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Ten years ago, I was convinced there was a conspiracy. Was I the only one who didn't know that alien abductions involved cows? I'm thankful that I did my research then, because with all that legwork, today's puzzle made me beam.

(The MOTHER SHIP says that they'll serve Jeff for that last pun. Not a coincidence that the last Across entry is STEWS.)

The technical challenges in this grid design! Many tend to think, what's the big deal, having a couple of letters hanging off theme entries? COW, CAR, and MAN push everything up though, forcing FLYING SAUCER to levitate one row higher than you'd usually want. There's no way to avoid that, unless you somehow tuck COW to the left, or intersect it into another themer. Incorporating the abductees into SCOW, BARCAR, and MAGIC MAN is excellent work.

I don't mind a bit of ETO and AAR to make something this audacious work, but crossing AAR with ASANA feels unfair. Dan's already pushed the boundaries, though — extra cheaters where possible in rows 1 and 15. Given that it's a 16x15 grid, I might have tried going up to 82 words, trying to section that north off more. Tough to figure out exactly how.

[Diesel found in street racers?] … how apt a name is VIN Diesel for the "Fast & Furious" star? BALE is typically a dull entry at best, but the wordplay involved with [It's bound to be eaten by livestock]! A BALE is literally bound, by a hay baler … out of this world!

There's bound to be few SMILERS at the glue required to hold something this spacious together, but I appreciated the great bonuses like CHEAT SHEETS and CAPSICUM. Hot stuff! (That the aliens now are shaking onto my head …)

– puzzle by Dan Caprera

If you haven't read Blake Crouch's Dark Matter, get it onto your list. Even though I have a tough time suspending disbelief at the weirdness of DARK MATTER principles, the story is incredible.

In case you missed the ten missing letters, we've added them to the grid below. Great touch to arrange them in symmetrical positions, using five rows of two answers each.

I did wonder why the letters were "dark," especially the D of DREAD, M of MARIA, and E of EASTER. As with Crouch's book, sometimes you have to turn off your stupid brain and enjoy.

It might seem easier to work with ten short themers than five long ones, but it can be much tougher. Any time you force black square placements, you take away flexibility, and every one of the ten themers does just that. Additionally, to stay at the 78-word limit, you need a bunch of your fill to be long. It's a tough combination of constraints.

I like Elise's decision to go to 80 words. She still gave us some long color in DECK CHAIR, IN GENERAL, and she even did well with up some mid-length slots like SPARE ME. There is a lot of minor glue — AMA ASIN EMS ENT ESS etc. — but nothing is egregious.

Ten themers, each of which becomes a valid entry after "beheading," made for an interesting debut. If I understood DARK MATTER better, I might have disappeared into the concept more.

– puzzle by Elise Corbin

★ So much of a themeless solving experience is personal. I used to have ELKHOUNDS in my life and remember them with great fondness. I'm an ORGAN DONOR who used to TA statistics in my MBA program, trying to get execs to the point where a BELL CURVE would ring a bell. Before that, this mechanical engineer would tell clients who demanded the impossible that all we had to do was make the parts out of UNOBTANIUM.

NOTEWORTHY entries all around, Barbara hitting my sweet spots everywhere I looked.

And what a clean grid — just a bit of INTL LYTE. Such a well-made 70-word themeless!

A few clues could have used a Friday tune-up. Cyclists know that BIKE RIDES can be measured in centuries — 100 mile units — but that's deep, specialized lingo. Whether or not you know what "normal distribution" means, there's no a-ha, simply a dictionary definition to get to BELL CURVE.

Not depending on such specialized knowledge made [Finishing-line cry?] hit the target, making me yell BINGO! as if I'd finished that line on my bingo card.

Given how many entries evoked memories of great times in my life, IF I WERE YOU, I wouldn't give a second thought to why Barbara picked up her third POW!

– puzzle by Barbara Lin

HITS A NERVE crossing GO OUTSIDE — Katie somehow knows my kids? My MOONSHOT is for them to stop attempting to hit each other's nerves for a full day. I'd settle for an hour.

Let's CUT TO THE CHASE, some delights in the grid. I love a good BEACH READ, and that clue for LETS SEE SOME ID is GORGEOUS indeed. No telltale question mark needed for [Line at the door of a bar]. That's a spoken line, not a queue. I've found TRUE LOVE with that level of clever wordplay!

Some of the long entries were more neutral, though — BLOTCHED blotched all the potential of that slot. BENEVOLENT is a fine and admirable word, but editors usually ask to steer clear of one-worders in favor of colorful multi-worders like STEER CLEAR. Perhaps with a fantastic clue, it could have stood out.

"Clue echoes" can be witty, especially when the same clue is used with different meanings. [Booty] can be a pirate's plundered HAUL, or it can be the butt of a joke, as in one's SEAT. Awesome lateral thinking! I'm not as impressed with repetitive echoes, like ["Be that as it may …"] for both HOWEVER and EVEN SO.

Janelle MONAE is more than just a singer! I have her book on my bedside table. Amazing range of talent.

What a nice save for AERO (usually clued as a prefix). Although the candy bar is more commonly seen in Britain, the "Irresitibubble" tagline makes it so bubbly.

– puzzle by Kate Hawkins

Jeremy mixing things up today! It took me forever to sound these out, and when I finally made the leap from THEIR RITES TOUGH to THE RIGHT STUFF, I wondered, why this movie? Okay, it was an OSCAR WINNER, but aren't there hundreds of Oscar winners, and what do these phonetic simulacrums have to do with—

They all won Oscars for SOUND MIXING!

The award goes to Jeremy for such a brilliant set of connections. It all seemed so random, but when I hit that revealer, I knew whose name would be in the envelope.

Themes with nonsensical strings of words force solvers to only use the Downs. While this is a strategy employed by speed-solvers looking to improve their times, it can make for a frustrating experience for us mere mortals. Even after I had pieced together THAITANKNICK letter by painstaking letter, I had to double and triple-check every crossing, because THAIT TANK looked so ICK.

Funny image, Jeremy mumbling to himself as he sounded out hundreds of possibilities. I wonder if his wife or mine looked more worried, as he created or as I mumbled my way through all pronunciations.

Several debut entries, ALIEN LIFE and BACKSLASH solid. Some of the others work as neutral fill — SITTING IN, HEAD ON IN, NODS OUT aren't going to win any prizes — but I paused at WALL HUNG and DO A DUET. Although both are real phrases, what with all the frustration of piecing the themers together, I wanted more familiar surrounding fill to help me get toeholds.

This is the type of out-of-the-box thinking that leads to a standout Sunday crossword. Such leaps, from movie titles to Oscar winners to Oscar winners to SOUND MIXING? Beautiful mix of concepts.

– puzzle by Jeremy Newton

I found the perfect song for today's puzzle: now hear this, EARTH angel on the rise!

Let's clear the air first. "Hidden words" puzzles are overdone these days, so I give a lot of sympathetic "sorry to hear that" to rejected constructor friends. It takes something extra to help one rise (sorry) above the rest. Evoking that stunning image sure helps!

Taylor chose his themers well, all of them colorful and interesting. I HEAR THAT, HEART HEALTHY, SPEAR THROWER all debuting today — FRESHER is right! That's especially important because Mother EARTH has been played upon many times, like with MIDDLE EARTH and EARTH SHATTERING. Those common letters make it so easy to break EARTH across entries like NOW HEAR THIS, CLEAR THE AIR, and SORRY TO HEAR THAT.

Throwing shade onto the EARTHs within the themers gave away the game much too easily. It's better to err on the side of making sure solvers figure out what's going on, but once you write in two EARTHs, you can fill in the others, and EARTHRISE falls into place. Give solvers some credit!

Although the solve felt over before I'd hardly started, Taylor kept me engaged with great bonuses like GRINDR, AT LARGE, and a Q that didn't make this solver SQUIRM at its surrounding fill. DEAR GOD, that's good stuff! Minimal dings, too, only a NETI net price for the beautiful MOON placement in the lower left.

Given that there are so many ways to break EARTH across words, I would have loved a smoother path for the EARTH rise. Move the third EARTH up one space, and the arc is so much prettier. BEAR THE BLAME or FEAR THE WORST could sub right in.

Not an earth-shattering "hidden words" theme, but great job mimicking that awe-inspiring picture.

– puzzle by Taylor Johnson

Day one of "WTF does Jeff know, anyway?" Ellen and I were trading ideas a while back, and she pinged me with this concept. I liked it pretty well, but it felt random to list out a bunch of trucks, guitar brands, etc. I thought it would shine if we could find triplets of trucks or guitars that formed a real phrase. Can you imagine how awesome it would be if "Sierra canyon ranger" were a real thing?

A machinist friend used to say, "Spit in one hand and wish in the other; see which one is worth two in the bush." Aside from the mixed metaphors (and he used a different word following the "s?it" pattern), his point was spot-on: if you sit around wishing for the impossible, you'll never get anything.

Even though I knew the theme when I saw [Buchanan-Duck-Duke], I enjoyed the solve — much more than I would have thought. The clues did make it obvious that something weird was going on, but that was apt for a Tuesday. The fact that Ellen presented four kooky clues to hint at CHAIN, SERIES, STRING, and LINE — all incorporated into in-the-language phrases — still gave me a nice a-ha.

Add in some MAGIC BEANs, STAND TALL, and finish it with smooth as silk gridwork ... this doesn't END IN A TIE. Score is Ellen 1, Jeff 0.

Not all ideas have to be mindblowing and memorable for the ages. This one worked well, and I'm glad Ellen persisted with it.

– puzzle by Ellen Leuschner

Why do so many constructors say I MEAN, COME ON to me? Because I'm wrong a lot! As with yesterday's puzzle, Chase and I had been batting around ideas, and he championed this one. I finally faced lactose intolerance a few years ago, so I've experimented with GOAT MILK, OAT MILK, the poorly named pea milk, etc., so that dual answer was interesting. EMOTIONS / MOTIONS have been played upon many times in crosswords, but linking them together with [Things that may be raised in court] was cool.

Cool enough, though? PLAYOFFS and LAYOFFS both eliminate teams, but that one was a stretch. As with Schrödingers, the best examples are highly specific and describe both options perfectly well. If we ever had a regular crossword hint at PLAYOFFS with [They eliminate teams], I'd wonder what sort of Thursday trickery was in play.

And ACE CARD ... not an ace of an entry.

Overall, I wasn't excited enough. I thought Will Shortz would give it a reasonable look, but realistically, would it sneak past the 4% acceptance rate? I pretended to not be surprised when Chase told me of the acceptance. Of course this wasn't JAW DROPPING news!

Overall, I'm still not wowed by the theme, but it's grown on me. If they had all been as solid as GOAT MILK and OAT MILK, I'd have asked for a full glass. I'll still settle for pea milk, though I can't help wishing for a rich and creamy glass of the real stuff.

– puzzle by Chase Dittrich

★ Now, this is the type of bait-and-switch I like! Alex baited me in with [Engagement ring], which had to be … BOUT? What's that aBOUT? And [Firm fruit] was getting at something like PEAR or PLUM. Not a plum guess from Jeff! Such a brilliant a-ha when I figured out the ol' switcheroo, [Ring engagement] cluing a boxing BOUT, and a [Fruit firm] the DOLE company.

And Alex was hardly sparing as he DOLEd these out. To make sure you grasp all the brilliance, here's the list with the clues REVERSEd:

• Fruit firm = DOLE
• Musician Young = NEIL
• Olympus mount = TRIPOD (Olympus, the camera company)
• Good look = SCAN
• Home call = BATTER UP
• Short cuts = BOBS (this one's not as strong, since [Cuts short] could plausibly clue BOBS too)
• Buffalo water = Lake ERIE, love that change of capitalization!)
• Ring engagement = BOUT
• Top crew = ATEAM
• Bank job = HEIST
• Not does = BUCKS, as in deer that aren't does! Brilliant shift in the meaning of "does."
• Thinking group = MENSA
• Storybook giant = OGRE
• Part IV = TUBE. Did you catch the IV = 4 to IV = intravenous switch? My favorite of the bunch.
• Asian pan = WOK
• Hard rock = ORE

The wordplay brilliance in the GOBI / FLAN clues almost equaled that of the themers. I missed the "dessert" vs. "desert" difference at first. Amazing spin on a "clue echo."

So many Thursdays riff off of established ideas, way too many constructors defaulting to rebuses, turning themers, blank spaces, etc. Not today. Alex's turnabout was more than fair play, and it would have won him the POW! on almost every week this year so far.

– puzzle by Alex Rosen

What a story the four longest answers tell: PARTY SCHOOLS SLAM DANCERS CHEAP THRILL FREUDIAN SLIP. I would read that WORD SALAD any day; such an evocative set of marquee answers. It feels way better than just FEELS OKAY! What a CRAPLOAD of great material.

Jim Horne and I wrote a piece about 2022 NYT crossword debut entries, and stuff like CRAPLOAD continues to surprise me — in a good way. While some older solvers yell IS NOTHING SACRED?, this parent who's seen a crapload of literal craploads laughs.

If you can't laugh, you cry.

66-word themelesses often make experienced constructors cry. 72 words is a cakewalk. 70 isn't hard. 68 is a huge jump that not many can successfully navigate. And 66 is CRAPLOAD territory, grids often filled with subpar long fill and/or at lot of crappy shorties.

Smart move to add a bunch of black cheater squares in pyramid shapes — these make life easier by a factor of maybe five. Some editors are picky about ones in the corners, like the sets in the NW and SE, but Will usually lets them slide, saying that it's only when they get aesthetically unpleasant does he put his foot down.

I rarely enjoy short debut entries, since so many of them are desperation Hail Marys to make a corner work. ILY risks falling into Will's dislike of initialisms since if you don't know them, it's random letter guessing. However, ILY = I love you is easy to figure out, and it makes so much sense when connected to ASL. I usually don't like cross-referencing in puzzles, but I give the ILY sign to ILY.

Hard to complete a 66-worder without a bit of DSL EMAG OCT, but YAS queen, such an entertaining debut.

– puzzle by Kavin Pawittranon and Nijah Morris

I enjoy when constructors go to 16x15 grids because it allows for entries that we 15x15-ers rarely see. This superhero fanboy loved AMAZING SPIDERMAN, even with the awkward "with ‘the' "tag. Not only is Peter Parker a master of his web-shooters, but he's pretty good with infotech — I bet he'd make a great webmaster for some lucky dot-com company if the entire superhero thing doesn't work out.

I don't follow college sports much, but the BIG TEN CONFERENCE had such a fresh clue. Minnesota and Michigan but not Missouri? MMM good.

Growing up, we were a World Book Encyclopedia household, so the CIA WORLD FACTBOOK didn't come easily. I'll have to check out a copy from my kids, so the feds can secretly spy on them.

TO BE FRANK: I often struggle with Sam's puzzles. He's decades younger, orders of magnitude hipper, and I often have to do a VIBE CHECK as I'm solving. (After I looked up what VIBE CHECK meant.)

I used to think that stuff like LOWERGI was awesome, because it's so tough to see the spaces. LOW ERGI is a vital sign? Enough solvers have told me off for putting "weird-looking" entries into my grids, though. See: E.U.F. LAG, E-CO-TECH, P.S. ALMONE.

I also had trouble with the lower right, trying to figure out if SOFT ARMOR is a thing (it definitely is), before struggling through HAFT and FARRO. All fair … AND YET …

Sam's place is on a Saturday, and I'm relieved to finish this one!

– puzzle by Sam Ezersky

Fun to get more cheap thrills after we had a CHEAP THRILL two days ago. Like all good Asians, I love little more than getting a great deal. One of my most memorable days of 2022 was when I purchased a broken Cuisinart at a yard sale for four bucks and fixed it. My friends quickly got tired of hearing the legend of the $150 food processor — forget about PINCHING PENNIES and focus on squeezing some Jacksons!

And like all good cruciverbalists, I love me some wordplay. MAKING ENDS MEET hauled ass, four synonyms for "ends" meeting in the middle of the puzzle. So well-hidden in INCAN, ASSET, BUTTE, and ALBUM, too.

Second play on BUCK this week! STRETCHING A BUCK gave us doubled SSIINNGGLLEE, along the same lines as Christina's previous literalisms puzzle, but it didn't work as well this time. Maybe it was the required mental leap from BUCK to SINGLE? This doubling stretched plausibility.

I wasn't hot on BI(CENT)ENNIAL (CENT)ER, because it was so hard to change mindsets and allow the possibility of not just a single rebus square, but a pair of them. CENT isn't easy to imagine in there, either — this geography dummy ARAL as a US time zone and didn't look back. Especially with the BICENTENNIAL CENTER being outdated, I'd have preferred something easier to spot, like A (PENNY) SAVED IS A (PENNY) EARNED.

I enjoyed Christina's last take on literal interpretations more than this one, but it's hard to resist the allure of an Iverson / Donaldson collab; two of my favorite crossworld people. Fun vibe with such fun clues like a PIRATE SHIP being an antagonist on the main and dancers having a ball at a DISCO.

– puzzle by Christina Iverson and Samuel A. Donaldson

When Tess was three, my wife wanted to try serving dessert on the dinner plate, saying that nutritionists had advocated for letting kids make smart choices. They'll eat a balanced diet on their own accord!

After a week of Tess eating the round sugar cookie and then saying she was done, we put a stop to it. Well, well, nutritionists, what do you have to say about that WELL-ROUNDED DIET?

Talk about IN DENIAL.

Such an amusing concept, funny to imagine a literalist like Drax the Destroyer following the directive to eat healthier by ingesting only round foods. He'd have quite a different physique eating only FROOT LOOPS and such.

My French friends file a grievance against CHEESE WHEEL included in this theme. It's hard to argue against the onslaught of research studies showing harmful effects of dairy, but there are some benefits. Much more so than with FROOT LOOPS, for instance.

WELL-ROUNDED construction. HEAVENS NO, IN DENIAL, and TWINKIE shine, and it's not every day that a Monday crossword has longer vocab like BETRAYAL and RANCHING. Strong use of mid-length slots in PEORIA, and GROW UP, too.

Any five-themer crossword can and should contain at least two great bonuses and clean short fill, and this is a great example. In a debut, too!

WELL-ROUNDED DIET doesn't get nearly as many news hits as "well-balanced diet," but that's of course a much different crossword concept. Although I hitched for a long time as I tried to balance BALANCED into only seven squares, thinking about Drax eating his way through crème eggs, frozen pizzas, and glazed donuts made my Monday.

– puzzle by Eric Rollfing

I would have loved yesterday's theme served on a single plate with today's! This kind of WELL-ROUNDED DIET and SQUARE MEAL are the stuff of my kids' dreams. Buh-bye, whole wheat toast, hello KRAFT SINGLES between SALTINE CRACKERS! Ironic that "square" would describe such unhealthy items as STARBURSTS and KLONDIKE BARS.

Similar humor to yesterday; I enjoyed imagining Drax the Destroyer befuddled by the English language. Today's puzzle kicked it up a notch in a way, because it's much harder to think of foods that come in squares than it is for rounded shapes. Physics likes efficiency, and WELL-ROUNDED so often more efficient than SQUARE.

In fact, the only "healthy" square item I could think of was whole wheat toast — and that's only quasi-square.

Unlike yesterday, it's difficult argue the case for any of these square-shaped foods being the slightest bit healthy.

Now that I've dissected all the humor out of the joke, I'll refrain from dissecting the fun out of the crossword. KETTLEBELL is a fresh term, and I'm sure there will be fans of MALE MODELS and THE CURE in solverland. Ella gives us another great example of a colorful and almost perfectly-clean grid, showing yet again that a five-themer crossword can and should live up to this standard.

I enjoyed the back-to-back WELL-ROUNDED DIET / SQUARE MEAL duo. There's something neat about having a longer arc over multiple days instead of one-off, unrelated short stories. I'd love to see this more.

– puzzle by Ella Dershowitz

I'd never heard of the DOUBLE V campaign — not a surprise, given that one of my high school history teachers was also the PE teacher. We did learn a lot about the history of football, but I'm constantly filling in so many gaps. Great to gain knowledge about the DOUBLE V.

Neat idea to tie DOUBLE V to famous civil rights figures: IDA B (VV)ELLS, JAMES BALD(VV)IN, GEORGE (VV)ATSON, and (VV)EB DUBOIS. We've seen double-U and double-V themes before, but this one has an impressive extra layer.

I did wonder why DOUBLE V equals a W, especially when split into two V squares. Ed's VV rebus approach might have given me a stronger click today, but I enjoyed the "something different" approach here.

My editors at Zynga's Crossword with Friends often remind me to cross all names much-more-than-fairly, to the point of zero doubt. For instance, I featured MIKE KRZYZEWSKI recently, and I had to take extra precaution to make sure every letter of his name was crossed by something unambiguous. One could argue that IDA B WELLS is famous enough that everyone should know her, but I'd sympathize with those who didn't and also weren't aware of SMERSH. Even this Bond fan had a tough time pulling that one out.

VMI crossing (VV)EB is much more fair, because even if you don't know either, the theme provides a third hint to certainty.

The DOUBLE V going to split W = V next to V didn't provide as sharp an a-ha as I wanted, but I appreciated the layers of connections, especially during Black History month.

– puzzle by Sean Ziebarth

★ What the L?!

(Sorry, I couldn't resist.)

What a neat mixing of crossword genres! The Ls made of black squares pop out as grid art, five answers turn corners, and the grid art letters are inserted into those five answers. Some of the most creative concepts result from hybridizing genres, and this is a wonderful example.

In case you haven't picked out the five themers yet:

• NAI(L)EDIT
• FOODCO(L)ORING
• GRAMMARPO(L)ICE
• POTDEA(L)ERS
• NUC(L)EAR

Note how every one of the final chunks is a valid crossword answer. Neat way to further obfuscate the trick.

Gridding around turning puzzles is hard. Gridding around five sets of nesting, turning themers is not for the faint of heart. Kevin didn't quite get to NAILED IT, what with a few rocky TWOD (2-D) and AVIEW regions, but it's well done given the extreme constraints.

This is a rare case where I enjoyed the theme enough that I would have loved it expanded into a Sunday 21x21. That might have allowed symmetry along a diagonal axis, too — if the legs of each L were equal length. I loved Liz's bold Guggenheim swirl, but today's almost-but-not-quite symmetry left me with in an uncanny valley.

Even with that hitch though, I loved how Kevin successfully swirled together so many different established concepts to make something different. Whatever the kids say that means the opposite of TAKE THE L, that's what I say for Kevin today.

– puzzle by Kevin Patterson

I'm obsessed with PUZZLE BOXES. Whenever Mr. Puzzle or Chris Ramsay drops a new video, I go hide in the bathroom so I can watch it in peace (so what if my kids think I have intestinal dysfunction?). I read a ton of middle grade lit for research into my own middle grade books, and The Blackthorn Key — featuring an incredible puzzle box from centuries ago — blew me away. PUZZLE BOXES are so captivating that I've been trying to write a book about one for a year now. Maybe with eight or nine more revisions, it'll even be readable.

There's also something so captivating about rare letters in a themeless. They can be difficult grid around, but when done right, they dazzle. Five Zs and an X, all integrated with no RELAXED principles around smoothness? Well done.

And two more Zs in PINT SIZE / SLEAZEBALL? ACS is not a good entry, but if that's the only price to pay, WON A PRIZE is right.

This puzzle played Saturday-hard for me. I enjoyed the touches of wordplay, like [Whistler on the (kitchen) range] for KETTLE, but I've seen that angle many times before, and there wasn't much else. Stumper-like cluing made for such a tough solve: TSE as the Russian letter. Not knowing my rappers, like EARL Sweatshirt. LAD as a "gossoon." I had a few cries of dismay, and they weren't ACK.

Thankfully, some other clues punched things up, like AFFLUENZA's fresh [Ennui + wealth = ___], and LEGO's "Brickipedia" reference. My son the LEGO fanatic might as well be named Brickipedia.

Standard "stair-stack" themeless grid, but well-executed. With more playfulness and fun in the clues, I'd have given it some POW! consideration.

– puzzle by Jem Burch

This concept is PRETTY AS A PICTURE. If you don't fully understand it, may I pretty up said picture? Perfect example: PRETTY, AS (in) A PICTURE, is one of Jim Horne's (many) areas of expertise, as he has a lot of Photoshop experience. I used to attempt cropping, lightening, etc. until Jim gently offered to take it over. If "uglify, as a photo" were a phrase, I'd have it in my constructor bio.

SMOOTH, AS SILK was such a smooth example of this theme. I haven't ironed anything in decades, mostly because my wardrobe consists of sweatpants and 20-year old T-shirts, but I can imagine people (wasting their time) ironing SILK clothes.

CLEAR, AS CRYSTAL got me off on the wrong foot, because "clear as crystal" didn't register as an in-the-language phrase. "Crystal clear," sure, but "clear as crystal" didn't feel clear.

GREEN AS GRASS caused me to hitch as well, but Jim recognized it immediately. Apparently the grass is greener in Canada.

The one real sticking point: SMART, AS A WHIP. Not imagery I want evoked.

Great gridwork. Although it's over the 140-word limit, that's because the grid is oversized. Proportionally, a 22x21 grid should allow for an adjusted maximum of 147 words. Rebecca did everything right, featuring a bolus of great bonuses — CHIA OBAMA, TEMPT FATE, PARTY POOPER, HIGH TOPS, GO GETTER — while keeping short glue to only minor NACL ONS PST. There's no secret to attaining this level of achievement; simply a fierce dedication to iteration and continual improvement. LABOR OF LOVE, indeed.

While the theme didn't wow me, I appreciated the novelty of it. The excellent gridwork helped keep me going, too, with virtually every long slot used to its fullest potential.

– puzzle by Rebecca Goldstein

It seems apt that JUICE, PRESS, and SQUEEZE can all precede the word BOX. I swear upon all that is holy that I will wreak my revenge on the inventor of the JUICE BOX. If I had a nickel every time my kids pressed and squeezed one to explode a food-colored, sugar-loaded fountain of disaster …

Time to get off my SOAPBOX (and get the SOAP to clean up the mess).

As far as "both words can precede" themes go, this one is solid, avoiding the usual knocks on this genre:

• All themer halves are recognizable as types of BOXES. Perhaps people who aren't fans of The Who or accordions might not click with SQUEEZEBOX, but it's legit.
• The themers are colorful. I can often tell when this genre is coming since the themers tend to be dry at best. Not today.
• Excellent revealer. FUSE two types of BOXES together = spot-on.

Solvers antsy with this genre will appreciate sitting back with a HOT TODDY. ANTSIEST isn't the most soothing of bonuses, but I enjoyed much of DENZEL, BLUE JAY, POODLES.

Working with a central 11 is so rough — it often creates situations where Down fill has to work through three themers. PESETA might be tough for newbs, and DOES SO does so little.

AREOLAS would be much more familiar if the NYT were less uptight.

A long time ago, a friend and I tried to take "both words can precede X" to the next level, but it was received with mixed reactions. I'd love to see different ideas that might help breathe more life into this well-worn genre.

– puzzle by Emily Carroll

HÄAGEN DAZS and VOLKSWAGEN … brands with umlauts! "Name That Theme," defeated!

Wait. MAGEN DAVID? Unlikely to have an umlaut.

And now I realize that VOLKSWAGEN also doesn't have an umlaut.

The HIDDEN / AGENDA is easily "make fun of Jeff's stupidity."

What isn't easy is finding such a long hidden word, split across words of a phrase. I'd seen AGENDA inside HAAGEN DAZS before, and I was vaguely familiar with the term MAGEN DAVID, but I would never have guessed that three hidden AGENDAs were possible. Creative find in VOLKSWAGEN DASHER. I appreciated that the clue nudged to the correct answer since that car dashed into the night decades ago.

Some tough vocab for an early-week puzzle — my newb friends will be texting me. ARRANT seems like a pirate's version of ERRANT, ENNEAD's prefix is much less common than hexa- or octa- or deca-, and I recognize KETONE from chem college classes but would have no idea how to define it.

Any one of them might be fine on its own. All three being six letters long … 666 … could it be ...

Puzzles full of proper nouns can be divisive. PENZANCE will elate some, confuse others. Throw in upwards of 20 others, and it's the most proper-heavy property in recent memory.

"Hidden words" themes are a tough sell these days, especially when you repeat the same word over and over again. However, embedding such a long target word helped.

– puzzle by Daniel Raymon

What's the ONOMATOPOEIA for "sound of Jeff realizing he missed all the animal sounds in the puzzle until reading Adam's note"?

Might want to triple WAH. Maybe even six-times it — "hex-" feels about right, given the spell of stupidity I'm under.

Surprisingly hard to come up with sounds to mimic ONO MATO POEIA. I wanna say that "wanna" — as in BUT DAD I WANNA — gets the sound across, but GUIANA lands more strongly? Would JAKE LA MOTTA have helped point to the animal sounds, given his "Raging Bull" nickname?

What sound does a bull make? And if it's not included in a crossword, does anyone hear it?

Why three countries to hint at ONOMATOPOEIA, I wondered? While that is a form of "tightening," it struck me as random. It's somewhere between utopia and dystopia.

Similar question for animal sounds.

Animals are a tight set. Countries are a tight set. What do either have to do with each other?

Okay, I'll stop talking Turkey.

I ate up the gridwork, so many delicious bonuses. PSYCHED, yes! Up PERISCOPES! Down the hatch, ANTISPAM PAD THAI! BREASTMILK is hardly SWILL.

Funny that the two dings — I ATE and I BEG — came at two of the least constrained parts of the grid. Worth the price of the long BREAST MILK and PERISCOPES bonuses, though.

Although all the elements weren't symphonically harmonized, the novelty still made it all sound pretty good.

– puzzle by Adam Wagner

An Ode To Bias:

I should have read Pride and Prejudice

But I'm disinclined to call that bliss

TOBIAS Wolff's tallies of my ode might be summed up as TOTAL LIES. In response, I say:

Why so keen on keeping score?

People who do are a total bore.

You don't like my odes? Tough.

Or more properly, To UGH.

I had way too much fun riffing on Joe's idea.

– puzzle by Joe Deeney

★ Such a fresh vibe! CONTENT CREATOR speaks to my YouTube obsession, including a fantasy basketball analyst who happens to be a SNEAKERHEAD. I'm not into shoes, but watching Josh's excitement about his latest purchases is fascinating.

Although I stick to black coffee, the idea of a MATCHA LATTE is tempting. Aside from my dislike of matcha's bitterness. And the entire lactose intolerance thing.

NO MAKE UP MAKE UP is not something my daughter believes in. More like NO ... MAKE UP! MAKE UP!!!

Fantastic clue for TACO BAR, riffing on a Shell filling station — beautiful "hidden capital" trick to disguise the lower-case "s" of a taco shell. The clue is not entirely accurate, given that on our last taco night, the kids filled their taco shells with nothing, then refused the eat the shell. Talk about intolerance.

We've seen BRAS in crosswords hundreds of times, and many times the entry has gotten a clever clue. I've never been so pleasantly mystified, [Wireless support providers] pointing me directly at CenturyLink holding me hostage. The last time we had an outage, CenturyLink was more like [Wireless support witholders].

My primary goal as a crossword solver is to complete every box correctly. I won't always be familiar with every entry, but this is the kind of freshness that makes being forced to learn something new worth it. An entry like NO MAKE UP MAKE UP is so self-explanatory!

– puzzle by Margaret Seikel and Sophia Maymudes

This grid pattern reminds me of an explorative set of themelesses by David Steinberg. All of them had central parallelograms, the first with a wide one, another that was more sectioned, and yet another tuned in with learning gleaned from his prior work.

Trent's parallel splash into paralellogram themeless world more than GETs ER DONE — five strong entries across the middle, especially for those hold 'em players out there. (RIVER CARD is slang for the final card, coming after "the flop" and the "turn card.")

There's not much running vertically through these marquee entries that's exciting, but there's nothing gluey, either. Such a smooth solving experience.

Like in some of David's works, the corners of Trent's creation are sectioned off, the NW and SE especially so. It was much easier to flow into the other two corners, and I appreciated the amazing color in the upper right: IT WASN'T ME / SO I GATHER / HIDEY HOLE paints quite a picture.

Sectioning presents such trade-offs. I'd love more flow heading into each of the four corners, but letting a constructor work on a subregion independent of the rest of the grid can result in greatness. I'd take READ ALOUD / TRIAL DATE / HAND MODEL any day for the price of some bottlenecking.

Nice results in the heavily choked-off corners, too. I doubt those giant 7x5 chunks would be possible if Trent opened things up, like moving the black square below YIELDS up one and the black square below ON TOE down one.

It's frustrating to get stuck in an isolated corner of a crossword, but if it's going to happen, I want subsections as strong as each of Trent's.

– puzzle by Trent H. Evans

I'm fascinated by concepts that can't be easily mined programmatically. After staring at MISS INN FORMATION for ten minutes, I still only have a vague idea of how to approach the problem.

Big winner: FOR THE ASKING into FOR THEE, ASS KING! The Assman would be proud.

Others were more tortured. I could maybe imagine ADD MITTS DEFEAT on a Wikipedia editor's to-do list.

CHRISTMAS CAR ROLL … you can write a long clue involving all the words, but it won't sound natural. Or imaginable.

WELL COME, MATT. Again, when a clue requires such detailed explanation, it's not that welcome.

Interesting decision to reduce the number of themers and the overall word count, too. Where that decision shined was in the west and east. ALABASTER / SAVE STATE / STEELY DAN is STYLING.

Other areas, though: PARENTED, decent. ETRURIA ... I'd so much rather have one great long entry instead of this pair.

I was intrigued enough by these findings that I would have loved a seventh. And although some of the fill required by such a low word count caused me some AGITA, I respect the decision to experiment with theme and entry density.

– puzzle by Will Nediger

In her retirement, my mom has taken an affinity to Taiwanese black bears. This would be all well and good, but she's what's known as a "roundabout storyteller." There have been many nights filled with tales of how the "moon bear" got its distinctive markings, leading to how her dear friend attempted to trek to Hualien but then got a call from Mr. Tsai at the zoo, and then the foundation insisted on accompanying Ms. Chau, who she went to school with …

And you wonder where I get it from. BEAR WITH ME, as usual.

Great phrase to play on, and a couple of excellent findings. Hard to believe that JAMES BROWN makes his NYT crossword debut today! MEN IN BLACK is one of my favorite sci-fi classics, and my daughter is obsessed with POLAROID CAMERAs.

Although I enjoyed MOMENT IN THE SUN as a colorful phrase, I paused ... is a SUN BEAR a thing? It absolutely is, though. For the love of all that is holy, please don't tell my mom.

Three MEs to the left, one to the right. Three types of BEAR that I immediately recognized, one that I didn't. Three full bears and one hidden in POLAROID. Was there a way to even things out?

Best I could come up with was using an EXPANDABLE MESH stent to open up some balance. Then I got a call from Jim Horne, or was it my dentist who asked if I could come in a hour earlier to talk about my cousin, Mr. Yu …

Ahem. Fresh, interesting theme that wasn't perfectly balanced but used reasonable trade-offs. I also appreciated getting some refreshing LEMON LIME in my SEVEN SEAS to help offset some of the MOUE-inducing SMEE.

– puzzle by David Rockow