Mark's puzzles are tough but fair, making for an intense workout. Sort of a CrossFit experience, if you will — I felt the burn all ...
read moreMark's puzzles are tough but fair, making for an intense workout. Sort of a CrossFit experience, if you will — I felt the burn all throughout, pushed myself to the limits, and narrowly avoided hurting myself ... but did I feel great emerging with a victory!

Some beautiful answers today. SMOKY TOPAZ is not just a stunning "gemstone" but it's such a great answer, with a final Z as a bonus. And I haven't loved an answer so much as X AND Y AXES in years! It was so inscrutable at first glance … and at second … and at third, but it's a very common term in math that looks so crazy. What a great sequence of Xs and Ys linked together.
(Adding X Y AND Z AXES to the XWord Info word list …)
RUMBLE SEAT is another standout. Why don't today's automakers come up with such cool terminology? They don't look as awesome as they sound, and I can only imagine how uncomfortable they must be, but I imagine my kids would someday fight over dibs on the rumble seat if I had one.
A couple of long answers didn't hit quite as well for me. AGE-RELATED is perfectly fine — and I appreciated it more since my last company focused on drug discovery for AGE-RELATED macular degeneration — but it's not as colorful as the above-mentioned entries. And ONE IN FORTY seems arbitrary — I don't want the door opened for ONE IN SIXTY or ONE IN TWENTY, etc. Finally, IN THIS WAY also more takes up space than sings to me.
And there is a piece of deeper old-school crosswordese in TARNS. Sometimes I appreciate these, in that they provide a toehold into a tough section, but I don't like how this supports the popular notion that you have to know really esoteric trivia in order to be good at crosswords. Along with the arbitrary D TEN, these are more than minor gluey bits in my eyes.
But overall, some beautiful entries and a great workout leaving me feeling stronger than before. Mandelbaum, Mandelbaum, Mandelbaum! And I loved reading Mark's notes — I hadn't noticed the W X Y Z in the corners; very fun. This is exactly why I started asking every constructor for their take, way back when I joined onto XWord Info ... three years ago now!