Thumbnails

Happy 2016, everyone! I constructed this crossword in May 2014 #TBT as a companion puzzle for my BASE themeless that appeared in August . . . because even crossword puzzles deserve to find true love, of course! In all seriousness, I was pleased with how my BASE themeless turned out, so I decided to recycle the grid pattern.

My seed entry for the center stack was POLE DANCE, which I picked for its liveliness and relatively easy letters. One trick I frequently use when building themelesses like this is blocking off areas of the puzzle I feel will be easier (and thus don't want to focus on) by inserting what are called bars in Crossword Compiler. For this particular puzzle, I initially put bars around the first five letters of SHAME-FACED/the last five letters of WALDEN POND and next to the last four letters of WHEN I'M SIXTY FOUR/the first four letters of PERSONAL OPINION. In doing this, I was able to "tell" the Compiler that I cared most about generating the center stack; in other words, the pair of 15-letter entries and the upper left/lower right sections could wait till later.

Anyway, I soon noticed that LOVE BEADS could potentially fit on top of POLE DANCE, so I temporarily typed it in. At that point, I could see that the stack had little flexibility, so I did a quick Autofill to see what possibilities existed for the top three entries. I was thrilled when RICE PILAF popped up; even though LAMINATED and FAREWELLS didn't do much for me, they both struck me as solid, and I very much liked the two 10-letter crossers (SHAME-FACED and WALDEN POND). Also, the short crossers seemed pretty good, though I can't say I was thrilled with AMEBA. But I realized there probably wasn't a better POLE DANCE/LOVE BEADS stack, so I decided to just roll with what I had.

My next exciting break was discovering that WHEN I'M SIXTY FOUR could work as the upper 15-letter entry! I liked the Scrabbly letters of this entry—the only problem was that I didn't actually know what it referred to, because my tastes in music at the time were very contemporary. Some quick research showed me that I was dealing with a Beatles song (and yes, I've definitely heard of the Beatles!), though just to make sure it was a well-known one, I checked with my trusty Boomer parents. Reassured, I finished filling the puzzle!

PERSONAL OPINION seemed a bit dry to me, so for good measure, I threw in some moist TOMATO PASTE and RISOTTO. In the upper left, I was pleased that BROWNIE and ORDER AROUND didn't require a significant number of tradeoffs. One of the toughest areas was actually the upper right, because I just couldn't seem to find a good balance between lively midlength entries and clean short crossers. Then I came up with MY WORLD, which was music to my ears, and the rest was history!

I hope you enjoy solving this puzzle and have a happy and successful new year.

– puzzle by David Steinberg

When constructing a themeless, one thing I like to do is design my black square arrangement around an interesting entry. If done correctly, I feel this technique can help to squeeze in a few unusual letters, avoid the temptation of a prefab grid, and perhaps even create a unique solve.

For this puzzle, TJ MAXX was the entry of interest. Once I had placed black squares around TJ MAXX (a few under the X's and one above the J), the resulting NW and SE sections seemed to want to form stacks. But, placing a black-square finger in columns 5/11 meant that what is now 27D would've been either a long entry starting with "J" bordering a stack (would this be fillable...?...I pondered) or a stumpy 3-/4-letter entry starting with "J" (if I added another black square). Since I didn't like either of those options and wanted to avoid stacked 11's in the NE/SW, I opted for stacked 9's all around (with extra 8's in the NW/SE). Lastly, I tried to place the remaining black squares in such a way to give solvers multiple opportunities to enter each corner.

Of the entries in my original submission, Will and Joel liked the NE/SE but disliked a buildup of proper nouns in the SW and the (non)phrase LEAVE LATE in the NW. After a little more back-and-forth, we settled on the fill you see. Stuff like NESSES and ANAS aren't that great, but they're relatively isolated and don't have too many bad crossings IMO.

As for clues, Will and Joel changed quite a few to bring this puzzle up to Saturday difficulty. [Auto racer Luyendyk] became [Part of "Die Fledermaus"], [Widow's peak, e.g.] became [Plugs can move it forward], and [Figures in red] became [Red menaces?], etc. Fortunately for my ego, Will/Joel kept one of my favorite original clues--[Still the most?] for STEADIEST--and even felt that a question mark was warranted. At any rate, I hope solvers appreciate the added "crunchiness" in their Saturday puzzle; make sure to thank your tireless editors! =)

That's it from me. I'll have Ms. Swift lead you to the Sunday puzzle. Happy holidays and happy solving!

– puzzle by David Phillips

I started writing this puzzle a long time ago and was convinced that 1) with 12 rebus squares, I couldn't fill it, and 2) couldn't keep it resembling a calendar while keeping the word count beneath 140 words. So I set it aside for a better part of a year before picking it up again. When I did, I found a layout where each month was relatively the same size, relatively rectangular, and not-too closed off from one-another, and forged ahead.

There ended up being three major challenges to filling this puzzle. First, the many straight edges. Constructors know that it is way easier to fill puzzle sections that have diagonal edges rather than straight edges. With straight-edges, it becomes difficult to avoid words that have terminal non-RSTLNE letters, so one ends up with a lot of fill that is, shall we say, STRUCTURAL. Second, there are very few three-letter entries in the grid, which are a constructor's best friend in otherwise hard-to-fill sections. Finally, I didn't want any of the rebused entries to share a common root with their corresponding month. This was particularly hard for July, which comes from Julius, as do just about every word and name you can think of that starts with JUL besides JULEP. BANJUL, then was my only other JUL-containing option, which as a world capital, is fully legit, but as a city of only 30,000 people, is pretty small potatoes. But so it goes!

I hope this Sunday puzzle — my first! — kicks off your new year on the right foot.

– puzzle by David Woolf

This crossword comes almost one full year after my debut yet it was accepted just two weeks after. One clue from that puzzle ("Perfect night for a pillow fight") provided the seed for this one. I scribbled it down in my crossword ideas book and came up with a couple of dozen more P__F__ entries. By having a large selection to pick from, it made building and filling the grid easier — for the most part.

I realize that FARON might not be Monday fill but he was a big country music star in his day and is a nod to my dad who enjoyed country music. I can remember hearing Faron Young's songs on some "Decades of Country Music" collection that my dad had on 8-track. My music taste leans more to PINK FLOYD so I just had to include them to balance things out.

Here is what Joel had to say: "This sort of theme type can often be underwhelming, but your version of it works for a couple reasons. First, you have six theme examples, some of them interlocking, which is very impressive. Even better, though, you've chosen lively and fresh theme answers. The fill was very clean and easy, which was another reason we said yes."

Hope you agree with Will and Joel. Happy New Year!

– puzzle by Herre Schouwerwou

What do you get when you cross the crossword-friendly OED with itself? You get a puzzle theme, that's what.

In choosing the theme entries I came up with two good long vertical themers which crossed CROSSREFERENCES serendipitously, so then I needed the two intersecting long horizontals. There was not a very large pool to choose from, ZEROEDIN worked nicely in the NW, but I originally had the so-not-in-the-language THEHOEDOWN in the SE which Will rightly rejected.

After coming up empty for a replacement, I decided to split the entry and look for two shorter words that would work when combined. After much trial and error I thought RADIO and EDITS might fit together, and lo and behold that was confirmed when I got back a gazillion google results for it. After acceptance, RADIOEDIT appeared in a 2014 NY Times puzzle. The themers in the NE and SW corners took a bit of finagling but they too fell into place, using a few cheaters to make it all come together.

I hope it was an enjoyable solve.

– puzzle by Jules P. Markey

CLERICALHEIR was the seed of the theme. And then HORROR, ERROR, MIRROR, and TERROR came together as a nice quartet. There's something reassuring as a crossword constructor when only a handful of words fit a restrictive word pattern: here, *RROR. I rest easier when not leaving out other possibilities.

I considered a reversal of the puns, where HOAR FROST becomes HORROR FROST, MERE MORTALS becomes MIRROR MORTALS, etc. But ultimately couldn't nail down a strong, consistent theme set I liked.

I found a reduction of "THREE R's" more satisfying — instead of revealing the common word pattern in every theme answer. Chopping off the last syllables of *RROR words seems closer to how most people pronounce them anyways. HOAR, HEIR, MERE, and TEAR pack more of a familiar punch when read out loud.

Being from Texas, I can assure you: these are spot-on pronunciations when spoken with a drawl. "Hold on. Gotta adjust this here rear-view mere."

Hope this was a fun solve!

– puzzle by Jeremy Newton

The humble Spoonerism is such an endless source of wordplay — often unexpected, sometimes wildly funny — that it's no wonder that it has become the inspiration for so many crossword constructors. I presume that my puzzle developed as had many other such puzzles — a random thought "spoonerized" a phrase, and the phrase was intriguing enough to encourage a search for other related phrases. Once I saw that TRAY DIPPER had the same letter count as THE BEATLES, the challenge was irresistible.

I literally looked through a list of every song by the Beatles to find the three remaining Spoonerisms. The viable options, through sheer luck, provided a matching letter-length set, plus a 15-letter center, and I was fortunate that Vivien LEIGH's last name does indeed rhyme with "Lee", not "weigh".

For me, it is interesting that the seed entry here, TRAY DIPPER, is not (in my opinion) the most elegant (I vote for PAPER RACK BITER with its clue), the funniest (SHE'S HEAVING LOAM, I'd say), or most successfully wacky (to me, LEIGH SHOVES YOU) of the theme entries. However, the overall combined result pleased me a great deal, and I hope solvers enjoyed it too.

– puzzle by Jeffrey Wechsler

This puzzle was directly inspired by the Andrew Ries Fireball puzzle "Straight and Narrow." Even though the puzzle was very well-executed as conceived, the meta aspect left me and other solvers a bit cold. IMO, Amy Reynaldo sums up the puzzle perfectly in her concluding paragraph: "I got this meta quickly, but it was extremely tough overall: just five solvers got the correct answer, a number so low that, for what I believe is a first for Fireball, editor Peter Gordon gave out a hint and an extra 24 hours after the contest had closed." For reference, I've seen Peter Gordon record upwards of a few hundred correct responses depending on the difficulty of the meta; so, Fireball's solving base is by no means small.

This means that at least 95% of Fireball solvers--which include many of the top-ranked crossword solvers among their ranks--may not have understood or even located the theme! This fact dismayed me--and not just because I was one of the Fightin' ">95%." To me, it signaled lost potential, which, as a constructor, frustrated me to no end. Frustration led to curiosity, and curiosity led to SIDE/BARS.

The biggest constructing difficulty for this one definitely had to be fixing parallel theme entries in the outermost columns. Many "bars," when placed next each other, didn't produce nice crossings. For the most part, I targeted "bar" pairs that had alternated consonant/vowel patterns; and, for the few spots that didn't yield favorable bigrams (e.g. NC at the start of a word or TM at the end of a word), that was where black squares and a few key three-letter entries came in handy.

As for cluing, my first impression is that Will/Joel eased up on the difficulty to help solvers better glean the theme...? At any rate, though the final edit has a few deceptive clues, there are no explicit pun ("?") clues. As sad as I am to see [Iconic line of computers?] for TOOL[BAR] get removed, solve-ability and the thematic "aha" are more important.

Anyway, I hope this was a fun, crunchy, Thursday outing! Get it? Crunchy...NOUGAT...oh, never mind. =)

– puzzle by David Phillips

Interlocking 9s and 10s with a 7-letter revealer today.

While a mid-grid revealer tips my hand, the placement far outweighs the structural challenges that arise by jamming a 7-letter entry into the final across spot. This isn't true for a Thursday-level puzzle that can accommodate stacked 7s in rows 1-3 and 13-15 (and more experienced solvers who expect a payoff at the end), but is perfectly appropriate for a Monday puzzle.

I added two cheater squares at 15- and 33-Down to shorten the longer, non-thematic entries and avoid any confusion with the vertical theme answers. Extra squares are always better than unnecessary confusion, I think.

Small ding: THE NERVE crossing THE NBA — both for the THE dupe and iffy THE [sports league, sports team]-type entry. But this wouldn't bother me as a solver, so I felt fine rolling with it.

Still, I was very pleased how this one turned out. Josie, my 6-month-old Lab puppy, agrees.

– puzzle by Ian Livengood

First of all, a big shout-out to my father and stepmother, who are huge David Bowie fans, and thus indirectly inspired this puzzle by turning me on to such excellent music at an early age. When Bowie passed away on 1/10/16, all I could do to honor his legacy was play my favorite hits nonstop. His early "Ashes to Ashes." His late "Lazarus." And, of course, his timeless "Space Oddity."

Well, naturally, I had noticed during this time that DAVID/BOWIE could be a symmetric pair in a crossword, and I whipped up a quick mini** around the entries. But the idea of making a larger tribute puzzle began to eat at me … so I experienced quite the "aha" moment upon hearing the opening lyrics of the last song mentioned above. Construction fell simply, as I had flexibility with pretty much all of the answers, although I really wanted TOMFOOLERY since it didn't employ the name "Tom" in the same sense as the song. As far as the fill goes, I didn't design my grid for many longer non-theme answers, so I tried to make the most out of the 6s, 7s, and 8s available: NUM LOCK, BLU-RAY, ST. LUCIA, IPOD NANO, etc.

To me, this puzzle alone was dear enough to my heart, and I was *this* close to cluing it up indie-style and posting it on my site. However, just for the heck of it, I shot Joel Fagliano—who I was already in contact with regarding mini** puzzles—a quick email that displayed the unclued grid, asking if he and Will wouldn't by chance have any interest in running the timely puzzle. To my surprise, I received a "Yes!" response from both individually, and excitedly reversed course. You know the rest!

Who knew that my 10^th puzzle in the Times, a personal goal in itself, could be such an adventure? So. Incredibly. Grateful. :)

**Shameless plug: Joel has recently brought me on board with writing some of the 5x5 and 9x9 puzzle packs for the New York Times crossword app! If you're a relatively new solver, or are looking for some quick, fun puzzles, check ‘em out; they're meant to be super smooth and timely, and can be enjoyed by many different audiences. Happy solving!

– puzzle by Sam Ezersky

The inspiration for this puzzle was Bob Dylan's classic song of 1964, "The Times They Are A-Changin'," and the realization that the title could be split into three seven-letter sections. I knew that there were four common anagrams for TIMES (SMITE, EMITS, MITES and ITEMS), but I set out to find all the possible permutations and discovered the additional pair of two-word phrases, IT'S ME and I'M SET.

So, despite no long themed entries, the puzzle has a total of nine theme-related answers. This makes getting interesting non-thematic words in the grid a larger-than-usual challenge. I was very pleased to have been able to include IN THE MOMENT and INDIGO GIRLS (who appeared as NY Times crossword fans in the wonderful documentary "Wordplay") as the two long down words as well as the secondary entries of SEE PAST, TUNA SUB, CIA GATE, I AM SAM, SO I SEE, and A AND E.

There are a few crosswordese bits in the fill, but on balance, I feel the theme density and the many interesting side entries more than compensate for them.

– puzzle by Adam G. Perl

This theme came to mind after spending a few hours inflating Mylar Halloween pumpkin balloons with canisters of helium. Since helium is a light gas, I envisioned a perfectly-round crossword balloon in an open, airy grid. I would need plenty of white space to hide the eight rebus squares.

Short rebus fillers (like HE) are tricky to work with because you need to restrict these common letter combinations to specific rebus squares — the combo shouldn't appear elsewhere in the puzzle. An "accidental" HE in the fill would go over like a lead balloon with solvers — I didn't want that! After more than a few versions, I was satisfied with the fill … which continued in an odd chemical direction (ACIDHEADS, ALCHEMIST, ON POT). I'm not channeling Timothy Leary. Please tune in to the puzzle, but don't drop out!

All in all, I think the grid vocab is accessible to first-time rebus solvers who are ready to scale the Thursday wall, as well as veterans of the craft. Happy solving to all — up, up and away!

– puzzle by Elizabeth C. Gorski