Claire Muscat author page
1 puzzle by Claire Muscat
with Jeff Chen comments
See the 6 answer words debuted by Claire Muscat.
| S | N | U | G | E | D | G | E | S | L | O | G | S | ||
| T | E | R | I | G | I | L | A | C | A | N | O | E | ||
| E | M | B | A | R | G | O | E | S | A | D | D | L | E | |
| L | E | A | N | C | O | R | N | E | D | B | E | E | F | |
| M | A | N | T | A | I | O | S | M | P | H | ||||
| O | N | E | S | L | A | W | N | S | T | A | R | O | ||
| Q | A | E | D | A | H | B | O | N | O | W | ||||
| B | U | R | I | A | L | M | O | U | N | D | ||||
| P | L | A | I | T | S | L | O | T | S | A | ||||
| B | A | R | D | U | S | E | R | S | M | O | W | S | ||
| S | P | F | D | R | E | P | E | R | I | L | ||||
| L | I | F | E | E | X | P | E | C | T | A | N | C | Y | |
| B | A | G | E | L | P | I | Z | Z | A | F | A | C | E | |
| I | C | H | A | T | O | K | R | A | E | T | A | S | ||
| T | E | T | R | A | T | E | A | R | W | E | N | T |
I think this may be incredibly clever. But perhaps it takes an incredibly clever person to appreciate it? We get different types of NUTs, growing out of the letters N U T. Thus, the nuts grow from the NUTs? Or maybe it's some sort of fractal metaphor, that you see the same thing no matter at what scale you're looking?
It feels somehow meta. Self-referential.
Kinda? Sorta?
It was an incredibly cool set of findings — a "words hidden within phrases" type theme, kicked up a notch by the inclusion of the N U Ts. It boggles my mind a bit. It's hard enough to find most medium-length words within snazzy phrases, period. Toss in an extra letter (an extra constraint), and it's even tougher. Something very cool about ALMOND stretching to ALMOUND within BURIAL MOUND.
Some might even say it's buried with that phrase! More meta-ness.
With just three themers, David and Claire had a lot of flexibility in grid design, and they took full advantage of it. Some beauts in GIANT SQUID, BAR FIGHT / DO SHOTS, GOLF PRO, to name a few. TO NAME A FEW!
Eerie, the meta-esque touches.
PiZZA FACE is a colorful phrase, no doubt. But I'm not sure I'd strive to incorporate it. It's such a mean-sounding entry. Rich Norris over at the LAT once asked me to get rid of FOUR EYES because he wanted readers to come away uplifted from a puzzle, and that phrase potentially did the opposite. PIZZA FACE feels like a whole new level. Bleh.
Overall, I think there's a very nice crossword concept in here somewhere — things that grow out of NUTS or something. This particular implementation didn't do it for me, leaving me scratching my head even after a lot of thinking about it. But I did like the creative, innovative thought behind it, and the solid gridwork.