Randolph Ross author page

NUTLETS made me laugh all over again, Kevin Hart and Snoop Dogg the most hilarious pair of color commentators of all time.

Ballsy grid today, 66-worders are no joke. Themeless constructors would typically run triple-stacks in each of four corners, but certainly not incorporate so many long entries (SEE THINGS, VETO POWER, CT SCANNER, etc.) intersecting them.

Others might run most of their juicy entries in the Across direction, leaving the Downs as short filler. Not Randy, who mixed the two styles, with mixed results.

I enjoyed many of the long entries, especially STALE JOKE, NOT FOR SALE, ARE WE ALONE with its extra-terrestrial connotation, IT'S A PLANE.

Even CLINETELE was interesting, especially with the clever [Patronizing types] clue. Not only did I wrongly put in an S at the end, but the use of "patronizing" as one who is a patron (or buyer) is fabulous misdirection.

I wasn't as excited by some of the one-worders taking up those precious long slots, like HARNESSED, ULTIMATELY, PENETRATES (don't ask what Snoop would say about this). Add-a-preposition entries aren't often sizzlers either, like CLOSE IN ON. And I wasn't sure of TOADIED UP's usage, at least not without "to" following it.

Along with more trade-offs in the short fill — OTO prefix, SOOTS in the plural?, RIFER, DYERS, I LOVE partial, etc. I'd have preferred a 68- or 70-word approach that achieved more in both smoothness and snazz.

There was some color in the clues, [Water color] innocently pointing at OCEAN BLUE. As a whole though, it could have used more bling.

Toys in crosswordland! Some interesting trivia tidbits about an assortment of toys. Appropriate theme for the holiday season.

I wasn't expecting much, sensing that this might be a trivia puzzle, but I was genuinely impressed by some of the factoids. Astronauts bring SILLY PUTTY into space, MR POTATO HEAD trailblazing the way for the TV toy advertising movement, the ETCH A SKETCH starting its life as "L'Ecran Magique." Can't you imagine kids yelling, "Please, I have to have L'Ecran Magique or I'll MORTE!"

Maybe not.

Although I knew the RUBIKS CUBE clue, it reminded me of Netflix's fantastic documentary, "The Speed Cubers." I'm a 2-minute solver, so I was hoping to get tips on how to break 30 seconds, and I got so much more from this movie. It's not as much about cubing as an unlikely friendship that develops between two cubers. Highly recommended.

I wasn't as wild about some random-feeling toy choices. Why include TAMAGOTCHI, especially since its clue didn't point to anything significant? What is the COZY COUPE (although outselling the Honda Accord feels impressive!)? TICKLE ME ELMO was two decades ago, with dozens more hot-new-item toys causing frenzies.

I've been harsh on Randy's Sunday work in the past because he pushes himself to do too much while leaving solvers with loads of gunk to wade through. I give his grid today a thumbs-up, though, since it contains an average amount of glue (about a dozen dabs). Smart to hold at 140 words this time; I hope this will become more of his norm.

There was some oddity in IODATE, BROCAS, and not much bonus material besides the themers, but the solve was smooth and mostly pleasant, with not much sticking out. Even though the theme didn't fully speak to me, it was still an overall pleasant fifteen minutes of diversion because the grid didn't feel like it was trying too hard.

A DREAM WITHIN A DREAM -> WHAT AM I, A MIND READER would make anagramatron proud. It was on "This American Life" and other sources as well, but it's still an A+ discovery.

Crosswords have tapped anagrams for decades now, and they're often not my thing because they've been so played out. It's also tough to anagram more than seven letters in my head, so connecting CONTAMINATED to NO ADMITTANCE is more "I'll take your word for that" rather than "oh man that's so cool."

Interesting way to link the anagrams, though. I've never before seen CONTAMINATED leading to NO ADMITTANCE, sort of a cause/effect presentation. I appreciate the novelty. I thought we were in for another "word that means an anagram of itself" when I hit SYCOPHANT / ACTS PHONY, so it was a pleasant surprise to get something different.

FORTY-FIVE leading to OVER FIFTY at first felt arbitrary, but in the vein of cause/effect, this worked.

Best of all, I was delighted that Randy didn't dip into sub-140 word territory like he usually does. Although the result didn't exemplify smoothness — that SE corner of TEASELS SUD SNEE left me with some AGITA — it's an average Sunday result. Nothing to excessively kvetch about.

It's uncommon for me to enjoy an anagram puzzle, so kudos for the new twist. I'd even venture to say that if all pairs had demonstrated such neat cause/effect links as CONTAMINATED to NO ADMITTANCE, it'd have gotten a whiff of POW! consideration.

Randy and I have different construction philosophies. He often chooses to build audacious grids that are far from standard, wanting a personal challenge to make it worth his time. As a driven, goal-oriented constructor, I understand that notion. He usually accepts too many trade-offs, though, leaving some of his puzzles with a less-than-optimal solving experience.

On a related note, I get why some themeless constructors try to build ultra-low word-count grids, flying close to the sun with their black and white wings. A vast majority of the time, the product is at best a crazy Saturday workout, and at worst, a miserable slog of a solve.

Add these two factors together, and you can understand why I wasn't looking forward to jumping into this one.

Hugely surprised that I enjoyed it! No doubt, there are many of the usual compromises in this stunt themeless — overreliance on common letters (ASSESSESS, RAILED AT, etc.), odd forms (CHANTER, INHERED), oddballs (PELAGE, PARLOUR, LEVERETS) — but there wasn't nearly as much short glue (ACTA, TSPS, YDS) as I expected.

More importantly, it's tough to get strong color in a grid like this. THE SMURFS, FREE LOVE, HASHEESH, IT'S A DATE, PHONE SEX, RIPTIDES, SIT SHIVA, TAN LINES, TODO LIST, DRAMEDY, OPIODS — that's excellent usage of long slots.

A couple of fantastic clues, too. The RED SEA having a major "part" in the Bible. STEED as a "knight mare." ERASES repurposing "get the lead out" — that's pencil lead. I smiled so hard at these; so delightful.

I don't enjoy experiencing ultra-low-word-counters more than once in a blue moon, but this is the type I want. You'll almost always have some compromises, but today's juicy long answers more than made up for the necessary unpleasantness.

REPORT CARD

THEME: GREAT

Excellent concept. PARKING FINE imagined as "Parking: fine" makes me wish I thought of this notion.

THEMERS: GOOD

SCARBOROUGH: FAIR is another solid example, as is BATTING: AVERAGE. Not all of them worked, though. MOTHER: SUPERIOR isn't consistent, as it ought to be "mothering" to match the overall structure. BUCK PASSING is a questionable base phrase, as is TASTE GREAT.

GRID: NEEDS IMPROVEMENT

Randy and I had a useful exchange after his last low word-count experiment. There's nothing wrong with wanting to keep yourself challenged. After 100+ puzzles, the risk of getting bored is high.

There is something wrong about producing a grid like this, though, featuring pile-ups of ON UP / ONE AS, NOT US / ARTES, AGITA, BIERS, SIDER, THORO, and so on.

The center of the grid is the biggest offender, and that could be addressed by using more black squares to separate the themers. There is something to be said for adding JOCUND and INROADS into your grid, but their spice is not worth the moribund price. Any time you leave so much real estate open between three themers, gloop is bound to happen. It was so unpleasant to wade through.

Such a shame. New ideas are precious in crosswords. I'm officially begging Will Shortz to crack down harder on these low-word-count stunts. A couple rounds of theme and grid revision, and this could have garnered POW! consideration.

Randy had such nice consistency in his themers, always using exactly one overlapping letter in the clue. WILDER + RAYBURN = WILDERAYBURN -> two Genes put together, or SPLICED GENES. Get it?

What, you don't know who Gene Rayburn was?

Huh. That makes it harder to figure out.

I vaguely recalled his name from my youth, watching hours of afternoon TV as a latchkey kid. It didn't matter how bad a show was; it was better than not watching TV at all. That says a lot about "The Match Game" (and me, too, sadly).

It's not the tightest theme since there are so many synonyms for "joined." ASSOCIATED PRESS, MARRIED MEN, JOINED HANDS, etc. could have all worked. Not every theme needs to be tight — a set of four examples is perfectly fine — but tightness does add elegance.

A 68-word grid like today's destroys elegance. There's no doubt that it makes for a harder solve (which is what Will wants above all else in a Thursday puzzle), but no one likes to run into A FUSS of DESTE, ENOTE, UNARM (disarm), KTS, RFD (when you have to say "outdated" in the clue …), SRTA, TSE, and on it goes.

I did love getting GAL GADOT, who looks awesomely bizarre as GALGA DOT, as well as LEAD FOOT, SIDEBURNS, even CONSULATE. That's a good amount of colorful bonus material designed to elevate the quality of a solve. However, you can do still do that and a also achieve a much, much, much smoother grid, by sticking to a more traditional layout. Even going to a 72-worder (without stacking themers), could have been fruitful.

Now, the puzzle does have many entries that aren't seen every day — the mid-length slots in particular — so one might think it would lend a feeling of freshness. It's so hard to fill big swaths of white space with sizzle, though. It's not worth putting solvers through such a rough experience when all you have to offer them are neutral words like ADDUCE, and iffy ones like MOSHER.

Will Shortz and I have a fundamental difference about what makes for an entertaining low-word-count themed puzzle. I'd have sent this one back for a redo.

I did appreciate exchanging emails with Randy about this topic. It's good to hear that he's constantly struggling to find the right balance between his needs and those of solvers.

Letter homophones, [Blue jays] innocently cluing JASMINE AND JEANS, i.e. (blue) JASMINE and (blue) JEANS are real things. I couldn't place BLUE JASMINE immediately, so my understanding of the theme was murky at first. But Woody Allen's 2013 movie came back after some thought.

Took a while to remember that a honey badger was an animal, too. That led to an internet rabbit hole of HONEY BADGER DON'T CARE memes.

I'd love for the honey badger to be my spirit animal. Too bad mine is the mole. Wah wah.

I appreciated that it's a tricky enough idea for a Thursday. I had to work for it, no doubt. But it felt more like work than fun to uncover the crossword entries themselves. That's the risk you take when you rely on oddball entries. It's inelegant when one of your entries could just as easily be CLASS and COMMAND, CHAIR and COURT, COUNCIL and COLONIC.

Maybe not that last one.

Sometimes Will encourages constructors to go for a low word count for a Thursday puzzle because that makes the solve even more difficult. I didn't like that today, as those NW and SE corners — HONEY BADGER DON'T CARE! You have to run so many entries through and around JASMINE AND JEANS / BADGERS AND BEARS. With so much open space, it's inevitable to get some RESANDS ABEAM.

AH, SO (I'm not squinting my eyes, I swear). DAMN!

In the SE, I couldn't figure out if I loved or hated UN VOTE. In the end, I leaned toward the latter. Such an arbitrary-feeling entry.

I'd have broken up these two corners (splitting OBADIAH and DEMERIT in half is one way).

It's already a tough, twisty theme. Smoother gridwork could have made for an improved solving experience. It's tough, though — I've been right there with Randy's desire to take on a personal constructing challenge. Such an allure to set a personal goal and try one's best for it.

Ha! The poor MAGICIAN had his tricks confiscated. DIS-ILLUSIONED, shall we say? DIS-PATCHING a TAILOR would certainly be a cause for retirement. And how could a CATTLEMAN work if he had been DE-RANGED?

Lots of groans, but the good kind.

Not all of them worked as well for me. A DIS-TRUSTED BANKER might be jumping for joy, if he/she were working for one of the small banks. No Citi or Morgan Stanley to compete with anymore? Yeah!

And a DIS-TRESSED HAIRDRESSER … aren't there bald stylists out there? I imagine the clue is talking about the person's clients. But dis-tressing people is a hairdresser's job, isn't it?

(Feels like there's a different crossword idea in there!)

The glut of ADAY ARMET ICS IGOT ISE NAHA SITA STD STE SCHED and on and on … I'm mystified why Will keeps on allowing constructors to go below 140 words. It's maybe 10x harder to execute well on a 134-word puzzle, and for what? I'd understand if it made a ton of long bonuses like BASS FIDDLE and CASEY KASEM possible. But PRECEDED, RESTAGED, OVEREXPOSE aren't super snazzy. Along with the flood of crossword glue … why?

I'd have had a smoother, more enjoyable solving experience if Randy had deployed more black squares to better separate his themers. Seven long themers are tough enough to build around — why not stick with 140 words and make a stellar grid?

Overall though, a fun notion for a theme. It might have played better as a weekday puzzle, i.e. [The cattleman was forced to retire because he was …], but I can respect Randy's longer presentation.

_OWARD is such an interesting clue. It obviously is missing something, but what? COWARD, HOWARD, or TOWARD? Or maybe it's missing multiple letters, as in UNTOWARD? Delightful to finally uncover the jazzy phrase, HEADLESS CHICKEN, and realize that it's literally describing (C)OWARD.

BOTTOMLESS PIT is a great phrase too. QUARR_ was a bit too obvious of a clue for my taste though. I suppose it could have misdirected some to QUARREL, but how about CHAS_, which would have more easily misdirected to CHASE?

ENDLESS SUMMER wasn't as familiar to me. It's … an album? A movie?

Is a TOPLESS SWIMSUIT a thing? What is the term for the swimsuit bottom of a bikini set? Isn't it just a "swimsuit bottom"?

I like what Randy did in the west and east sections, which tend to be tricky in this sort of layout. Just an ALAR and an ESSO is a good result.

I hitched on the big corners, though. No doubt, going down to 70 words with giant corners makes for a tougher, more Thursday-ish solve. And I fully agree with Randy on RAPPELS and YACHTER. But entries like ONE UNIT (seems arbitrary), the odd partial AT A TIME, along with ENS, ITA, NUIT, STER — and that's just the bottom of the puzzle — made it not worth it for me.

It's a tough call. Will and Joel often nudge constructors to go lower in word count for later-week puzzles, a philosophy I generally agree with. I think some reining in would have helped this one, though. Breaking up the big corners by going to 74ish words might have produced better trade-offs.

I liked the concept a lot, strong notion for a tricky Thursday, making the work in solving worth the a-ha moment. If they had all been as great as _OWARD / HEADLESS CHICKEN, it could have easily garnered POW! consideration.

I often tell constructors how important multi-word phrases are in themelesses — it was one of Rich Norris' major points to me, way back when I first started creating them. Not only do they tend to be more colorful than single words (which can often come across as workmanlike), but it's a neat challenge trying to figure out where the word breaks ought to be.

But as Randy points out, CONTORTIONIST is a strong exception to this rule of thumb. It's not something you hear every day, and what imagery it evokes! Plus, that fantastic clue — someone getting bent out of shape indeed. That's the type of wordplay that makes a themeless entry stand out.

NOTHING BURGER might also be an exception. It is a multi-worder, but I'm not positive it's that well known. (I personally find it amusing when Kevin O'Leary from "Shark Tank" says it.) It's reasonable to expect solvers to learn something new, but then the entry doesn't generate the same level of cleverosity as CONTORTIONIST and its clue.

Solid center of the puzzle, CONAN OBRIEN and CENTRIPETAL acceleration filling things out. So much goodness, I didn't mind a little ME DO / UNOS holding it all together.

I might have tried to rejigger the SW and NE corners, though. Those intersecting triple-stacks of 7s might not look that hard, but I think it's one of the most underestimated challenges in all of themeless construction. Looks so innocuous, doesn't it? But there's a reason why we get SERIO and MSS up top and WILEE and NEER in the opposite corner. All that glue, for what? BIT PART is nice, and this physics geek likes INTERIA, but overall, those corners hold more liabilities than assets.

Generally, I try to avoid this sort of grid pattern. Shifting some blocks around could have broken up at least one of those triple-stacked 7s.

Overall though, still a good Saturday challenge — especially that PROLE / PRIVET / PRADA region, with a ridiculously hard clue for PRADA. I wonder if fashionistas knew that the brand uses the same word as a luxurious Italian house? I was super thankful to guess the PRIVET / PRADA crossing correctly!

ADDED NOTE: Astute reader Mike Knobler pointed out that the PRADA clue meant "house" in the "place of business" sense. D'oh! Went over my head; I should have (eventually) figured that out.

Secretive orgs rebusized … WIRETAPped? It's fun to see those rebus bugs planted into the grid, but I didn't get why WIRETAP would mean that those trigrams would be shoved into a single box.

Still, it was fun to uncover the four special boxes. Great find in DATE OF BIRTH — which felt quasi-semi-sorta-kinda-theme-related! (Something that a secretive org might secretly record?) Not easy to work with the *FBI* string of letters, and this is the way to do it.

BAY OF BISCAY wasn't as interesting to me, personally. If this weren't the NYT, I'd be intrigued to see SONS OF BITCHES — no commentary on the FBI, please don't wiretap me! — but perhaps PAIR OF BINOCULARS or WAD OF BILLS?

MARCIA CLARK also didn't resonate with me. I remember watching the Trial of the Century, and of course, I remember Johnny Cochran. Brilliant self-promoter. The lead prosecutor though … sadly, fewer people remember the loser. Or were we all losers in that one? I'd have preferred maybe SOCIAL WORKER or ARTIFICIAL KNEE.

Don't get me wrong, I think BAY OF BISCAY and MARCIA CLARK are both crossworthy. But unless the name is uber-famous, known by almost anyone, I prefer theme phrases that have more universal appeal.

It's tough to achieve long rebus entries in both directions, so props to Randy for crossings like MADE A SCENE / ART DEALER. Beautiful stuff! Also beautiful: DNA TEST, ALI BABA, ILL LIVE. That kind of bonus fill sparkles up a grid.

Not so sparkly: SNEERY. THE MOST? And I gave the side-eye to GLAD EYE. I don't mind one or even two of these in a grid, but all of them left me with an unready discomfort.

It's tough. With so many constraints, Randy had to make some trade-offs. On the plus side, he did well to keep the short crossword glue limited to ALERO, SMEE, RANDD (curiously similar to RANDY!). So although some of that mid-length fill did leave me sneery, I thought he struck a decent balance in grid fill.

Something interesting about those secretive orgs rebusized. WIRETAP didn't serve me up a sharp a-ha moment, but the solving experience was still entertaining.

Snazzy 1-A, WITCH HUNT. Kind of a mini-theme with BLAME GAME! I wish both of these had gotten more clever clues — BLAME GAME especially could have gotten some "finger-pointing" misdirection — but some entries are strong enough in their own right to stand out.

SEXCAPADE looks like another potential seed entry. Feels a bit dated, though.

Get it, dated? As in "went out with"?

(crickets)

Anyhoo, maybe SEXCAPADE stands the test of time? But it doesn't feel fresh to me these days.

I tried to figure out what Randy might have prioritized in the NE corner. Certainly not POSSESSES, a neutral entry that's a constructor's crutch what with all those Es and Ss. ANTI LABOR? Maybe? Hopefully not STALINIST. Yikes. Not sure why this is any better than NAZI PARTY or something, given how many people lost their lives to STALINIST policies.

This is a perfect example of a grid that would have benefitted from a higher word count. At 68, it's right around the threshold at which most constructors (not named Patrick Berry) struggle. I'll leave it to the reader to count up the gluey bits (abbrs, esoteric names, partials, arbitrary number-letters, etc.). It's way over my threshold of what makes for an elegant puzzle.

One that might surprise you is ENEWS ... It's perfectly fine! Some solvers roll their eyes at various E- addition entries, like ECASH, ETAIL, etc. But I think if it's in general use, it's A-okay. And E! News is a pretty popular show.

For traditional themelesses (ones that feature four triple-stacked entries, one in each corner), I much prefer a 70 or 72-word layout, which makes a grid so much easier to fill with color and cleanliness. I'm pretty sure black squares at the S of GUAVAS and first S of SEESAW would have helped a ton, for example.

HULET THE DOGS OUT! Er, HU let them out. Sad to say, this Chinese-American has trouble remembering all the former Chinese leaders, dang it.

Randy plays upon half of the Five W's (plus one H) in journalism, homophones of what, how, who. At first, I thought it was impossible to include them all six, but WEN (another former Chinese leader!), Andy WEIR (author of "The Martian"), and … WAI? Surely there's another Chinese leader named WAI? No?

Alas, sometimes the crossword gods frown down upon you.

This one reminded me of another puzzle using the Five Ws. Sounding out the complete set of Five Ws made for a satisfying click ... when it did click (a few hours after I solved it).

Given that there were just three of these homophones, it would have been great if they were all perfect ones. HOWS / HOWES and HU / WHO are spot on, but there seems to be controversy over the "correct" pronunciation of WHAT. Any way I can think to say WATT, it doesn't sound exactly like WHAT. So it did feel like an inconsistent set of themers. Not good when you only have three.

Using only three themers allowed Randy to open things up, though, let his grid breathe. I like getting a themeless-level word count (72) when it can give me bonuses such as ALL STARS / TEE TIMES, SOCKHOP, PUG NOSE.

Not so much when the price to pay is RTES / REWARM (reheat, yeah?) / EDT / CUT TO (feels partial-ish) right at the beginning of the puzzle. Toss in LOBAR, AMS (usually not pluralized) … and oof, the EHLE / ECOLE / ILONA crossings. Should educated solvers be expected to know this trio? ECOLE came to me quickly because I took five years of high school French, but I'd be sympathetic to solvers Hu — er, who — finished with errors there.

It did help to hear Randy's thoughts — selecting the first three "questions" in the Abbott and Costello routine made the theme set feel a little better. But overall, I would have liked all six included, and/or a grid with more polish.

Puns / homophones playing on famous Biblical phrases. This is a tried and true crossword theme type — it was Merl Reagle's specialty — and it lives or dies on how amusing the resulting phrases are. I enjoyed IN THE BIG INNING, as that was a surprising word transformation. And it was fun to think of God playing baseball (he/she and I are both SF Giants fans). FORBIDDEN FLUTE also entertained me, evoking an image of a magic flute held under lock and key.

The others didn't do much for me. LET THERE BE LITE didn't make much grammatical sense, AN AYE FOR AN EYE too easy of a substitution, and I was sure A MARK UPON CANE had to be based on the "mark of Cain." I'm no Bible scholar, but it was news to me that "a mark upon Cain" was a thing.

Even if a puzzle's theme doesn't catch my attention, there's plenty of room for bonus fill or great execution to do so. SCHUBERT was nice at the top of the puzzle. BARN ONE — er, BAR NONE — was another standout. I've never SAFARIED, but I'd sure like to. And even the crazy KEYOFE? Ah, the KEY OF E! Nice.

So much crossword glue, though. I don't mind a few minor STL, TRA, ADDA, REMI here and there. But LII. IT OFF. ASIA M — er, AS I AM. SENAT. (And I kept on ticking off more and more after that.)

VOGEL crossing VALES = yikes. I put in (HOGEL / HALES.) Maybe I ought to know Kenneth Vogel. But for those of us that need an introduction to him, doing it in a such a way to deprive solvers of a correct finish is not the way to do it.

I'll have to respectfully disagree with Randy on the amount of unappealing entries and crosswordese.

I do understand the drive to try difficult constructions — a crazily wide-open grid can make for an interesting challenge. And if the fill was smoother, it could have made for an extra-hard, extra-satisfying-to-complete solve. But making a quality 140-word puzzle is hard enough. Very few people can pull off the sub-140 — much less go all the way down to 134 — while keeping standards to where they need to be, if the NYT's reputation as one of the best puzzles out there is to be maintained.

Still, I did enjoy a couple of the themers, as well as some of the long fill bonuses.

★ I love Randy's use of the big 21x21 canvas. Too often, Sunday puzzles feel to me like an overinflated 15x15. The imagery of a GONDOLA sitting on a GRAND CANAL and a RAFT on the COLORADO RIVER is so pretty; a wonderful use of the huge space a Sunday puzzle allows for.

This type of puzzle (with pairs of stacked answers) is so tricky to pull off. In a recent one of similar conceit, Jason and I struggled mightily with the grid skeleton, going through dozens of iterations before finally arriving at something workable. Grid symmetry causes a huge problem — for instance, when you place GONDOLA, that forces you to use a symmetrically-placed seven-letter answer (NO TASTE in today's grid). Each time you force a long slot like that, the grid becomes more constrained. Pretty soon, you run into spots which are overly rigid and even impossible.

Randy does help himself by using a few shorter themers — GRAND CANAL and ARABIAN SEA — which helps reduce overlap between themers. But having to work in the long OIL TANKER and another long symmetrically-placed entry is not easy at all. Randy does so well, incorporating the nice STEEL MILL, along with very few dabs of crossword glue. ATMAN is a tough word to remember for me, but it's legit. ONCLE might be a bit deep into French for some, but it's not hard to figure out. And UNDAM … well, there was bound to be minor crossword glue needed to hold that section together.

I love that there's a lone UBOAT hanging out. It would have been nice to get that one at the very end though, tricking the solver by breaking the established pattern.

Knowing how difficult it is to execute on a puzzle like today's, I was extremely impressed by Randy's work. I wish all Sunday constructors would think as big as Randy did, while taking the care to execute on the concept as well as he did — such strong bonus fill (BALALAIKA!) with only a minimum of gluey bits. Loved it.

Normal phrases using words starting with IN, where the IN is separated out for wacky results. It took me all the way to the bottom before I uncovered my first themer, where I was delighted to find this wasn't an "add-an-IN" type puzzle. CRIMINAL IN TENT was pretty amusing.

I like transformations that 1.) dramatically change the base phrase and 2.) are funny. GENERAL INFORMATION hit the mark for me, as it's amusing to think about a general hiding somewhere in the ranks, and INFORMATION is very different from IN FORMATION. SISTER IN LAW tickled my funny bone, but IN LAW is too close to the IN-LAW base for my taste.

PRIVATE INVESTMENTS made me pause, as PRIVATE EQUITY is much more common in financial lingo, but it's still a reasonable base phrase. And I did like the image of a private dressed in a priest's outfit, a la "Nuns on the Run."

BRAIN INJURY … it is amusing to think about Encyclopedia Brown in a jury, and INJURY to IN JURY is a fun transformation, but the base phrase is such a downer. Randy and I emailed about this, and I see his point about the NYT reporting about football injuries, concussion studies, etc. Still, I'd rather have crosswords pick up my spirit; a bit of escapism.

I like Randy's experimentation with low word counts. Now, I don't care for plural names (JENNERS) unless they're something in common use (the OBAMAS, say), and the entries made artificially long by adding ON, TO, OUT, OVER, AT (TOOK TO, etc.) don't add much, but overall it's a fun experience to have to puzzle out a whole lot more six- and seven-letter entries than usual. Some of the shorter stuff, like SIP TEA and PIG IT, felt pretty made-up to me, but nicer entries like ON PAPER balance them out.

I'm not convinced that the ultra-low word count is my cup of tea, but I like seeing the experimentation.

101 puzzles! Impressive. Scan through Randy's constructor page, especially noting how many Sundays he's made. It's hard enough to get a single puzzle into the NYT, even harder to get a Sunday, and he now has 45 of them. Wow!

Fun take on "___ line" phrases today, all reinterpreted as verbal lines from a phone call, a date, from Tom Cruise, etc. I like how Randy stuck to almost all in-the-language phrases. MAY I SEE YOU AGAIN seems arbitrary to me, but all of the nine others are choice entries. And I also like how he stuck with mostly all common "___ line" phrases as clues. The best ones are those that require a jump from clue to entry, i.e. Cruise line (like Holland America) is very different from Cruise line (like from Tom Cruise). Ones like [Story line] and [Telephone line] weren't quite as amusing for me, in that the clues and answers were quasi-related.

Ten themers is a tough task. I appreciate what Randy said regarding the fun being mostly in the theme. Will sometimes runs a Sunday puzzle with less theme density but more juicy fill. More often than not, I tire of those, as they feel like a gigantic themeless puzzle. So I enjoyed uncovering all these ten different "lines."

Always the trade-offs. As much as I like EAT FRESH and ILL GET IT and their respective clues, they sure presented grid difficulties (stacking two theme answers right next to each other will almost always present a challenge). It's hard to say whether or not each of them was "fair." AMOCO, FARFEL, Chris NOTH in the SW. Robert DONAT, Edouard LALO, AGITA in the NE. There's a certain amount of knowledge that a NYT reader is expected to have. These strike me as pushing that fine line (is SEE IF I CARE! is a "fine line"?).

I applaud Randy's use of cheater squares in the very NW and SE. Those regions are nice and smooth, helped out by those two black squares (there's a reason why Rich Norris calls them "helper squares"). A black square either at the D or T of DONAT would at least have opened up some other options to reduce the glue-y entries. Now, I don't advocate tossing in black squares willy-nilly — too many compromise a puzzle's aesthetics — but I personally would like to see them used more, especially on Sunday puzzles, which are so very tough to construct smoothly.

Anyway, a fun outing with a few rough patches. Excellent theme choices and a great title.