Blake Slonecker author page

Such an eye-catching grid pattern! I was certain that this one riffed on Morse code, but it turns out that TMTTTTMT doesn't spell anything.

Unless ... there's a deeper code buried within, said the man still in Puzzle Boat 9 hangover!

(Alas, there isn't.)

Blake's comment gave me a smile — as if we need yet one more thing to add to our front page link salad. Now I feel compelled to try beating the one Jim mentioned below. Thanks a lot, Blake!

Some beautiful marquee Acrosses, LINE DANCERS punnily describing the grid layout. (Kinda sorta.) I'm curious to see if MOIST TOWELETTES will elicit the cringes that the word "moist" seems to trigger, but as a parent of two small, sticky kids, I approve.

As a math junkie, I also loved BOOLEAN OPERATOR, but I can see how non-logicians might LEAN toward "BOO!" I'd almost forgotten that the word "Boolean" stems from the mathematician George Boole. He could be as aggravating to some solvers as other proper names are to others, if not more.

I'm relieved that Blake and Will Shortz went with "Would I LIE to you?" instead of tennis's ILIE Nastase. That might have made the crossing with LOMO saltado a total guess. Along with not being familiar with the characters in "Ulysses" and only vaguely recognizing PO-PO as slang for the police, that was a tricky region.

I wasn't wowed by LOW TIRE PRESSURE, especially since the clue's wordplay fell a bit flat (sorry), and ASSESSMENTS's common letters and boringnessessness flattened that precious slot's potential. Still, the distinctiveness of the grid pattern, as well as the quality of the other long Acrosses, made me hopeful that others will continue to innovate in themeless designs.

I'm a huge fan of mirror symmetry. Something about it appeals to my sensibilities — perhaps it's some primal echo to the left-right symmetry of the human body? It's not for everyone, a few people telling me how much they hate it. More accurately, how it pains every fiber of their existence. As for editors, Mike Shenk at the WSJ dislikes it, Rich Norris at the LAT enjoys it, Will Shortz appreciates it but abhors up-down symmetry. Hard to please everyone!

I appreciated this FISHHOOK concept as a "starter Thursday." A friend of mine recently got obsessed with the NYT XW, and she confidently gets to Wednesday but is intimidated by Thursdays. I'll point her to this one and see how she does. The fish bending into fishhook shapes isn't a difficult concept to suss out, but it sure produces a pretty visual.

I thought they'd be ridiculously easy to fill in after GOLDEN SPIKE. No sir! I read [Drink that might be served with a metal cup] and confidently filled in MOSCOW MULE. (From a non-fisherman perspective, if perch and sole and char are fish, mule probably is too? Doesn't it all taste like chicken, anyway?) Great misdirect away from MILKSHAKE.

I was only vaguely aware of the UPANISHADs but it helped a lot that I knew the last four letters had to be some type of fish. I don't like being forced to learn things when I simply want to be entertained, but the crossings are fair. I would have preferred PHYLICIA RASHAD because she was so incredible in "Creed," but I imagine a lot of Hindu solvers will delight in seeing UPANISHAD in their crossword.

I prefer trickier, harder-to-figure-out Thursday themes — not including FISH / HOOK and leaving me to figure out the concept might have increased my fun — but there's merit in providing a wide spectrum, including ones that might hook (sorry) people looking to break into tough Thursday territory. Well-executed grid — especially around those hooks that take away flexibility in filling — and an aesthetically pleasing one, at that. At least, for us left-righters. Sorry, 180-normative and diagonalites.

Such a solid Thursday, everything a standard rebus should be. The main criteria:

• NBA JAM gives a strong rationale for rebusizing NBA.
• The long theme phrases are excellent, with NBA always breaking across words. Bonus points for NBA breaking across all three parts of SUSAN B ANTHONY! I'd totally vote for her as the new Jerry West silhouette.
• Crossing answers are also solid, a bit longer than the minimum of SINBAD or DUNBAR. FANBASE is also relevant to the NBA, bonus points for that.
• Four rebus squares spread nicely across the grid, leaving no region untouched by rebuses.

I also appreciated Blake's gridwork, working in color with ALLEYCAT, POTSHOT, PASSPORT, ICHIRO for us Seattle homers, even HUBCAPS RIBEYES are fun. A rebus that accomplishes both criterion #2 and #3 sometimes fall down in the area of grid color, but that was far from the case today.

A couple of standout clues, too. POUTED's clue gave us a "bit of lip," UFO appropriates the song "Space Oddity," and my favorite, PINBALL using the term "bumper-to-bumper." Delightful wordplay.

I've done so many rebuses in my lifetime that one with four of the exact same string of letters won't stand out for me. A near-perfect example of this standard theme type, though.