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Good workout today from one of the themeless masters. Some fantastic answers packed in the grid today, VELVET ELVIS being one of my favorite entries in recent memory. I'm constantly impressed by how many new and fresh entries Brad consistently incorporates into his puzzles.

Novel layout today, with a minor ding for the grid being somewhat segmented (easily separable along the SW to NE diagonal). Generally speaking, a puzzle shouldn't be able to be split in half by the addition of a pair of black squares, because it leads to a less integrated feeling for the solver. In this case, I felt like I was solving two separate mini-puzzles. It's a minor issue, though.

The NE corner was almost impossible for me, finally getting LBJ RANCH with a hail Mary, a flurry of typing in random letter sequences at the eleventh hour. LBJ RANCH is one of my favorite answers in the entire grid, especially given that wacky LBJR sequence to start it, but that corner also contains JILTEE, my least favorite entry. JILTEE is most definitely a word, but not one I imagine many people would use in real life. The fact that LBJ RANCH starts with four consecutive consonants makes that corner's construction very difficult. Brad did well to save it, but as always, almost every audacious piece of fill comes with a trade-off.

Finally, some great clues. A beautiful one for BEER CAN; nice misdirection toward a bar tab when the clue actually refers to the BEER CAN's opener tab. I also really appreciated the clue for TORME, which brought me laughs as I pictured Mel Torme singing to a fat-lipped Kramer. I think good crosswords ought to both entertain and uplift, and that clue certainly did both for me.

Now if someone would just work FEATS OF STRENGTH and AIRING OF GRIEVANCES into a crossword. Sadly, they're probably not gridworthy. Nor is SPONGEWORTHY. Sigh.

– puzzle by Brad Wilber

You had me at "Result of knuckling down" = NOOGIE. As a writer of middle grade fiction (for ages 8-12), any reference including but not limited to wedgies, spitwads, atomic wedgies, noogies, or wet willies tickles me (much to the chagrin of my poor wife).

Some very nice clues today, "Sniffing a lot" for STUCK UP being my second favorite, and "'As you like it' phrase" a devilishly clever clue. It took me the longest time to realize that it was "As you like it", not "As You Like It" (capitalized). Very well done.

A observation regarding ECARTE: note the preponderance of high-frequency letters, just the C being a touch out of the realm of common. This makes it ideal to use as a piece of fill, something that helps glue a part of the grid together. I personally would love to see less of it though, given that ECARTE is about as common (I think) as the other outdated xw card game staple, ONE-O-CAT. I love cards (contract bridge being one of my favorite pastimes outside of xws), but as crosswords evolve, I'd like to see constructors use these two only in the tightest of pinches.

Themeless constructors face so many trade-offs within a single puzzle. SQUABBLE over EUPHORIA over TIP SHEET is such a nice triplet. I'm sure glad all the crossings were fair for BOHM though, as he doesn't quite feel gridworthy to me. Just one person's opinion, of course (and that of a person who giggles at a NOOGIE).

Some nice debut words today, JAMCAM being new to me but a term I've decided I really like. TIP SHEET is another great one. As a reminder, entries never before seen in the NYT Shortz era appear in red below. It's fun to be the first person to introduce a fresh, snappy answer, especially when it's the seed entry to a themeless.

– puzzle by Tom Heilman

What a perfect use for a Sunday-size grid today! Sometimes the bigger palette can feel like a weekday puzzle simply stretched out, but Andy and Victor use the extra space for a great payoff. It took me a while to cotton to the trick, and when I finally figured out that each phrase on the right hand side told you what letters to take out for the corresponding answer, I thought it was pretty cool. But then when I realized that each of the "removal phrases" were fruit-related and FRUIT FLIES tied them all together, I stood up and cheered. A true WITT (Wish I Thought of That).

Ten theme answers makes for a difficult construction. Sure, one might think because the lengths are relatively short that this is equivalent to five grid-spanners (answers of 21 letters), but it's more difficult than that. With grid-spanners you have the advantage that they use no black squares, thus allowing you to deploy your black squares elsewhere, breaking up difficult spots. Today's arrangement places several black squares right off the bat, making the construction less flexible.

The fill is generally good given all the constraints. In terms of long fill, there's GO DUTCH, NAVY YARD, ID LOVE TO, and MISS JAPAN, which at first seemed a bit arbitrary, but I've decided I like. Some really good stuff. However, as with most Sunday-size grids and their inherent challenges, the crossings of DEKE/HEKATE and ESME/ESTES and DNIEPER/ADEN are going to be a real challenge for some. I don't mind seeing a random European river here or there, but somehow having two in one puzzle feels (to me) like one too many (ARNO, I'm looking at you). I don't think any of these crossings are necessarily unfair, but I'd say they aren't ideal.

Finally, I'd like to express another note of amazement that Andy and Victor were able to come up with 1.) five "fruit"+"synonym for leave" pairs and 2.) found enough entries so that they were symmetrically paired. I really enjoyed this puzzle; a close second for the POW. Brilliantly conceived and executed.

P.S. You may recognize Andy from "Million Second Quiz". Incredible accomplishment to have won it all! If you're into such capitalist notions as money. (insert proletarian harrumph here)

– puzzle by Andy Kravis and Victor Barocas

Hilarious theme today. Took me a while to figure out what was going on, especially for a Monday, but when I finally uncovered ITS RAINING MEN I chuckled. Neat idea and I really appreciate the image of CHARLEMAGNE dancing to the song. Bravo!

Nice change of pace to have theme answers run in the vertical direction, and I really like it when there's a real reason to do so (evoking the image of falling rain). Very cool. This type of arrangement can be tricky because long fill in the across direction can muddy up the theme, making the solver think that any long across answers are thematic. John does well in this regard, only using two long across answers, ALCATRAZ and PARMESAN. Even though there isn't any other long fill, I appreciate how John incorporated the fun KALKAN and DEAR ME. Fun 6's.

In terms of short fill, there's a touch too much crunchiness for my taste. As with every five-theme answer puzzle, smoothness can be an issue, and the inclusion of AROO, OSO, BEI, ESTOP, and ASCAP are a lot of any day of the week. I don't usually mind a smattering of the lesser offenders, but I SHOT, AMER, plus the pile-up of acronyms and abbreviations (MSU, INT, NATO, ECON, MSRP, etc.) detracted from my solving enjoyment.

Finally, although I really liked the cleverness of the theme, I would have loved to see four reigning men who were related in some way. Perhaps it's just having watched The Tudors that made me wonder why HENRY VIII didn't get his props? And apparently dusk has set on the poor Sun King, LOUIS XIV.

Anyway, enjoyable start to the week. I'm still giggling, imagining KING ARTHUR and CHARLEMAGNE prancing about together.

– puzzle by John Lieb

Easy-breezy theme for a Tuesday, WI/SE CRACKed so that it bookends the theme answers. It's fun to see a constructor's tastes come through in a puzzle, and today is a fine example. I don't know Paula but get the impression from our brief meetings that she's more cultured than me. (Really though, I'm having trouble picturing anyone less cultured than me. Perhaps the construction worker at this coffee shop who's currently showing off a different type of crack. Tee hee.)

Fun theme phrases today which help make the puzzle sing. When there's a straightforward theme type, it's crucial to pick themers which are snappy, in-the-language phrases, and Paula does well in this arena. WINGED HORSE, WIN OR LOSE, WINEHOUSE, WILD GEESE, they're all phrases I would prioritize for use as long fill in one of my puzzles. Well done.

Tastes will differ of course, and I have a feeling this puzzle will appeal to more upscale clientele than me. Some may point out the elegance of having ANAIS above HENRI, perhaps an irreverent hint at Nin's personal life with Henry Miller (don't worry, I had to look that up too). The WARNERS class up the joint as well, and an ETUI and some POESY round out the high-classisity of the work. Perhaps not my cup of lowbrow tea, but I can appreciate it all the same.

A nit to pick: I got hung up on WISE CRACK, wanting the theme answers to have an actual crack within them made of black squares, or something of the like. Having the WI and SE at the outer ends of the themers more connotes WISE ENDS or OUTER WISE. Minor issue, but for these types of "literal interpretation of a phrase" puzzles, I like to have the interpretation be carried out as exactly as possible. This felt slightly loosey-goosey in interpretation.

Finally, the tremendous amount of strong long fill present today is a mark of a veteran constructor with chops. As Will mentioned, to pull off a 74-worder with such theme density is quite a challenge.

– puzzle by Paula Gamache

★ What a fantastic theme today! Years ago, I had toyed with BETWEEN YOU AND ME as a revealer for a puzzle, but mostly around phrases starting with U and ending with ME (USERNAME, UNWHOLESOME, etc.). It had never occurred to me to develop a theme the way Jacob did, and I bow to him for the spark of genius. YOU TALKIN TO ME; I love it. Very well done.

And generally such a clean puzzle! Jacob is fairly new to the construction game, which made this puzzle even more impressive. It's really hard to make a smooth puzzle, especially when you're working with five themers. And I loved hearing about his desire to push the envelope, stepping outside his comfort zone to include two long downs. Hopefully he'll continue this trend, next aiming for two or three sets of long downs. Possibly even a 74-word puzzle with a quantity of quality long fill.

I was absolutely loving the puzzle, having quickly cottoned to the clever theme and the awesome revealer, really appreciating the cleanliness of the fill...and then I hit BLAU. "When a four-letter word hasn't been used in the NYT xw crossword since 1998, there's usually a good reason," I thought. Luckily, Jim asked me why my reaction was so negative. I thought about it for a long time and decided that BLAU really isn't so different from AZUL, or even ETE/ENERO/NIE. Should those entries be more acceptable, simply because they're used all the time in xws? If that's the only reason, then my reaction shouldn't be such a knee-jerk one. Seems to me that I overreacted.

Out of curiosity, let's take a look at that region and see why BLAU occurred. The challenge starts with needing a four-letter word ending in U; only about 30 decent options available. Then, the adjacent I????A pattern (19d) is also pretty limited, IBERIA, ICE TEA, IMPALA, ITALIA being some other choices. Finally, the open area of parallel 6s in the NE is hard to fill in itself. Everything taken together, all those constraints cascade into that BLAU region, giving limited options. I absolutely love the fill in that NE corner, with BLOTTO, BONNET, and three-card MONTE, but BLAU still feels like a high price to pay.

Anyway, enough picking of nits. When it comes down to it, the crossings of BLAU are all fair, so it is what it is. The rest of the puzzle is so finely tuned, so well-designed, so clean. I appreciate the obvious care and time Jacob put into it. Overall, a finely executed puzzle with a clever trick and well-chosen themers.

– puzzle by Jacob McDermott

Every time I think I've seen all the twists and variations on rebus puzzles, another one pops ups to delight me. I really enjoy the moment when extreme frustration flips to the (pleasing) smack to the forehead, and this puzzle did that right. I was stuck trying to figure out ???? STOP, thinking I must have entered something wrong, but when I finally understood what was going on, I smiled. Well done.

Rebus puzzles are a unique construction challenge, auto-fill not being as readily available (to see if a particular grid arrangement is possible or not). It's not too tricky if there are single rebus squares dotted about the grid. The NE corner is a good example, where ??ARMED could be such entries as SWARMED, ALARMED, CHARMED, or UNARMED, and it's possible to use the brute force method of trying each option to see if good fill is achievable or not.

Not nearly as easy with stacked rebus squares. Consider the SW corner, where Alan already makes things as easy as possible (nicely done) by creating a 3x3 block to work with. Even then, since the only reasonable WAY?? entries are WAY IN, WAYNE, WAY TO, and WAY UP, there are only a limited number of combinations to try, each one creating some difficulty. As it is, Alan did pretty well, with only NIE sticking out as unappetizing. The double sets of cheater squares makes for a somewhat unappealing visual image, but it's certainly acceptable.

I was curious about his choice to include the word FAIN. At first glance, it would be easy to dismiss it as a sloppy job of construction since there are so many other options available up there, so I e-mailed Alan to ask him about his rationale. He gave me a thoughtful response, saying that 1.) he wanted the puzzle to be more challenging, and 2.) he found the word fascinating, in that it was utterly commonplace in Shakespearean days but is now largely archaic. It's neat how much tastes vary from constructor to constructor, and I was glad Alan had a reason for incorporating it.

Considering the many constraints, Alan did a nice job executing this strong concept. An enjoyable Thursday.

– puzzle by Alan DerKazarian

What a challenge today! Themeless puzzles utilizing grid-spanning entries are sometimes super-easy, as a single long answer dropped into place can break the puzzle wide open. Not so today for me, as the tricky cluing and the very difficult crossing words made it a workout.

This is a quasi-triple stack; the 11/13/15 arrangement bringing similar constructing challenges to a 15/15/15. As with most triple-stacks, it's very important to pick spicy long answers, as these will typically be the majority of a grid's feature answers. Alan does very well today in that regard, headlined by CONTACT LENSES and its fantastic clue. Beautiful example of misdirection! Each of his six long answers are solid to snazzy, my favorite being DAR ES SALAAM which I could not parse for the longest time. I knew SALAAM from "salaam alaikum", the Muslim greeting meaning "peace to you", but trying to suss out what might mean "haven" was a tough (but fun) task. Excellent work here.

As with many triple-stack creations, one or more crossings tend to be less than stellar. It's simply near impossible to come up with six snappy long entries and have each of the 30 crossings be perfectly clean. Today is no exception, with entries such as ASDF, CHOLER, OST, and the REs (RETYPE/RESTYLE) rearing their heads.

I admire the construction challenge. A 66-word puzzle using two sets of triple-stacks is no mean feat. The upside is that having more good long answers enhances the solving experience. I smiled at SCHNOOKS, OSTEOPATHS, PRESSES ON and TOP SECRET, amazed at the amount of nice long fill Alan squeezed in. The price to pay for those extra long answers was high though, forcing a mashup of FRIA/LATHS/SAINTE/KNT in the NE. MEERKAT is a lovely piece of fill there, but overall, that region made my solving experience less enjoyable.

As always, themeless puzzles demand trade-offs. Beautiful long answers today with some great clues, but the quality of short fill dragged things down. Still, I was glad to learn a few new words.

– puzzle by Alan Arbesfeld

Strong puzzle today, expertly created. Because of the extra crossings that must be accounted for, stacks of 10s are generally harder than stacks of 9s which are generally harder than stacks of 8s. Today's 10s are all so well done. Very nice long answers with clean crossings. At first I scratched my head about ENID BLYTON, but a quick Google later, I sheepishly admitted to my own ignorance. For me, a (hopeful) writer of children's books, to not know a children's book author who sold more than 600 million books is a travesty. I'll have to add some of her works to my gigantic to-be-read pile.

Not only does Michael use four sets of triple-stacked 10s, but he intersects two of them with BRIEF ENCOUNTERS across the middle. I find that when constructing triple-stacked 10s, I need to keep the constraints low in order to keep ugliness out of my grid. To start off with the heavy constraint of a grid-spanner intersecting two stacks is daunting. And the fact that he pulled it off is impressive.

Note that the two marquee answers, BUTT DIALED (awesome clue!) and SMART PILLS are in the two corners that don't have the grid-spanner running through. There's a reason for that: it's so much easier to tackle a stack of 10s when there are fewer constraints that limit your options.

There are a few weaker areas in the fill, notably in the SW corner. In a themed puzzle, having RETD/DYS/SSNS/OLY wouldn't make me more than shrug, but for a themeless, it's a bit of an eyesore in an otherwise super-clean puzzle. Not to say that a puzzle should be judged by its weakest entries, but as I was solving the very SW corner did feel like it wasn't up to par with the rest of the puzzle.

Nice mental workout today. And I love the "clue echo" of "They use blue books" for two of the 10s. Elegantly done.

– puzzle by Michael Ashley

It is hard to create a Sunday puzzle. Working with a 21x21 grid and a maximum of 140 almost always causes me to tear my hair out (what's left of it, anyway). Each time I've dabbled with 138 word grids I've shied away, going back to the safety of the 140 worder. That goes doubly or triply so for the 136 word construction, which is exponentially harder to execute on. Today, Alan gives us a 134 word puzzle today, one of the lowest word count puzzles in the Shortz era. Audacious!

The theme is straightforward today, five well-known "bye-lines", phrases famous people said as they were leaving. Clever title. I liked the idea paired with the title and would have liked to see a few more theme examples. I'LL BE BACK comes to mind immediately, as does GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK. I'm sure there are others. Fun to think of famous parting words.

This puzzle falls into the category of Will's experimentation with less theme density and a lower word count. 134 words is pretty impressive, but I for one don't care about record setting unless it leads directly to solver pleasure. So does this puzzle achieve that? On some levels, yes. The fact that the puzzle includes so much long fill is impressive, and that factor can really add to puzzle enjoyment. There's a lot of good stuff here, including IPOD NANO, IN UTERO, PLAYS UP, BAD TRIP, SURF CITY, SET BAIL, RAT TAILS, even IDI AMIN in his full. Pretty fun to see all that snazzy content.

However, a lot of the fill is in that 3-7 letter length, and much of that isn't exciting, more "ballast fill"; glue that holds the puzzle together. I enjoyed the idea of the theme and uncovering some of the longer fill, but encountering entries such as EPATHA, especially crossing ASAS took away from my solving pleasure. Also, I felt like I was solving a giant themeless puzzle, which could be great except that I personally get tired out mentally toward the end of a hard themeless without many marquee answers. Stretching that experience into a 21x dimension left me awfully worn-out toward the end.

Overall, interesting experiment with the "less theme, less words" approach. Seeing a few examples of this has helped tune my impression of what I would like to see in the future: at least six theme entries (or five grid-spanners), with more 8+ letter fill. I think it would be awesome to get a few more puzzles which aren't as theme-dense as usual, but offer more of the impact that snazzy themelesses deliver what with their fresh stacks of 8+ letter entries.

FYI, if you hit the "Analyze this puzzle" button at the very bottom of this page, you'll get all sorts of stats about this puzzle. No more drudgery of counting things manually!

– puzzle by Alan Olschwang

Beautiful puzzle today from the master, Liz Gorski, with quite the upscale feel. HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL is such a great quote to hide within a puzzle, injecting me with an uplifting push after finishing. Not being super familiar with the origin of the quote, I looked it up and felt even more invigorated after doing so. Entertaining and uplifting, exactly what a puzzle ought to do.

Interesting construction challenge, given that ALEXANDER POPE is the dreaded length of 13. It might seem like not that big a deal for a revealer to be 13 letters, but it makes all the difference in the world. Typically, theme answers are best spaced out as much as possible, because more space = more flexibility. There's a reason why most of the time, the first and last theme answers go in rows 3 and 13.

But putting a 13-letter answer into row 13 is no good, because it forms an unsightly column of three black squares (in order to conform to the "no two-letter answers" rule of crosswords). So up the answer goes into row 12. And the challenge doesn't stop there.

Note the big chunks of black squares in the SW and NE corners. These look like "cheater squares", but really aren't, just squares that help deal with the 13-letter answers. Five black squares all clustered like that are a bit inelegant though, in that they visually take up a lot of space. There are ways around this arrangement, but each of them comes with its own challenge.

I like it when a famous quote is hidden inside theme answers. I personally find it more interesting when it catches you by surprise, either by being at the ends of the theme phrases, or by masking the word meanings. For instance, if SPRINGS had been at the end of BOX SPRINGS, that would add a level of camouflage. However, for this particular quote, there aren't many phrases ending in ETERNAL. Can't win 'em all.

Generally I prefer Monday puzzles to be easy enough that I could give them to novice friends to get them hooked, so I paused when I hit things like PAPP and CUPOLA. But the more I thought about it, the more I appreciated that the fill mirrors the tone of the puzzle. And to top it off, having fill like SPIKE JONES and a FLIP BOOK made the puzzle even more fun. Perhaps it's not my ideal Monday puzzle, but I greatly admire the work.

– puzzle by Elizabeth C. Gorski

A straightforward theme today, phrases starting with D and D. The dork in me so badly wanted DUNGEONS and DRAGONS to appear somewhere as bonus entries, but I suppose I'll have to settle for entertaining myself with my +1 laptop of doom.

Really nice theme answers, well-chosen from the universe of D and D type phrases. It is a shame that DAILY DOUBLE didn't make it in, but I was glad to hear Mike say that he gave it up in order to make a better puzzle. It's extremely difficult as a constructor to let go of a great entry, and too many of us hang on for dear life, even though it means there are heavy OLEO (or is that OLIO?) and ORT prices to pay.

This is a good example of why most of the time, constructors break up the three first across answers 4/5/4 or 3/5/5 (or some permutation thereof) instead of a 3/6/4 arrangement. There's a lot of fun fill in the very NW corner, with JEDI and JETS and EARP, but the center has the unfortunate APORT. Trying to fill a six-letter stack is (perhaps surprisingly) much harder than filling a five-letter stack. This arrangement also has the drawback of the NW and SE corners feeling a bit separated from the rest of the grid. I certainly appreciate APOGEE and RATED G, very fun answers, but the price of including APORT and ROTA seems a bit high to me.

Finally, neat inclusion of a number in the revealer. It happens so infrequently that it had me stumped for long seconds, and I appreciated it when I finally figured it out. I wish IN2D had more of an "in-the-language" feel, as IN3D seems much more common to me, but still, it was a fresh way to tie together the phrases, turning a common type of theme into something a little new.

– puzzle by Mike Doran

★ Fresh theme today, a recipe for making PESTO. I hadn't had freshly-made pesto until maybe ten years ago, and it changed my life (I had a sad little life at that point). It's really cool that Jean was able to find a way to put a simple recipe into a crossword, figuring out how to get symmetrical answers.

And what an audacious challenge in construction! Not only does Jean have five theme answers plus a short revealer, but she uses a 72-word grid (top of the themeless range). In these cases, the fill often suffers greatly, but Jean has put together an expert construction. It took me a long time to finish this puzzle because my cooking skills are roughly limited to opening a jar of spaghetti sauce and eating it with a spoon. But after completing it, I sat back in admiration.

The long fill is awfully nice. SPONGE BOB is a great entry, and I admire how well Jean tucked LINGERIE in the across direction — between two theme answers! I've never attempted that because it's always seemed like it would produce too many compromises, but now I'm inspired to try. And although there isn't that much else in terms of long fill, Jean uses her sixes and sevens well, with MILORD, REBOOT, ARNIES army, and a REBIRTH.

As with almost every puzzle, not everything is shiny and clean. Thankfully, Jean did well to keep it to just a few bits that were pretty easy to ignore. The military awards (OBE, DSO, DSC) are hard to keep straight, ERB isn't quite the monogram JFK or even EAP is, and while a prefix or two is fine, a six-letter one, ENVIRO, is harder to gloss over. But it's amazing how clean everything else is, even finding a way to fill those biggish NE and SW corners with good stuff. Even appeasing our Canadian overlords with the inclusion of the ALCAN highway! (shout-out to Martin Ashwood-Smith and Jeffrey Krasnick in the northern hinterlands)

Recipe puzzles tend to be awfully tough for me, but I sure enjoyed this one, especially since the result was a favorite creation of mine. Well done, POW quality.

– puzzle by Jean O'Conor

Tough Thursday challenge. Any time the theme answers are largely unclued, it takes time to uncover letters one by one through the down crossings. Today's theme is an interesting one, entries than can describe themselves. I had a hard time figuring out how they all related to each other, but generally appreciated the fact that each answer was self-referential.

Outside of the theme, nice construction. Fairly standard grid layout, with a couple of long downs and solid fill throughout. QUESTING tickled me, thinking about Sir Pellinore (of The Once and Future King) pursuing the Questing Beast and its fewmets. I love it when a single clue or answer can bring to mind such pleasant images. Very nice work in the overall construction, painstakingly executed. When REL, ALEE, APPTS are your worst entries, that's pretty good. And given that this is Tom's debut, it's doubly impressive.

After finishing the solve, I sat back to figure out why I felt a little unsatisfied with the theme. It was pretty neat that the four themers described themselves, but I would have loved to see them tie together somehow, as the universe of self-descriptors seems large, especially when you throw in possibilities like PRONOUNCEABLE (SPELLED CORRECTLY, TWO WORDS, LEFT TO RIGHT, etc.). Not every theme has to neatly tie together with an elegant bow, but I would have liked a little more specificity out of this one.

Good Thursday workout, cleanly constructed, especially for a debut.

– puzzle by Tom McCoy

Debut! Some great entries today; I love to see snappy phrases like CASH BARS and SEA OTTERS, and it's nice that OSCAR WAO gets his due. I haven't read that book yet (The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao) but it's on my TBR (to be read) list. And seeing SODIUM PENTOTHAL down the center of the grid was really cool.

Themeless construction is a tough way to break into the crosswords game. The more typical path is to make a few themed crosswords working with 78-word grids, practicing filling tiny 4x4 or smaller sections cleanly. I had been constructing for nearly a year before attempting my first themeless, and it was a full notch harder than I expected. It's so rough to balance everything, trying to work in snazzy long entries (usually prioritizing multiple-word answers like NO IFS ANDS OR BUTS) while minimizing the rough stuff.

There's a lot of neat work here. SODIUM PENTOTHAL crossing THE TRUTH WILL OUT was pretty cool. I had to look up the latter, but was glad I did, since it's something I should have recognized. It's a fun change of pace to get a sort of mini-theme when you're not expecting it.

The NE corner is a bit rough. There are some answers I enjoy learning, like TATARY, which my ancestors apparently ruled (people* whisper in awe that I likely have some Genghis Khan blood running through my veins). Other things like KARSTS which will likely never come up in my lifetime, aren't as fun to uncover. It was right by NIIHAU (I'm mixed on that one but more positive than negative) and TATARY, so the confluence detracted from my solving enjoyment.

Good workout today. A final note, it's amazing how much one clue can color my personal solving experience. The clue for SNAPE ("He cast the Killing Curse on Dumbledore") made me choke up, remembering the first time I read Harry Potter book six. It gave me a mixture of melancholy tinged with the amazing experience of reading that entire series, leaving me with a positive memory of the puzzle. That's one way a clue can be great.

*me, mostly

– puzzle by David Woolf

Amusing how one of David's least favorite entries, ALEYARD, was something I quite liked. Perhaps it brings back the days of drinking many an ALEYARD out of a gigantic glass boot in college. (Don't ask because I don't remember.)

Some strong entries today, my favorite being FORCE QUIT on top of BAD ADVICE. It's tough to include three strong entries in a 9-letter stack, and it's too bad INSPECTOR is a bit of pedestrian fill in that corner. But a neat clue, "Case worker", misdirecting toward a social worker, added a lot of life. And I didn't know ZAP COMIX but what a cool name. R. Crumb was such a pioneer in his time, I wish ZAP COMIX had gotten a bigger following. It was also fun to uncover OH BABY and HAYSEEDS in the puzzle; very amusing.

For those of you wondering, the APPLE CARE clue refers to Apple's service program for their MacBook Air and new iPad Air products. I'm a little embarrassed at how long I had APPLE CORE in there, having convinced myself that the apple's core somehow improves air quality. I convince myself of many stupid things.

As David mentioned, DREW U isn't great, as it only gets less than 100K hits on a Google search (when put in quotes). I don't imagine alums call it DREW U, but I could be wrong about that. And the fact that it crosses DER and RELOAN and is adjacent to AERO makes that region a little unsightly, but as with most themeless puzzles, there will be trade-offs. It's very, very hard to keep all the PRS and ALER kind of things out of a grid.

I really enjoying seeing fresh, new entries introduced into the NYT xw. Keep 'em coming, David! Amazing to think that he probably has twice as many years ahead of him in his crossword construction career than I do.

– puzzle by David Steinberg

Good workout today from Julian, theme phrases which all contain some arrangement of AEIOU across two words. He uses a pattern today which often facilitates easier filling, having two theme entries run vertically at the sides of the puzzle. The reason it usually makes construction easier is that it reduces the number of places two or more themers are crossed by the same word, making for more flexibility.

However, this type of arrangement makes for a more difficult time incorporating good long fill. Why? Because when themers run both horizontally and vertically, it can be tough for the solver to pick out which are theme answers and which aren't. For this type of arrangement, Will likes to keep fill short (shorter than the shortest theme answer) in order to make the theme answers stand out. For a long time I didn't agree with him, but I've come to see his rationale.

Julian brings up the counterpoint, that for certain theme types, it's pretty obvious what is thematic and what isn't. But even today, where the theme becomes clear after finishing the solve, I had a bit of confusion because of MEDIA BIAS. I love that piece of fill and its clever clue, but during my solve I got it stuck in my mind that it was somehow thematic, and that distracted me. So I like the fact that Julian redid the puzzle to make sure the fill was all shorter than the themers.

Theme answers like this soar or fall on the strength of how amusing or wacky they are, and most of them felt a bit too straightforward for my taste. But I really enjoyed the fill Julian incorporated. Even with the above constraints, he managed to include MEDIA BIAS, GET REAL, DONT PANIC (without a Hitchhiker's Guide reference, dramatic sigh), HOT LEAD, HAIRPIN, THE SOPRANOS, AD SPEAK, etc. Hitting all that really enhanced my solving experience.

Fun to read through Julian's story about working with Will to improve the puzzle. When I started constructing, I felt like Will was being so picky when he asked for three redos of one of my original puzzles. But now I'm really glad he did, because it made for a much better product.

– puzzle by Julian Lim

Amusing start to the week, famous people with an S inserted between their first and last names to make wacky possessives. ARTHURS MILLER made me chuckle with the image of Bea Arthur knocking back an MGD. I'm hoping a clever constructor does something funny with BETTY WHITE, because her commercials and cameos as of late crack me up. Challenge issued!

Interesting construction difficulties today, given that each of the four theme answers are what Patrick Berry aptly calls "inconvenient lengths". Typically the first theme entry goes into row 3, but consider what happens if you tried to move GREGORYS PECK up one row: you create a stack of two-letter words in the top of the NE corner. No good! So in row 4 it must go.

Note how that compacts all the themers. HARRISONS FORD and ARTHURS MILLER are separated by just one row, and there are seven down answers that cross them both. I imagine Edgar started his filling process from the center since it's so constrained, and having OSAMA / OGEE / INST is okay (although I'm not a fan of putting OSAMA in crosswords), but starting already burdened with a little subpar stuff puts so much pressure on the constructor to be super clean the rest of the way. It can be harrowing to have that hanging over your head, but sometimes pressure is a good thing. In this case Edgar does all right, escaping with an ELIA and an OBERON crossing EBAN. That's going to be an awfully hard cross for some people.

For a theme like this, my personal preference is to make it more elegant by choosing themers that are tightly related. Gregory Peck, Harrison Ford, and Sharon Stone fit well together, but Arthur Miller sticks out a bit as the lone non-movie star. Minor issue though — it's good to remind myself that I (and much of the online community) am a very small portion of Will's total constituency, and most will never even care about things like this.

Finally, well done today to avoid the use of excessive cheater squares. 13s are extremely awkward, because they often necessitate a chunky pattern of five black squares (at the end of ARTHURS MILLER) but Edgar has done a nice job to avoid that, running long downs of PARENTHETIC and AMOUR PROPRE at the ends of the 13s. This is a tricky thing to do. I'm not a huge fan of AMOUR PROPRE on a Monday, but I did enjoy looking it up.

– puzzle by Edgar Fontaine

I really enjoyed David's comments about having to memorize the Gettysburg Address. I recently finished "Across the Universe" by Beth Revis, where a girl is awoken from a cryogenic deep freeze aboard a ship where the history books have largely been altered. She attempts to recite the Gettysburg Address in order to prove that Lincoln was a good guy, but can't remember more than FOUR SCORE AND SEVEN YEARS AGO. This is why we need to memorize it, people! Is no one preparing for deep space multi-century exploration but me?

Really? That's weird.

Six full theme entries today, along with ABE LINCOLN and GETTYSBURG. Talk about a packed house! Smart that David gave himself a lot of flexibility, placing the key words in locations that work best. Look where GRAND OPERA and SALES EVENT overlap. Easy breezy 3x3 chunk right in the middle, right? Different story if SEVEN is moved one space to the right, making A?V, giving you only the ATV option. Smart placement.

At first I tried to jam ABRAHAM LINCOLN into 3-down, and then liberally spread LINCOLN into the ten spaces. I even thought this might be a crazy trick where in an alternate universe President ROBERT E LEE delivered the Gettysburg address. (Man, I read too much wacky "what-if" lit.) Funny that having ABE Lincoln bothered me a little, because I'm about as informal a person as they come.

For all the layers upon layers of constraints, the fill turned out better than I expected. Sure, there's the crazy ERDE and a TOSIR crossing ESSE, but nothing really bugged me too much. And David even segmented parts of his grid so that we get some chunks of real goodness. Even though the NE is somewhat partitioned from the rest of the puzzle, I liked all the Scrabbly action plus a shout-out to Geraldine FERRARO, who makes only her third appearance in the Shortz era. I was only 12 when she ran for VP, but it made a big impression on me that maybe a minority could also run one day. I'm lifting a glass to both her and LINCOLN today.

Get to work memorizing, people!

– puzzle by David J. Kahn

★ Man oh man I loved this one. I realize some people are going to hate it because it breaks all kinds of rules and it's light on theme density (or simply because they like to be a contrarian), but I'm a sucker for a puzzle with a good visual. Everyone's entitled to their opinion.

What a cool image, using a couple of well-placed circles to suggest a gas gauge. Sure, the dial doesn't really have an ARROW, but what would be better? NEEDLE? POINTER? Not sure. I really liked how Peter used mirror symmetry in order to place the revealer close to the bottom, so it didn't give away the trick halfway through the puzzle. When I finally uncovered RUNNING / ON EMPTY I smiled at his use of the unchecked squares E and F to represent empty and full. Very cool.

And I really like having so much good long fill. Stuff like OLD GLORY, EARSHOT, MOONBEAM (clued to Governor MOONBEAM would have been even better!), etc. If this is what Will means when he says he's looking for some puzzles with less theme density but more good long fill, I wholeheartedly agree.

And saving the best for last, being an electromechanical dork I loved seeing ELECTROMAGNETIC and FEYNMAN in the grid. Some people believe FEYNMAN was kind of arrogant and/or a jerk (if you haven't read "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman" you owe it to yourself to do so) but he was both brilliant and extremely entertaining. I got a lot of pleasure out of uncovering these entries.

Very well done, Pete. Sure, there's some of ugly-looking ASSOC, ALG, TOR, and people might complain that they shouldn't have to know Ndamukong SUH, but overall, what a giant serving of win for me today.

– puzzle by Peter A. Collins

Fun, having DOWN COMFORTERS run down (vertically), as well as incorporating four theme "comforters" (comforting statements) in the down direction. Clever idea! It was tougher than usual for a Thursday (for me), but I liked the challenge. Not having clues for those four down answers largely made it like a quote puzzle, where you have to work for every crossing until you start to make out bits and pieces of words. It took a long time but felt very satisfying when I finally figured out what was going on.

It was interesting to read about Jules going through several iterations of the "comforters". IT GETS BETTER and THERE THERE worked perfectly for me, but THIS WILL PASS felt a little off (ITLL PASS seems more in the language to my ear). Could be a generational or a cultural thing? Same with NOT TO WORRY. Could also be that I'm personally much more likely to say GET OVER IT, SUCKA. I'm kidding. Sort of.

Even with five long themers, Jules manages to work in a lot of nice fill. SPONGEBOB is fun to see in the grid even though we saw him just recently, and COPYEDIT and BOOK A TRIP are quite nice too. Trying to find good entries that cross three themers (SPONGEBOB and BOOK A TRIP both do this) is often very difficult. Even if you can find a few good options, it often forces compromises in the surrounding areas since you have few options to try out.

Two areas I paused at, the first being FOWLES / LOEB. I know Lisa LOEB the singer, but the Harvard reference was lost on me. The cross was a blind guess, made tougher by my reasoning that if it was LOEB it would have been clued to the singer. You can see now why I'm a terrible rock, paper, scissors player, as I try to out-think my opponent until my brain smokes. (And I totally would have taken the wine with Iocaine powder in it.)

The second was the NW corner. NOT TO WORRY didn't make itself apparent in my head so I tried all sorts of DONT WORRY, DONT YOU WORRY, WORRY WORRY (I never claimed I was logical). Not knowing OMNIA made that especially hard. But hey, this is the New York Times Thursday puzzle. It's supposed to be hard.

Glad to finish it with just one error!

– puzzle by Jules P. Markey

I love variety in most areas of my life, including crosswords. The first thing I check in a crossword is the byline. I really enjoy seeing work from hundreds of different people, being exposed to different perspectives, ideas and clues. I rarely enjoy seeing too many puzzles from one person, because it can feel like too much of the same flavor. But I would gladly take a PB themeless puzzle two or three times a month, possibly more.

What first drew my attention today was the big L-sections of white space in the NE and SW. Triple-stacks of 8-10 letter entries are hard enough to do when cordoned off from the rest of the grid, but when they turn the corner like this, intersecting ANOTHER stack of long answers, that gets very, very difficult to construct cleanly. Most of the time with this sort of arrangement you'll see a smattering of ugly entries which help hold the grid together. Not so today. Clean stuff all around; masterful.

Those corners are noticeably un-Scrabbly, just a K and V in total (in the heart of those sections), but note how well Patrick has chosen his entries to snazz up those regions up. The bottom is beautiful, HOT POTATO atop ONION RING atop WET PAINT. And CAT CHOW and ILL GET IT crossing that stack! One of my favorite corners from recent memory. The top is nice too, although RETRIEVER and RECEIVER give it a bit more workmanlike quality.

In the NW, I loved BASQUE and QADDAFI but had trouble recalling OXNARD even though I grew up in California. Not knowing AXTON made it extremely tough; a lucky guess. Having URI and ONE AM up there felt not quite as clean as the usual Berry fare, too. Minor points though, compared to the excellence of the whole.

Finally, kudos for the cluing. I always know I'm going to get an entertaining workout with a PB themeless, because the clues are so well done. "On-deck circle?" = fantastic clue for a fantastic answer. And I loved the "Unwelcome benchmark?" and WET PAINT pair.

More please!

– puzzle by Patrick Berry

Excellent use of snazzy 7's today. When I was a kid, the letter J fascinated me, and anyone named Jeff was immediately interesting. Since there was no President named Jeff (just you wait until I get elected though*) Thomas Jefferson became my go-to favorite. So uncovering JUJITSU and JAZZ AGE across the top gave me a great first impression.

I personally find it difficult to construct themeless grids loaded with mid-length answers (length = 5-7) because it's so much easier for me to come up with strong 8's, 9's, and 10's. Multiple-word answers are often much better to my ear than single-word answers, and longer length facilitates that. Don't get me wrong, I like CEZANNE for its Scrabbly goodness and the impressions he makes (groaner pun intended) and JAKARTA / ZANZIBAR make for a great geographic pair. But I prefer more of the FAST CAR, ATE DIRT, GUESS SO kind of stuff over RANKLES, ELATION, EPSTEIN. Poor Arnold Horshack and Vinnie Barbarino, they get no respect compared to the common-lettered EPSTEIN.

Definite bonus points for the Scrabbly goodness all over. That double-J combination in the NW really constrains things, and Frederick does well to fill that corner relatively cleanly. ULALUME is probably much more crossword-famous than famous-famous, but that's okay. Any Poe work ought to be fair game for the NYT crossword.

As I tell my friends who say that they can't do crosswords, a lot of it is just putting in time and practice (don't forget enjoying it while you do!). Even a year ago I would have had a blind guess at the SPICA/LITA crossing, but something in the back of my head tingled, telling me that SPICA was "more of a word" than SPACA, SPECA or SPOCA. Call it crossword intuition, call it spidey-sense, or call it itchy head, but I call it the sweet scratch of success.

*I promise to break every law of physics during my administration

– puzzle by Frederick J. Healy

Easy-breezy theme today from Gary; songs with a woman's name reinterpreted as a question or request. It reminded me of another of Gary's puzzles earlier this year incorporating song titles*. Fun to get leave a puzzle humming to a catchy song.

It was difficult for me to figure out what was going on at first, not having heard of HELLO MARY LOU. Perhaps that's a matter of tastes (I'm a jazz and classical wanna-be snob) or a generational thing? In any case, I would have loved to see SWEET CAROLINE or COME ON EILEEN first, as they both feel catchier, more karaoke-popular to me. It brings up an interesting point about order of themers. Sometimes you don't have a choice due to an ordered theme, but for a collection like this, I find it's nice to hit the solver with your best themer first, then close with your second-best (or vice-versa). Just like public speaking, I think it's good to start strong and end strong.

Some nice long fill today, particularly DYSTOPIAN, which describes a lot of young adult literature from a few years back. The Hunger Games spawned quite a litany of works in that genre. Cool how Gary opened up his grid too, incorporating long fill in the four corners (DIPPING OIL, PLANT CELLS, EXTRA LARGE, CALL TO MIND). KEY FACTOR feels a little forced, but I sure like DOG EAT DOG.

RED MEAT is also a nice piece of fill, but its symmetrical partner, ELLIMAN was a toughie to uncover. I vaguely grasped Greasy NEALE (awesome name by the way!), but it didn't come easy, plus the "Family Ties" mom (ELYSE) always makes me struggle. Perhaps breaking up that pair of 7s (with a black square right in the middle of each) would have helped, but that would mean Gary would have to get rid of another pair of black squares somewhere else, since this is already at the max word limit of 140.

Always tough trade-offs when it comes to quantity of good long fill vs. quality of short fill. I finished with an error at AKON/NIT, and felt like there were a few areas where the short-fill quality suffered (the IBE/LAE/NBATV section comes to mind). But overall, Gary managed to pack a lot of good stuff in that I enjoyed. It's tough to make a flawless Sunday puzzle, and I appreciate the 20 minutes of entertainment today.

*I'm gonna rock down to Electric Avenue if anyone needs me.

– puzzle by Gary Cee

★ Before we start, let's acknowledge the elephant in the room: all Asians actually do look alike. So as a public service, here's a quick primer. Kevin is the brilliant Asian, Joon is the Asian of Einsteinian brainpower, and I'm the smart one (and Asian). Seriously though, Kevin has worked in high-tech, helped President Obama get re-elected, and has a top-secret in-his-garage project in the works. Joon is the physicist who blew up Jeopardy! records. I'm the one who can morph the space-time fabric (as well as reality)*. Claro?

Excellent Monday puzzle from Kevin. It's not often that a Monday carries a novel theme, one I've never seen before. Bravo for breaking the mold! Neat to see this collection of well-known bumper sticker starters, each one immediately apparent to me. Even better, I couldn't think of any others right away that would fit in. Consistency and specificity, that's excellent theme work.

Far more impressive though, is the quality of his construction. It starts with the fact that the four themers are of inconvenient lengths (12 and 13), which makes grid layout challenging from the start. But Kevin sets it up so that he takes advantage of these lengths, using the black squares in rows 4 and 12 to end long downs (SIDE BENEFIT and DNA SAMPLING).

Then look at the sheer quantity of long downs: TEAHOUSE/EXPELLED, FUTURAMA/IN HEAVEN stacked together, along with RHESUS, MILADY, SANDPIT, BAD OMEN. With so much packed in, I'd expect a host of ugly entries (especially around the stacked long downs), but I didn't notice anything during my solve. Going through a second time I saw the unseemly ERGS, but that was it. Just amazing how clean and Monday-friendly this thing is.

Will brings up an interesting point about PLEB. To me, PLEB is perfectly fine — it's more esoteric entries like AMOUR PROPRE that I don't care to see in a Monday puzzle. So much about crosswords is subjective, isn't it?

Finally, I always enjoy getting a constructor's personality shining through the puzzle, and seeing FUTURAMA, CHANG (another dude who looks like Kevin, Joon and me), SATAY, all felt Kevin-ish. Man, that's some good stuff. Great way to start the week.

*I'm also the good-looking one.

– puzzle by Kevin G. Der

Another strong puzzle from an emerging powerhouse duo, Don and C.C. Very fun theme, something I was vaguely aware of while solving (I had some intellectual property responsibilities at my old company, Acucela Inc.). A nice a-ha moment when I hit the TRADEMARKS revealer.

What I like best about this puzzle is that Don and C.C. could have easily listed the themers as individual words: ESCALATOR, YOYO, GRANOLA, thereby making room for others that fit (ZIPPER, LINOLEUM, ASPIRIN, etc.), but incorporating them into snappy phrases served two purposes: 1.) making the puzzle livelier with the inclusion of more in-the-language phrases and 2.) camouflaging the terms.

An unusual choice in grid layout today, to overlap pairs of themers. It's usually much easier to have some space between themers, but nothing suffers here. It's impressive that with seven down answers needing to cross both GRANOLA BAR and TABLOID BUZZ, the crosses are super clean. Well done; a bit of construction flair.

As is becoming Don and C.C.'s trademark, lots of long fill. With five themers, long down fill can be difficult to achieve. But entries like SCOOBY DOO and ITS A GO really spice up the solving experience. I wasn't as hot on TOO TOO as Will was, but perhaps I'm a bit lowbrow (no "perhaps" about it). LANDSAT and ECOTONE are not as nice as the other long fill IMO, but they certainly provide additional color.

The short fill is generally pretty good, although I winced a tad at the NE, with ABAB, I ATE, and OSIER all in the same location. There's nothing wrong with any of them, and some people might even really like OSIER (shout out to my basketweaving peeps!). But for me, these types of crossword-glue entries are easier to swallow when spread out (same issue for ATA and ASSNS in the SE). This can't always be achieved, especially with audacious grids.

Fun, well-done puzzle with an interesting theme. Curious quandary that companies with popular trademarks find themselves in. They obviously want people to recognize and use their brand name, but if the public starts doing so in a generic way, the company runs the risk of losing their trademark rights. If you're curious, go google it; google google google it hard*.

*This message brought to you by Bing.

– puzzle by Don Gagliardo and Zhouqin Burnikel

Fun pre-Thanksgiving puzzle from Jules, phrases containing a hidden traditional Thanksgiving dish. If only there were such a thing as BRUSSEL SPROUT FLAIR or PECAN PIE GEOGRAPHY so my favorite American Thanksgiving foods could have been included*.

Well-constructed puzzle. Five is becoming the new four in terms of theme entries, and it's hard to pull off cleanly. Jules only has two long downs in the puzzle but makes good use of them: CHARLESTON and BUICK SEDAN are both quite nice. And it allows him to fill the puzzle cleanly, with just a smattering of ETTE, OTOS, A LOOP.

Sidebar on A LOOP: there's a surprising disparity among constructors on what the worst type of fill is. I would have guessed that everyone would have a similar hierarchy: old-timey entries like ADIT at the top of the hit list, followed by crossword-friendly words like ERNE/EPEE, esoteric names, and then partials. But it's been eye-opening working with a bevy of different collaborators. Some of them are completely fine with partials and some abhor them, especially five-letter ones. It sure would be nice to have one scale with which to judge what is "good" or "bad", but this serves as a good reminder that so much in crosswords is subjective.

I generally like to see a theme that is both consistent and specific, and this puzzle certainly hits on the former. One might think that it misses on specificity, since there are dozens of traditional Thanksgiving Day foods which could be included. But how many can be hidden within phrases, where the food doesn't mean the food? I couldn't think of any right off the top. So well done there.

This puzzle has made me hungry. Off to fetch my eating pants!

*Food donations can be sent via fax and/or modem to www.xwordinfo.com; just shove it into your USB port and hit "enter".

– puzzle by Jules P. Markey

Loren was so much fun to meet last year at the ACPT. Such a nice person, fun to hang out with, and a great sense of humor. But she's too humble — it was another puzzle she put together which led to this one. I thought it was extremely well constructed, but I also felt like it was lacking something, a certain je ne sais quoi or a fuller raison d'etre. When we tossed around SNAKES ON A PLANE, it felt like everything snapped into place. I love it when a plan comes together (cue The A-Team theme song).

I always look at the good and the "could have been improved" in a puzzle, and there's a lot I really like about this puzzle. But there's also no doubt that the heavy constraints forced some compromises. Neither Loren nor I were fans of all the short stuff at the top (ISPS, RIAA, IRR etc.), but at the time it seemed like a reasonable price to pay for including SIOUX WAR and SANDBAG (and the symmetrically placed KLAXONS and SEMINARY). We looked at possibly breaking up some of the long stuff to get better short fill, but the compromises still were there so we ran with this. Tough trade-offs.

And to those grousing about the BIKO/ORIBI crossing, I raise my hand on that one. Loren was keen to get something more friendly there, but I used the Jedi mind trick to convince her otherwise. So if you faltered at that spot, please look closely into my eyes and accept my apologies ... (waving hand hypnotically in front of your face) and go get me a scotch.

Looking forward to more from Loren! Oh, one point I forgot: happy 65th bday to Samuel L. Jackson! We hoped this would run next month on his actual 65th birthday (Dec. 21), but what are you gonna do.

ADDED NOTE: Time for another installment of Can I Beat Dan At My Own Puzzle? My solving time, just having looked at the answers = 3:27. Will Dan Feyer and the other speedsters beat me?* We'll add Loren's time here too as soon as the puzzle publishes.

*Dan's time: 2:17. I need ideas for a bigger handicap. Blindfolding him?

– puzzle by Loren Muse Smith and Jeff Chen