degree of interlock. It's one of the themeless constructor's dilemmas: do you start with a small number of long entries (about 10) and work hard to convert them all into assets, or do you start with a huge number, knowing that you'll likely end up with a few so-so entries?

Hey, an innovative PSI clue! I was just in Bloomington, Indiana over the holidays ((I tried to go see Will's puzzle exhibit at IU, but it had just closed — boo!), so it was fun to realize that the pervasive IU symbol does look like a psi.

A couple of minor offenders in SSR, WSW, ETE, etc., but the great cluing swept those away for me. My favorite was [One with a lot to think about] — a HOMEOWNER owns a lot, or a parcel of land. [Professional fixer] made me think of Harvey Keitel's character in "Pulp Fiction," but this was a very different kind of "fixer," as in a VET spaying cats and dogs.

Nicely consistent theme; a pair of letters repeated exactly four times (total of five instances) within a kooky sentence. I AM A MAMA MAMBA gave me a chuckle — it would make a great seed for a picture book! LEND A DAD A DADA was a neat exercise in parse-ology, forcing me to struggle to figure out where the spaces went. Entertaining.

I always appreciate getting some long pieces of fill in a crossword, and Pete hits my wavelength today with six long entries. SMOKE ALARMS, NEXT IN LINE, PHOTO ALBUMS, and RATTED ON are all strong entries in my book. And although SANTA MONICA is average-ish to me, the "Three's Company" clue brought me back to the days when Jack Tripper was my boyhood hero.

Sad, isn't it?

Note how well Pete spaces out his long downs. None of them are piled up against each other, and they're all separated by a good number of black squares. I personally use similar arrangements of six long downs all the time, as it makes for surprisingly easy filling. All this extra material for the price of only an EDE and a minor AGRI = good execution.

Great to get even more sparkle in ONE SEED, too. I dropped in TOP SEED, but ONE SEED is a term I hear all the time during the NCAA basketball tourney.

Will's mentioned that all he's looking for out of a Thursday crossword is for it to be harder than a Wednesday. One way to do this is to simply crank up the difficulty of the clues. Take [Tots] for example. It took me forever to figure out that it obliquely referred to "totals up," not "little kid." I personally find it much more satisfying to have the theme concept of the crossword difficult, not the clues, though. Once I cottoned to this particular trick, looking for letter-repetitions made it too easy for my taste to fill in the theme answers.

The clue for ABA gave me a middle-schooler's tee-hee — the last part of the [Org. with red, white and blue balls, once] clue made me think of something very different. Ahem.