Andrew Ries author page

★ When I solve on paper, I put a C by any outstanding clue. Andrew and Caitlin are star C students today, with over a dozen of them! Highlighting the multitude of genres:

Interesting trivia. As many times I've heard ALOHA over the years, l've never known that it means "presence of breath." Entertaining fun fact.

Question mark wordplay. [Winners' circles?] — clearly, some wordplay is involved. Maybe it had to do with a circle as a gathering? Or victory laps? Brilliant wordplay, hinting at the circularity of GOLD MEDALS.

Innocent misdirection. A cheater might throw a game or match. A sporting final? Nope, literally, they might throw LOADED DICE!

Capitalization play. Whether or not you agree with NANCY PELOSI's politics, it's hard not to agree that she makes "House calls."

Pun fun. "Catchy communication" is an APB? Yes, if you're talking about catching a criminal. Groooan!

And that was all within the first 20 clues! Unbelivable density of delights.

I did have some hiccups, having to make educated guesses to suss out ALCALDE, FOLEY and DRE. Nor did I know of any racetrack and casino synergies. Unambiguous crosses for all of those entries, though.

Soooo much exhilarating cluing. Even with a boring grid, I would have still given this my POW! The fact that Andrew and Caitlin's construction was up to their usual sky-high standards made it that much easier to auto-POW! this one.

I love it when I get to rave about a crossword.

I think there will be plenty who gloss over the brilliance of today's clues, one in particular: [Model's makeup, often]. Even after filling in BAL, I thought … balsam? That's probably a make-up thing? Even after typing in BALSAM and realizing it was too long … even after leaving in only BALSA ... I still didn't get it! Ah, BALSA is the wood that many model (kits) are made of. Genius!

EDITOR IN CHIEF similarly wowed me. Although its clue had a telltale question mark, I didn't pay attention to that space in "Post master." Even after I did spot that, I was thinking more Post cereal, not The Washington Post. Great clue making a fantastic entry even better.

Constructors often take pride in debuting entries into our Word List. Most of the time I enjoy new terms, but BEER BAR wasn't one of them. I spent much of my 20s hanging out at various dive bars, brewpubs, microbreweries, wine cellars (sadly, playing contract bridge in dark corners with my fellow oddballs, mostly). The term BEER BAR is figure-out-able, but I'd feel like a dummy (get it? contract bridge joke? ha ha?) if I ever said it.

ANGEL PIE, on the other hand, looks delicious. I didn't know the term, but after looking at galleries of ANGEL PIE recipes, I was in heaven.

Yes, I was the one all the other oddballs made fun of.

I couldn't figure out TRANSICON at first, because I kept seeing TRANSACTION, but what a great debut. Especially in the face of so much oppression, it would take incredible bravery to become a TRANS ICON. Even if you don't know the term (I didn't either), it's gettable, and it's inspiring.

I have an incredibly high bar for Andrew, one of the best themeless constructors out there, and this one didn't quite get there. I'd be fine with AREOLA if editors loosened up and clued it as what many people would think. Toss in a bit of SMEE, the highlighting of DICK CHENEY more than a decade after he was VP … still, there was a lot to enjoy, what with long marquees like HONOR ROLLS and ART CRITICS.

★ This is the PARADOX puzzle that I've been racking my brain for. Years have gone by, and I've explored two separate "docs" in single rows, two docs spread through long entries, and dozens of other executions, but I'd never considered looking for long entries fortuitously containing two (non-spread-out) docs. That seems impossible, given the limited number of doctors who 1) are famous and 2) have short names. You're not going to have much luck with ZHIVAGO or JEKYLL, after all.

Such amazing finds:

• THE WHOLE TRUTH containing Dr. WHO and Dr. RUTH. Wow!
• I didn't know the DEVIL'S DOZEN, but what a colorful phrase.
• DRE and NO are easier to work with — simple *DRE*NO* and *NO*DRE* searches turned up ADDRESS UNKNOWN, CHILDREN OF MEN, KEYNOTE ADDRESS, FOR NO GOOD REASON — but DREADNOUGHT is a fantastic word. [Here are both of those searches combined in a single RegEx — JH.]

Excellent presentation, too. One of the problems I always struggled with: PARADOX is an awkward length for a revealer, hard to tuck away. I like Andrew's solution, using mirror symmetry so he could put PARADOX in a perfect location for a revealer. The constructor in me also appreciates Andrew's clever solution to the layout problem of themers being 11, 13, and 11 long. That may seem trivial, but each one of those forces black square placements, making the layout a bear. Andrew's skeleton is one of the few ways of making this set of awkward-length themers work.

Work in some TWEETSTORM, HOME DESIGN, VAPE PEN, GEN XER snazzle, all the while carefully minimizing short gluey entries, and that's a perfect balance. It's not trying too hard with a 74- or 72-word grid, and it's not taking the easy way out with 78 words.

Great REVENUE clue, too, playing on "cash in." It might be too literal for accountants, but this finance guy gives it a bonus.

Fantastic puzzle. I don't even mind that Andrew stole my intended thunder. When a product is this strong, all you can do is stand up and clap.

★ Two of my favorite themeless constructors teaming up; how could I resist giving this a POW!? Cool middle, with TREASURE TROVES / MAIN THEME / ABOUT THE AUTHOR stacked, and ELIZABETH WARREN persisting through them all.

Not only are the Across marquee entries fantastic, but they can all take clever or interesting clues. I was so befuddled by ABOUT THE AUTHOR, thinking at first about a denim jacket (I swear, they'll come back in style one day), then a record jacket, and finally a book jacket.

Sad performance from an *ahem* author.

I wonder if ELIZABETH WARREN will prove divisive as a crossword entry. There's no doubt she's famous enough, having made a serious Presidential run earlier this year, but Will usually tries to stay away from politics, as one might at a dinner party. I imagine she'll evoke both cheers and jeers, depending on the political stance of the solver.

While it may be true that the NYT solvership skews left, it is a widely diverse audience. I bet there's a reasonable number of solvers who would prefer seeing IVANKA TRUMP in their grid, for instance, and I would at least have to listen to their grievances.

Caitlin and Andrew did especially well with their mid-length material, so often blah. Most editors prize two-word phrases for their potential to sing, and TO ORDER, ILL BITE, AL DENTE, HOT TAKE all strengthen that perspective. Wonderful work, making such good use of those corners.

I did get stuck in the lower right, worried that I wouldn't be able to finish. Thankfully, I remembered Constructor's Rule #7: if you're filling a big region, you'll usually have to lean on common letters (RSTLN E) — as a solver, if you're stuck in such a wide-open area, try penciling in a random E or T or S and see if that triggers anything. I still couldn't tell you anything about ORESTES, but the name looked familiar enough when I eventually stumbled upon ?RE?TES.

Meticulous craftsmanship, great sizzle in the long entries, and some wickedly sharp clues. I'd love to see more synergistic constructor pairings like this.

STAIRMASTER made for a near-perfect central entry. It's something most everyone will have seen or at least heard of, so you can employ wordplay to your heart's desire. And the clue didn't disappoint. I wrestled with [Flight simulator?] for ages. Not a pilot's flight simulator, but a simulator of a flight of stairs. Man, that's clever!

It, unfortunately, needed the telltale question mark, which is why I said "near-perfect." Still, it's a 9.5 out of 10.

I have an extremely high bar for Andrew's stair-stack work — ah, the insider's nod makes STAIRMASTER even more enjoyable! — and this one didn't quite meet my sky-high expectations.

Part of it was that Andrew challenged himself more than usual, using three grid-spanners, CAPTAIN KANGAROO, CINCINNATI CHILI, and JUKEBOX MUSICAL. Integrating these into the grid skeleton rigidifies everything so much, that the fill can't bend in the wind. It's unusual to see so much CPO ESTD ILIE MOL OREL in a Ries production.

I have an issue with TIGER MOTHER. That technically is a valid term, but no one calls it that — it's always "tiger mom." Even my mom calls herself a tiger mom. She'd probably spank me if I said TIGER MOTHER.

I kid! Sort of. I did get spanked (mostly deserved). People laugh about the "Asian F" — an A-minus — but one of my clearest memories is of bringing home a report card with all As and one A-minus. My mom's reaction was to scowl while berating me for doing so poorly.

I guess her methods worked. In making me neurotic, that is.

Still, I dug Andrew's stair stack of INDEX FINGER / STAIRMASTER / RHETT BUTLER, plus SATELLITE TV running through them. And that clue for PITTED! [Like dates that lack a heart] — a bit of wordplay cleverness, a bit of social commentary. Thank goodness those days are long since past me!

Another solid "stair stack" offering from Andrew. I like the variations, 1) orienting the stair stack vertically, and 2) making the lengths different (12-13-12) instead of keeping them all the same. It's a minor detail, but it is nice to see something different, at least for those of us familiar with Andrew's body of work and style.

Some brilliant clues:

• Loved the play on "frozen assets" to clue DESSERT MENU.
• "Skort circuit" made me laugh (many female golfers on the LPGA TOUR wear skorts).
• [Main issues?] is another brilliant one, referring to a gas main.

Some that I'll have to explain to people barraging me with questions (and admittedly, for which I had to research to figure out):

• [One raising an issue] is a PARENT? Yes, when "issue" takes the legal definition of "child of one's own." This could have used a question mark in the clue.
• "Barber" apparently has a verb usage. And that usage covers styling? Huh. Maybe, I guess.
• WORST can be defined as "get the better of, defeat," so [Trounce] is technically accurate. (When you have to say "can be defined as" and "technically" …)
• BATE is in the dictionary. True story!

Along with the arbitrary ONE NINTH and its crazy clue about fraction of people living on an island, and not being terribly familiar with JANELLE MONAE or the CROTON RIVER, it's not my favorite of Andrew's. Still, a solid Saturday solve, if a bit more confusing than exhilarating.

Most of the time, Andrew produces triple stair-stacks — three long answers atop each other, shifted over in a stair-like pattern. Today he went double or nothing, using six of them in an extra-tall grid. I call it a winner! From PVC PIPING to ORANGEADE, each of the six answers is somewhere between solid and juicy. I wasn't aware of the BEER LEAGUE slang, but it makes sense. I'm hoping the sports in said BEER LEAGUEs are more of the cup stacking variety, not so much drunken flag football. I'm pre-calling the E.R. …

A football-shaped middle is hard enough to pull off, but to run two fantastic entries through it? SECRET RECIPES is snazzy, and the clue's misdirection toward a Tupperware lid makes it even better. IN-APP PURCHASE has that crazy string of three Ps.

Any constructor would be immensely proud of that central creation. To do it all with just minor EUR and YRS is jaw-dropping.

I wanted to give Andrew another POW! on the merit of the middle alone, as exciting as the Marshawn Beast Quake. I stutter-stepped too many times to do it, though:

• I didn't know BEER LEAGUE, and that's fine. It's two words I recognize, and it makes sense as a whole. Toss in EPICURES (isn't it "epicureans" usually?), though, plus old-timey STENOG and TARPONS, and I got a vibe of weirdness.
• ADEPTS AGARS OMEGAS, pluralizations that felt inelegant.
• I enjoy a good BEAR CLAW. I also enjoy a great Saturday wordplay clue. But do bears have fingers? Aren't they toes? As much as I enjoy trivia, this clue generated more confusion than devilish head-slapping.

Don't get me wrong; it's still a fantastic puzzle. If Andrew hadn't already won so many POW!s, I'd probably give him this one. I love when constructors stretch themselves, and going from three to six stair-stacked answers certainly qualifies.

Andrew usually runs his middle stair stack horizontally, but chose to display it vertically today — you can always "flip" a grid along the NW to SE diagonal with no changes in entries. (There are technical reasons for this, but they're incredibly boring, so just trust me. An example of two grids that are equivalent except for flipping: the first pair in the Misenko duplicates.) So, why place MARTIN SHEEN / LECTURE TOUR / LETTUCE WRAP vertically instead of horizontally?

One reason is that it lets Andrew feature all the goodies running across that stair stack: ANSWER ME THIS, SPORT UTILITY, SWIM UPSTREAM, MAKEUP ARTIST, NO BOTHER. He usually gets a lot of long answers running through his stair sticks, but today's felt even stronger.

Another is that if you flipped the grid as described above, your 1-Across would be APPAL. Not an appalling answer, but not a good one, either. 1-Across is the first answer most solvers will look at; it's so important to start things off on the right foot.

It seems ridiculous that something as easy as grid-flipping would make a difference, but having a poor 1-Across entry can be such a turn-off. These little tricks can be important.

One con to today's presentation is that it places VIREO across the middle, glaring and sticking out more than if it were vertically oriented. This one tough entry is fair, but when you combine it with PAREVE, the RIVER PO, MISSAL, and PLAIT (usually called a "braid" in the US), it makes for a lot of entries that could be called "weird." That's an unfair assessment, but if you make a solver feel dumb, that affects their perception of a puzzle's quality.

Overall, it's not my favorite of Andrew's (stellar) body of stair-stack work, especially considering he also needed a bit of RDA TET ITA TBA to make it work. Certainly enough juice from the long entries to make it still enjoyable, though.

★ Brilliant puzzle; my favorite of all of Andrew's stair stacks. A quad of greatness in NO PRESSURE / SECRET CODE / DEGREE MILL / SIERRA CLUB, every single one of them colorful in its own right, and better yet, every single one has the potential for clever cluing. [Green giant] is indeed delightful wordplay for SIERRA CLUB, no telltale question mark required to give away the game.

And almost zero wastage throughout the crossing down entries! It's all too common to need a bunch of neutral entries to hold together a stair-stack. SCARCEST doesn't do much, but SERENA SLAM, TV PRODUCER, LUGE TEAM = a cornucopia of color.

There's yet more? Andrew did such a smart job of quasi-sectioning the SW and NE corners, keeping good solving flow while making his filling job easier. When you can work on a corner independently, it's much easier to optimize for greatness like ADVIL PM, LENS FILTER, DATE NUT, ICE SAWS. Now that's the way to squeeze out every last drop of potential.

Best compliment I can give is that I wish I'd constructed this grid. Andrew's prodigious efforts and hard work in the stair-stack space have clearly paid off.

★ I haven't experienced this many delightful clues in a long time. When solving themelesses, I keep running tabs on:

• Great long entries
• Gluey bits
• Clever clues
• Interesting trivia clues
• Clues I'll have to explain to confused solvers

The third category is usually short, sometimes a big fat zero. I couldn't believe my eyes when the tab ran to seven. Unheard of! I had a tough time coming up with a top three, since so many were so good:

• I've written APOSTROPHE clues riffing on a "character" in a book title. Yet I still got fooled! So clever to further obfuscate by including the word "raised." The APOSTROPHE is literally raised in "Rosemary's Baby"!
• Noted library opened in 2001. As a writer, I ought to know this one. Which of the famous libraries was it? Not a physical library, but a library of online music, ITUNES.
• How is ESTATE LAW an [Important thing to know, if you will]? The last part is sheer genius. Think of "will" as a verb, as in, will something to your kids.

Although the construction seemed to be yet another of Andrew's "stagger-stack" constructions, I appreciated the variety. He did start with a typical stair-stack in the middle three columns — SELENA GOMEZ / DELUXE PIZZA / WATER HAZARD, all great — but he wove in so many long entries. TOUPEES, AIRDRIED, AISLEWAY, ESTATE LAW, TAX EVASION, APOSTROPHE, MEZZANINE, BUZZARDS, DOROTHY. It's an embarrassing wealth of riches.

There were a couple small prices to pay, notably the oddball BUR along with some ATA SYR WTS. That'd usually be a yellow or even red flag, given that it's a 70-word construction. This is no typical easy-peasy 70-word construction, though.

So many interlinked feature answers, and so many mind-blowing clues make Jeff a happy boy.

Okay, let me tell you all about ASCII, whether you want me to or not. The American Standard Code for Information Interchange is …

Hey, come back here and be MANSPLAINED to!

Jim and I both loved DEVELOPMENT HELL. It might only be familiar within certain professions, notably software, engineering, and media production, but …

Hey, wait, that covers a lot of people! Ah, the frustrating time when a project is languishing in limbo while middle managers argue about it. Sigh.

Great entry + clue in SACAGAWEA DOLLAR, too. I was sure it was going to be some word of the year based around the Y2K bug. Nope, a literal coinage!

Cool layout, a welcome variation on the usual stair stacks that Andrew tends to use. Neat to be treated to two bonus 15-letter entries — and both of those 15s running through the vertical 15!

I'd have thought that after all that interlock, there wouldn't be any more real estate in which to pack extra juice. Not so! UNION REP and CABLE CAR are fine ways of using those precious 8-letter slots. So even though there were only ten long slots (of 8+ letters), Andrew used each one to its fullest extent.

A couple of compromises, though — not hot on INRI, MASC, RET. NFC tried to get cutesy with a misdirection clue, but it felt more wrong than anything. Even one of Will's fact checkers thought [Rams home] should have at least gotten a question mark. The clue doesn't work without the giveaway possessive apostrophe — [Rams' home] — or a telltale question mark.

Entertaining solve; impressive effort to pack in so many ultra-long feature entries. A POW! contender.

Andrew is so good at stair stack trios. PURPLE STATE, DEPECHE MODE, SENIOR PRANK? All colorful entries — especially PURPLE STATE. (You knew that was coming.) Seriously though, what a fantastic term, so descriptive for a battleground territory that's partially red and partially blue.

Nice and open floor plan for the grid, too, a lot of long entries woven through the stair stack making for great grid flow. Huge fan of LENA HORNE, ODOR EATERS (not that I need them, despite what my kids say), FLOOD LAMP. I embarrassingly had that last one as FLOOR LAMP, having convinced myself that FLOOR LAMPs, of course, make for great outdoor theft deterrents.

BERSORES are a thing, aren't they?

BED SORES isn't a delightful entry — evokes unpleasant images. (You owe me one for not putting up the Wikipedia image of them today.) But it does get a fun clue in [Resting spots?].

I wasn't as hot on the other long entries going through the stair stack. DECIMETERS isn't that commonly used, ARRESTED is neutral. And ROSEDALE. Somehow I convinced myself that ROLEDALE is a floral name. DALEs are floral, right? Maybe related to BERSORES?

A couple of clues that might have been confusing to some:

• BISHOPS proceed in a biased way? Yes, when you think of "biased" as "at a slant," as in a chess piece BISHOP.
• How is an APPT a [Receptionist's notation]? I think of receptionists mostly doing greetings and taking calls, but they probably do note down appointments to expect that day.
• [B in music class]? That's a reference to the "three Bs," Bach, Beethoven, BRAHMS.
• If you're a lightweight like myself, you might not know that RON RICO is a brand of rum.

Overall, solid puzzle with a beautiful middle. BEDSORES excepted. And the stray IRT ELO, TCU, plus SRS duplicating SENIOR PRANK. SRS-LY, kids seems to actually text like this!

Sunday puzzles with notepad instructions face an uphill battle. In some cases, they give away most of the game before it even starts. Today's was so hit-you-over-the-head-with-a-fungo that I worried that the puzzle was basically already over.

I was wrong. (As I am a lot.) Even though I knew what was coming every step of the way, I stopped at many points to enjoy Andrew's finds. C + ASTROS in CASTRO STREET. SCRUB SUITS obfuscating CUBS and the necessary R. PAID RESPECTS hiding the I and PADRES.

We highlighted the themers below to make everything easier to see.

It all led up to a SACRIFICE play, apt for the idea of removing a letter — or "sacrificing it" — from each themer. Nice idea, if not that exciting. Sort of like baseball!

I'm usually not one to be impressed by themer interlock, but I liked what Andrew did today. There's something elegant about having the SACRIFICE oriented vertically, mirroring the up to down order of the sacrificed letters. Given how many themers he had to work with, it'd have been so much easier to put SACRIFICE in horizontally. Glad Andrew found a way.

Some dabs of crossword glue, but mostly minor stuff like ARB/ORO, ESO, SALA, ELLS. Good craftsmanship.

Not hot on a lot of the bonus material, though. EARGASM made me laugh, but TOILET BAG felt off, more commonly "toiletry bag" or "toiletries bag." ALIENEE felt alien. WHEEL NUT — l changed a tire a couple of months ago and took off the nuts, yes. But WHEEL NUTs feels overly specific. LIEDER is tough, even for this classical music buff. APPOSITE …

Okay, I should have known that one. I'm sure I'll forget what it means in about one paragraph.

It's so tough to make a 140-word 21x21 puzzle, even tougher when you have to work with such high theme density. I think Andrew did well given the level of technical difficulty. I wish the impact of the SACRIFICE punchline had been stronger though, especially since the notepad already put Andrew in the position of coming in as the closer, bottom of the ninth, up one, no outs, bases loaded, unable to give up even a sac fly.

Hopefully, that was an apposite metaphor.

★ STANDARD POODLE crossing TOODLES entertained me way too much. Now that's an AMEN CORNER! There was so much greatness packed in, especially impressive considering how tough a construction job this is. A wide-open middle, with nine (!!!) long feature entries is no joke. That quartet of STANDARD POODLE / DINNER DATE / DON DELILLO / TANGERINE DREAM is so impressive.

The only one of the nine that didn't grab me was ROAD TO RIO, but I bet it might be the favorite for an older generation. No doubt that it's crossworthy, at the very least.

I liked that Andrew didn't stop there. EARL GREY TEA and RAISING CAIN added even more color. But wait, there's more! The SW / NE corners, which often don't live up to potential on layouts like this, feature DATA DUMP, PA KETTLE, and even METEOR. Not at all TEDIOUS.

Fantastic clues, too. [Person who's on a roll] directed to a high roller at a craps table. No, that's a VOTER roll — top-notch wordplay.

A couple of dabs of crossword glue in MML CTS LUM, but that seemed like a fair price to pay for so much goodness. There was the oddity of ENTRAIN — I've ridden a lot of trains but never heard someone say, "it's time to entrain" — but again, it was a price worth paying. Easy to infer, anyway.

Fantastic construction. I often tune out of a themeless if I get more than a couple of dabs of crossword glue, but today, all the sizzle was well worth it.

Such pretty curves in the middle of the puzzle! It's not often that a themeless's black square pattern tickles my aesthetic sense so strongly. Reminded me of another graceful one.

Solid triplet to anchor the middle:

• LEAD BALLOON is a hilarious term. I'm curious who first came up with the metaphor. Or perhaps it was a spectacular failure of a real test … even funnier!
• BLOOD VESSEL is a great phrase, although I didn't understand the clue at first. [Needle point?] gets to the fact that it's where blood is drawn from a needle? I suppose this works. Sort of. But it seems like it ought to have four or five question marks at the end of the clue to show what a stretch it is.
• SUNSET STRIP was a relief to uncover. After reading the [… of a ‘50s-‘60s TV series] clue, I thought we'd be in for some sort of esoteric Patty Duke or Dobie Gillis reference. Thankfully, SUNSET STRIP feels like it cuts across generations, making for a larger number of solvers who could appreciate it.

Not a ton of long slots, so it was important for Andrew to make use of all of them. I thought TETRAHEDRA and ESCAPE ROOM were standouts, although I wonder if these play too much to a niche audience. TETRAHEDRA is a great word, but when you clue it to D&D (a d4 means a four-sided die), it might turn off some solvers.

PAPER TOSS was the only long entry I didn't care for. It does make sense — you're trying to toss a paper ball into a trash can. But who says "let's play some paper toss!"?

Andrew's a pro, doing a great job of balancing snazziness and smoothness. Today, there was just a bit of EDO in terms of crossword glue, with not much wastage. As I'd expect from Andrew, a strong result on the whole.

I thought all six of the longest answers were great. Just for kicks, I'm going to rank them. (Warning, subjective analysis ahead!)

TOP TIER

1. NASAL STRIPS. It's a fantastic entry on its own, and recognizable even if you've never used one (they used to be advertised on TV all the time). Even better, the clue is pure gold! [Things used on bridges to ease congestion] so innocently deflects to medians, lane-dividers, etc. I loved the entire puzzle based on this entry/clue alone.
2. TUPPERWARE PARTY. Again, sizzling entry, sizzling clue. Such a funny image of a bacchanalian party with people belching like airhorns. Nope, burping your Tupperware!

MIDDLE TIER

3. AIRPORT CODE. Nice phrase, and some misdirect potential. JFK might have made you think about the President first?
4. SO FAR SO GOOD. Solid entry, colloquial, fun. As a phrase, I like it better than AIRPORT CODE. But here's the thing: there's not a lot of potential for clever cluing. "No issues yet" is equivalent, but there's not nearly the click I got from the two top-tier clues. For this reason, I put AIRPORT CODE above it.

BOTTOM TIER

5. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoyed these two a lot. But WAYNES WORLD is over 15 years ago. Is it a classic? I think so — this fan calls it ex-cellent! But I'm not sure for how many others it causes the same elation.
6. NED FLANDERS. Again, I'm a Simpsons fan, so I'm more than hi-diddly-o-kay with this one. But there are plenty of people for whom this one won't do much. Jim for instance — I think he'd be able to fill in the letters, but never having seen the Simpsons, what does it do for him?

I started making xws about 10 years ago, and my views on what's "good" and "not" have changed a lot — interesting that my evolution mirrors that of Andrew's. I would have put WAYNES WORLD and SO FAR SO GOOD on top back then. Go figure.

Overall, solid work, with the additional bonuses on SOCIAL IQ and GONDOLA (part of a cable network, ha!) balancing out SASE, SDS, SHA. I appreciated that the juicy middle of the puzzle gave me an opportunity to do some thinking about why certain themeless feature entries shine, and others don't glow quite as brightly.

Andrew is known for his "stair stack" themelesses. GEORGIA DOME / CARROT JUICE are pretty good, but SEAT FILLERS is the marquee entry that will hold this puzzle in my memory. What a great misdirectional clue, pointing to people who don't pay for their tickets — illegally watching? — no, people paid to make a crowd look bigger. Awesome!

SNAPCHAT FRIENDS down the middle spiced things up, too. It didn't do a lot for me, unfortunately, not being on Snapchat — okay, barely knowing what Snapchat is; fine, are you happy?! — but it's a technical feat to run a solid grid-spanning entry through a stair stack in this manner.

Some other feature answers, too — I read Jill's O MAGAZINE every month after she's done with it.

Fine, I steal it and hide it away before telling her that it got delayed in the mail!

And the TAXI SQUAD of an NFL team, what a fun term. For those that didn't know it, it has a fun history, a team owner putting scrubs on the payroll of his taxi company to keep them around.

I personally like O MAGAZINE better than TAXI SQUAD, as I'd guess that more solvers would have heard of the former than the latter. But that's a tough call. Even if you didn't know the latter, it's a neat story of how the term came about.

As much as I love clever clues, sometimes clues can try too hard. [Scratch on the table?] was going for "scratch" as a term for money. But "scratch on the table" isn't a solid base phrase to riff on (although our toddlers sure have put a lot of scratches in our table). And it's been years since I heard anyone say "scratch" and mean "money."

Continuing on the money kick, [High note?] for C SPOT … hmm. Calling a big bill "high"? As in, that hundred-dollar bill is high?

Umm … no.

So although it was a solid stair stack, it didn't have as many feature entries as I like (due to the real estate taken up by SNAPCHAT FRIENDS), and it didn't leave me with enough WACK (What A Clever Klue!) moments to give it POW! consideration.

Andrew creates a lot of indie puzzles, making "stair stack" arrangements one of his calling cards. I really like this puzzle's stair stack, CEREAL BOXES / YOU CALLED IT / SPIDEY SENSE a great triple. CEREAL BOXES is already pretty good by itself, but getting a delightful wordplay clue — [Life preservers?], playing on Life cereal — makes it even better.

Stair stacks usually have a couple of long answers running through them, but it's unusual to get a grid-spanner right down the middle. TEACHABLE MOMENT makes that stair stack even better. Weave in PINA COLADA and HOLY SPIRIT — along with PTEROSAUR and COUSIN ITT — and that's a great center of the puzzle.

I also enjoyed some of the other entries, like GO TIME and PRECALC. However, the featured center took up so much real estate that Andrew was forced to use so many short answers in the periphery of the grid.

Three-letter words ... yeah, 16 is definitely high for a themeless. It's not a problem in its own right, but having them concentrated in the four corners gave the puzzle a choppy feel. Jumping from ORD to PTL to SCH to SAS to SEN messed with my solving feng shui.

Some potential left on the table, too. ICE PALACES is a great use of a precious long slot. But ADDERLEY is okay, but not flashy. Similarly, TSARINAS, ELENORE, IMITATING. Glad to see that Andrew and I agreed on this.

Beautiful center of the puzzle. If the periphery had matched in quality, this could have been a POW! contender.

Neat sound changes, OH, ONE LAST THING a perfect hint to "add an O sound for kooky results." Love, love, love the array of weird spelling changes, BOARD to BORDEAUX, FAIR to PHARAOH, PICKLE to PICCOLO, etc. Amazing how many different ways you can make that O sound!

I wasn't sure about METS to MEZZO — I always thought MEZZO was "mez-zo" but apparently it's "mets-oh." Learn something new every day!

Great base phrases and resulting humor. STIFF AS A BOARD is colorful, and I can almost imagine a good PR person coming up with STIFF AS A BORDEAUX to market a line of super-heavy wine. And Cupid saying LOVE IS IN THE ARROW? Brilliant! I REST MY CASE (that the themers highly entertained me).

Er, QUESO. Another fantastic spelling change!

The only themer that felt stilted was VANITY PHARAOH. A vain pharaoh, yes, but the grammar here is too tortured for my taste. Something like PHARAOH TRADE might have worked better for me.

Well executed, too, lots of bonuses in OMNIVORE, NEUTRON, PHEROMONE, METHINKS, BIG GULP. Note that most of them are single-worders, which often fall more into a neutral camp because they're so commonplace and utilitarian, but METHINKS most of these are great.

I didn't know MIRANAIR — er, MIRA NAIR, but she's crossworthy. I always thought Spike Lee did "Mississippi Masala." No sir!

A couple of blips in the short fill here and there, some OPEL / CTA and ASTA, a dab of ENE WDS. But note that these little shorties are so easy to ignore. Nothing egregious.

I came so close to giving this one the POW!, as it's a great example of a tried and true theme type done exceedingly well. Many other weeks it would have been my pick — it's super hard for a Sunday puzzle to hold my (short) attention span the entire way through, so it's quite a feat when it happens.

★ I must admit, when I got to UTURN, I shrugged. Answers making UTURNs (and other turns) have been done a ton. Will has mentioned that he's not taking as many of them these days because they've become overdone.

Man, was I glad to think about the puzzle some more! They aren't just UTURNS. They're U-TURNS!

Okay, that was clear as mud.

The U-turning answers are Us … and (U)niversities, as in Clemson U! Great double-interpretation of those UTURNS. This is one of my favorite types of a-ha moments, when you see two disparate ideas pulled together in a surprising way.

And the execution. If there's not an emoji for *kissing the tips of your fingers like at an Italian restaurant* there ought to be. A grid like this is so tough to make. Not only do you have short, bendy themers, constraining the grid in all sorts of inconvenient places, but you have to work in long fill that sparkles enough, to give solvers some wow.

AND you have to keep your crossword glue to a minimum? Level of difficulty = through the roof, at least if you're aiming to make your puzzle sing. And wow, did it sing. EVIDENCE BAG. PARIS METRO. TRADE ROUTES. ADULTERANT. Adulterant? Wha?

Well, three for four in the long slots ain't bad at all. This sort of construction is usually hard enough to pull off with resorting to ADULTERANT-ish neutral fill. To get such nice longies without compromising elsewhere, c'est Magnifique!

Only a bit of ISS, ESE, MIO, that's pretty good for a normal puzzle. To achieve such a low level of crossword glue on a much tougher than normal construction … just goes to show how good Andrew is.

Okay, GOTYE / COMEY / HESSE will be tougher for some newer solvers. But given the news these days, you gotta know COMEY. (sadly enough)

Enjoyed the unexpected a-ha moment, and loved it when studied under a constructor's lens.

Solid grid, featuring a good number of snazzy entries. I liked how Andrew spread his assets around, from STOLEN BASES to SKATE PARKS to BORN THIS WAY to COSA NOSTRA around the corners, and that beautiful middle triple of BUYERS REMORSE / PARODY ACCOUNT / MUSEUM EXHIBIT. I only counted about 11 assets in the puzzle, but it felt like more because they seemed to pop up everywhere.

COSA NOSTRA is one I love, but I remember my wife looking blankly at me when she first encountered it (in crosswords). I do think this term for the Mafia is interesting, literally meaning "our thing."

Smooth grid, too. There's an editor's STET and a weird TENK (10-K race), but what else? Maybe you could argue that ANN LEE and EFREM Zimbalist are a bit esoteric, but they're both crossworthy in my eyes. Andrew did well to make all the crossings fair, too.

Well, maybe you could say that the MARCH of BETH MARCH isn't fair, crossing EFREM. Hmm. Not having read "Little Women" (I know, heresy!), I did pause at the M. Thank goodness I know EFREM from crosswords! Otherwise, EFRED and DARCH might look plausible. Maybe I'm thinking of Mr. Darcy, from another one of those old British books I was supposed to have read. Bah humbug.

It's rare that I notice a great short entry, but SPANX! I love this, having seen the shapewear brand throughout O the Magazine and other sources. I often pooh-pooh marketing, but whoever came up with this name is a genius.

It's not easy to construct "stairstep" triples (BUYERS REMORSE / PARODY ACCOUNT / MUSEUM EXHIBIT) with both color and cleanliness. And sometimes this type of layout can make it tough to work in a lot of other extras throughout the puzzle. So Andrew does well to work in a good number of assets, plus very few liabilities.

NOT GONNA LIE, this was an entertaining solve. I really enjoy that sort of colloquial phrase in a themeless, giving it a snappy feel, like a movie with well-written dialogue. Other entries like SPACE CADET and PLAYERS ENTRANCE added to that impression.

Interesting structure, what with all the longish answers intersecting to form a huge grid skeleton. Check out how much of the puzzle is affected by SPACE CADET running through PLAYERS ENTRANCE / USED CAR SALESMAN, through the CAESAR SALAD / FARMERS ONLY / NOT GONNA LIE stack, through ENAMELWARE. Talk about constraints! Such a large, interlocked skeleton ups the difficulty level when it comes to filling any one little subsection.

FARMERS ONLY didn't have much impact on me at first, but boy did I get a kick out of researching it. Who would have thought there would be a dating site specifically for farmers? And there's something so fun about the tagline "Sign up for free to find a farmer, rancher, cowboy, cowgirl or animal lover." There does appear to be some controversy as to whether it's "real" or a "scam," but that only adds to its intrigue for me. Nice pick for a marquee entry.

A themeless that features such long, intersecting entries runs the risk of not having much else. Since I've seen CAESAR SALAD several times in puzzles over the years, I was really hoping there would be a little extra somethin' somethin' in the grid. I enjoyed WHAT A DAY but the only other long entry was FOUL LINE, which seemed like a valid but strange way of saying "free throw line."

There were a few shorter colorful words like DUCATS, VELCRO and ROMANIA, but not much else in the mid-length material caught my attention. Still, it is nice to get some of these mid-length entries, as crossword puzzles often put them in the backseat, tending instead to lean on long themers and short fill.

Some of the short entries made the puzzle feel too easy for a Saturday — ADES, REA, ATL are very difficult to clue in obfuscating ways — but overall, a couple of great long entries buoyed by a clean grid and some interesting mid-length fill.

It's not often that I scratch my head, trying to figure out a puzzle's theme. Obviously JOHNNY ON THE SPOT refers to Johnny CASH, Johnny CARSON, Johnny BENCH, Johnny ROTTEN hidden in themers. Nice that all of them are Johnnys, not Johns.

But what does that ON THE SPOT refer to? I spent a good 15 minutes scanning the grid, trying to see if CASH was sitting atop the word SPOT, or a type of spot, or a black square representing a spot, or something else. The clue says "literally," right? It doesn't look like there's an additional layer that I'm missing. But it feels like there should be, darn it!

Nice set of famous JOHNNYs, all four with last names that can be hidden in phrases. I liked BENCH PRESS and ROTTEN EGG a lot, and CARSON CITY is pretty good too. CASH MONEY is a real phrase, but I don't hear it that often, even working in the world of finance. I might have preferred CASH CROPS or CASH FLOWS.

Interesting selections for long fill. I hesitated in filling in FANDANGO, because I only know it as the movie ticket site. Apparently it's a Spanish dance usually accompanied by castanets. I enjoyed learning that.

As for short fill, tough to start a puzzle by hitting AMO, SEN, ADLAI, ASCAP, ALG, all in one corner. Running ONSLAUGHT through two themers does make filling more challenging, but all the glue is a high price to pay, especially when the rest of the puzzle is dotted with CEE, EDINA crossing ENERO, ADEE, UNA, HORS, etc.

KOD looks so funny, but I like it. KO'D is common enough.

There's a high theme density here, what with five long theme answers, so that explains some of the gluey bits. Perhaps I really did miss some extra layer of theme? Andrew's too good of a constructor to let all the gluey bits through without a good reason.

ADDED NOTE: In fact, I didn't spot (pun intended) the ADs, i.e. advertising spots, under the various Johnnys — I've highlighted them below. D'oh! Thanks to all who pointed this out. Makes a lot more sense now; that adds a lot of difficulty into the already theme-dense construction.

What a cool triple-stack revealer in DOCTORS / WITHOUT / BORDERS! Three medium-length words chunked cleanly atop each other right in the middle of the puzzle is pretty darn cool. It would have been even cooler if Andrew could have gotten them exactly atop each other (instead of stairstepping them) but try filling around just the *DWB* pattern, much less the rest of the sets of letters. Awesome, memorable execution of the revealer.

I've seen several of the "letters outside the grid" in the past year, and two friends of mine both made DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS crosswords (independently!), so those factors muted the impact of today's puzzle for me. It also felt a little strange that the doctors are outside the borders, not crossing borders.

But I did really like the way Andrew made the grid look perfectly normal (without those outside letters). It's a simple matter to make a grid with NO, OZ, DRE, and WHO sitting outside the grid, but it's much more difficult to do it so that every interior word looks normal: DROVES looks like ROVES, ROPED looks like OPED, etc. Elegant touch.

I also appreciated Andrew's choice of long fill. It's impressive enough to get TOUCHED ON right through the stack of revealers, but it's a great feat to work in the colorful HOT DIGGETY and POP UP STORE. And then you cross ANDRE GIDE and HUSH MONEY through it all, without using a single gluey entry? That central region is just beautiful.

I'm not a fan of BESTIE, as it has too much of a pre-adolescent, cutesy feel to it. This is just personal opinion — I like TRUE DAT a lot, as I hear it all the time among adults, and I use it myself, but I can see some NYT readers scowling, saying "kids these days!"

You know who's saying that? THE OLDS! (I don't know that when applied to parents, but it is a term I sometimes hear for people who technology has left behind). A lot of subjectivity in what is "good fill."

An incredible middle region of the puzzle, and I might have given this the POW! if it had come out a few years earlier.

Easy-breezy theme, people reinterpreted for jobs that would be horrible for them. Man oh man, would I hate for my mohel to be STEVIE NICKS! (Don't look up "mohel" if you're squeamish.) Entertaining bunch of themers, BRAM STOKER and GLORIA ALLRED my favorite because of their surprising interpretations.

I usually don't care about "debut words" — many of them are new only to the NYT, or new but glue-y entries — but today I'm making an exception because Andrew has a really interesting assortment. EXHIPPIES is a true debut (as far as can tell based on the cruciverb database and Matt Ginsberg's extensive clued database) and a fantastic answer in my book. SPIN A YARN is nice, but it's been in CrosSynergy, the LAT, and the WSJ before. CHIME IN ON as well — made its first appearance in the LAT a while back.

GRAD PHOTO ... it's a debut, but it sounds odd to my ear, and it's marginal on the Google hit count (122K). If Andrew loved grad photos or had a business doing it, that would be one thing. But I personally wouldn't use it unless I had to, in order to make something really nice work. SHOE LAST, I'm mixed on. Clearly it's a thing and it Googles well, but it feels neutral to slightly ugly to me. Anyway, I appreciate the diversity within the constructor community — I'm sure I'll hear from people saying that I'm crazy; that everyone should love GRAD PHOTO. (I'll agree on the former.)

I often talk about specificity, and this puzzle is a good example of that. It's totally fine as it is, but given how many famous people have a last name that would work in this theme, I would have loved an extra layer. Maybe all singers. All related professions. Some extra layer that pulls everything together even more strongly. I understand where Andrew's coming from though, giving a wide assortment so that there's something for everyone helps play to a very varied and large NYT solving audience. Just feels a bit too loosey-goosey for me, personally.

Anyway, a fun solve, and I liked seeing Andrew's unique voice shine through with his assortment of newish entries.