Alexander Liebeskind author page
3 puzzles by Alexander Liebeskind
with Jeff Chen comments
Alexander Liebeskind is a recent graduate of Columbia University, where he studied Computer Engineering, Applied Math, and Political Science. He is currently a software engineer at a startup and an ORISE Research Fellow at the FDA.
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Congrats to Alexander, who recently was named a Fulbright Scholar! While it's impressive that 62 Fulbright alumni have received a Nobel Prize, how many have published three NYT crosswords?
"Embedded letters" puzzles are a crossword favorite, so it takes an extra layer or even two to merit consideration. ARE YOU OKAY = RU OK works perfectly phonetically, and it's such common textese that riffing on it is A-OK.
What makes this example stand out above so many others is that it's tough to find great phrases with this pair of digrams. It'd be much easier if Alexander relaxed the constraint, allowing R U O K to be anywhere within a phrase, and I'm glad he didn't. That would have required circling all four letters, and that would give away the game immediately. Not only that but check out how few phrases there are with RU and OK (with at least one character between them). Besides the ones Alexander used, I only turned up:
- RUSSELL WESTBROOK
- RUNS AMOK
- RULE BOOK
- JERUSALEM ARTICHOKE
- PRUNING HOOK
- RUG HOOKING
Those last three might be tough asks for poor newbs. Even Russ — who was on the OK City Thunder! — could draw ire from sportsball haters, since he's likely not on a path to the Hall of Fame. (Ask the Westbrick chanters.)
I would have loved to see less ANAT ERST TSE UNI from Alexander, but there are so many great bonuses like BEEF TACO and ULTIMATE, hardly making for a boresome solve. Ah, there was that last BORESOME bit of unfortunate fill, plus a tricky LIENEE … perhaps less trading off of color for cleanliness would be prudent in the future, but overall, I say U R O K to this Monday offering.
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Perfect theme for noob solvers! Neat to see how many ways you can spell the "noo" sound: NOUgat, NEUtron, NOOdle, and NUmero. I couldn't think of any others—GNU, unfortunately, doesn't begin any longer word, unless you count Nat Geo's racy GNUDE SCENES.
Laugh at me all you want, but there's a crossword theme in there somewhere.
You ever get into a situation where someone asks you how to pronounce a certain word, and then you repeat it two different ways until your brain short-circuits? It's neither a n(y)oo nor a noo sensation for me, unfortunately. I made a successful NEW BEGINNING to better appreciating this concept after nuking (not nyooking) my initial hesitations.
Excellent gridwork, FRONT LAWN and GENEROSITY doing their jobs in jazzing up the joint, and the short stuff didn't make me hitch at all. I've enjoyed working with Alexander on many collabs now, and it's great to see this tightrope balance he's walked today between colorful and clean.
Fun start to the puzzle, too, [Intel employee?] for SPY a great bit of wordplay. That question mark is helpful in making the punnery impossible to miss.
Neat early-week concept, with a perfect revealer for noobs — if not newbs.
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Alexander! I've had the pleasure of working with him on a few constructions. He comes up with interesting seed ideas that are fun to develop, including one full of witty come-backs and another that we morphed into subway doors. Great to see him get his NYT debut.
Film adaptations … adding ING? I spent five minutes trying to suss out the rationale for this before Jim Horne gently suggested turning off my pesky brain so I could enjoy. Perhaps come in for a LA LA LANDING. It's true; the results overall are amusing, especially the image of a triceratops maneuvering in a PARKING lot.
Bonus points for featuring some recent movies. I haven't seen anything in years, but even this movie moron has heard of LA LA LAND, GREEN BOOK, and KNIVES OUT, award-winning major releases. Amusing changes of meaning, with GREEN BOOK given a cheeky redirection to an ecohotel. Even funnier to take the edge off (sorry) of KNIVES OUT's violence, turning it into a dull (sorry not sorry!) shopping trip.
Even with five themers, two long Downs are almost always possible, and Alexander did well with ANKLE STRAP and FRISKINESS. Well worth the price of a bit of minor MTN.
Smooth short fill, too, although ANA crossing ACC exhibits why Will Shortz generally hates initialisms that aren't known by virtually everyone. If you don't know All Nippon Airways or the Atlantic Coast Conference — and it's reasonable if you don't — that cross is a trap. Cluing ANA using "palindrome" would at least have made it fair.
Entertaining letters-addition debut, even if the reasons for adding ING to movies weren't quite clear.