Evan Kalish author page

What a perfect way to end a Dec. 24^th puzzle, not only a great entry in NICE LIST (think "who's naughty or nice"), but a festive wordplay clue. [Yule log?], using a different definition of "log" (as in journal entries), is so merry.

Also fun: imagining kids poking each other at 2 a.m. on Christmas Eve, asking YOU AWAKE?

Not so fun: being parents of those kids.

I spend a huge amount of time adding to and curating our word list, so I kick myself when something like NICE LIST or KEEP A CLOSE EYE ON I haven't kept a close eye on. Not as much for LOWBALLERS, which sadly makes me think of a "Jackass" stunt involving an old man costume involving prosthetics and short shorts. Ahem.

Themelesses are so much about one's personal connection to the entries or clues. I enjoyed the clue for TOSCA — referring to TOSCAnini, the maestro who conducted its La Scala premiere — but I delighted in hearing a conductor's elation, Jim Horne's effervescence bubbling over as he told me stories about both TOSCA and Toscanini.

E-SCOOTER is no longer a debut — Evan himself took care of that earlier this year. Back when he was first getting started, Evan showed me a grid corner he'd built around EWASTE. My reaction was, what's next? E-BINOCULARS? E-SHOES? Then again, I'm a big fan of Kindle's E-INK technology and the common biz lingo ETAIL. As mentioned, sometimes personal connection is everything.

For those of you celebrating, hope you're on the NICE LIST for tomorrow!

Great visual for MONKEY (IN THE) MIDDLE. I couldn't remember the rules of the game, so I looked it up. Ah, right. Two bullies tossing a kid's backpack over his/her head, playing keep away. This kind of thing used to happen to a kid I was a Big Brother for. It's tough — you know you should take the high road and talk to the bullies about the consequences of their behavior. It's so much easier to punt their kickballs onto the roof.

Hypothetically speaking, of course.

I liked the attempt to elevate the standard "hidden word" theme type, which Will Shortz is tiring of. It's easy enough to work APE into many CHEAP EATS, AP ENGLISH, ALASKA PENINSULA phrases. Much harder to do that around a non-trivial visual element.

Ah! I didn't even notice the APE literally stuck in the middle. Unfortunately, this APE isn't broken across two words, like Will usually requires, but it is a nice touch. Perhaps orienting that APE vertically would have been even more evocative, the poor creature trying to jump for his backpack. That could have also allowed MONKEY, MIDDLE, and the middle APE to be in the same row, rather than the way he's levitating now.

Wait. Why are the APEs all around not helping their brethren in the center? They're taking part in the bullying? Cue Charlton Heston!

BANANA PEEL is such an apt phrase for this puzzle. Even more pleasing to see it strategically placed under one of the bullies. You go, my APE friend!

For a Kalish production, there's an unusually high amount of short entries that would get called out on editor's spec sheet, ANAP, EDS, TSO, maybe HMO and ISP too. I did love the clue for TSO, his good name being "battered." And for a strong visual element, the trade-offs can be worth it.

All in all, an audacious debut for David and another one in the books for Evan, but the mixture of literal and visual elements didn't gel together that well.

Two amazing entry/clue pairings:

• BIENVENUE is a delightful word. Not as delightful as the misdirect in [Welcome abroad], leading me to ask myself, what's a word to take in a foreign exchange student?
• [Digital filing service?] needed a telltale question mark, but that didn't stop me from enjoying the wordplay. Fingers and toes = digits!

In our weekly puzzle chat, Jim Horne and I shared a laugh about YEAHAND. We rarely agree fully on anything, but neither of us could wrap our brains around this one. The YEAHAND is the opposite of the NAYHAND? Perhaps it's a cousin to YAHEARD with Perd?

(It's YEAH ... AND? A solid entry, albeit strange-looking without that ellipsis.)

I used to think all weird-looking entries were cool, but I've heard enough solver feedback on things like SANDP, EINK, and MESAAZ to adjust my scoring principles.

Jim and I appropriately agreed on another entry; WOULDN'T YOU AGREE? Yes, we would!

Not so much on THIS GUY GETS IT, which this guy didn't. I do think it's a fine entry, but it feels oddly specific. I asked Jim to give me an example of the phrase in use, and twenty minutes later, Marie Antoinette pointed to Marc Anthony (the Shakespeare character, not the singer, of course) and said CE GARS, L'OBTIENT.

(It appears that Jimmy Fallon uses this phrase a lot, so the issue is more my obtuse refusal to acknowledge things that make me feel old.)

ESCOOTER … I have seen these littered about my neighborhood, people zooming by on sidewalks, eliciting fist-shaking from a grumpy old man spying at intruders from my doorstep. It's a curious entry, one part modern, and one part head-shaking-at-yet-another-e-addition-phrase.

(This, from someone who says E-TAILER and E-COMMERCE all the time.)

Only vaguely recognizing HADID and EGAN nearly hadid me in, but thankfully I recognized Christine LAHTI. Less fortunate was Jim, to whom I had to explain what a NOOGIE was. My phone literally swayed from the breeze generated by Jim shaking his head at us crazy Yanks.

Overall, some head-cocking moments, but enough strong entries and clever wordplay to make the solve worth it.

This isn't your father's sound change puzzle! Evan and Caitlin play on "Wait … what?", going from long A sounds to … short U? It's much harder to wrap one's brain around than a straightforward long to short change using the same vowel, but it did produce some excellent results. RAIDERS to RUDDERS is a great find, and RUDDERS OF THE LOST ARK is fantastic. The fact that RUDDERS can directly relate to Noah's Ark makes it a standout.

THE NUMB OF THE GUM gets an A for effort, numb and gum tied nicely together by dentistry. It sounds so much more awkward than CUSS SENSITIVE or WHY THE LONG FUSS, though.

I could not wrap my brain around YOU GOT THAT STRUT. I kept thinking, you got that strat? You got that strot? It now seems obvious, you got that straight, but since all the other base phrases were so much easier to figure out, it might have been better not to lead off with this one.

Such a top-notch grid! No surprise since both Evan and Caitlin have exhibited a top-notch mastery of gridwork. Put two of them together, and of course, you should get beautiful corners like LOCAVORE IN UNISON LETS NOT I KNOW.

And to keep the glue to just IDEE ORO RET, far less than the NYT Sunday average of roughly a dozen, is amazing. Note the liberal usage of extra black ("cheater") squares. Twelve cheaters might seem like too many to some constructors, but I'd pay that price any day to get a grid as clean and colorful.

It's a shame that a few themers didn't hit, like LOADED THE BUSES felt too much like a ho-hum real thing. Sundays that keep veteran solvers entertained from start to finish don't come often, especially when it's a tried-and-true theme type, but this one had that potential.

DARK ART = A R T inside black squares. It reminded me of a ground-breaking Gorski, one that amazed me in my early days of discovering how incredibly creative Sunday NYT crosswords could be.

Solid themer choices, each one obviously making no sense without the hidden ART. (ART)IFICIAL HE(ART) was by far the highlight, such a great way to use the theme concept twice in one blow. I had unfortunately forgotten about it shortly after I finished, since Across themers stand out more than Downs. We've added the ARTs below, which makes the cool themer interlock stand out more.

ARTIFICIAL HEART is such a great find for this theme — I couldn't think of any other possibilities like this except ARTICHOKE HEART, which is 14 letters — that it would have been awesome to "flip" the grid so that ARTIFICIAL HEART was featured horizontally, with the intersecting themers running vertically.

Great fill. ARTIFICIAL HEART's placement necessitates corners full of 7-letter slots, which can be tricky to fill with sparkly material. No problem for Evan, kicking it off with JACKASS / AL DENTE / CORN DOG and SODA CAN / EROTICA / NEW AGEY. Fantastically colorful, and the short surrounding fill is clean, to boot. Smart placement of black squares throughout the middle of the grid allowed Evan to work each corner almost independently.

Solid concept, top-notch execution. If I hadn't seen so many "letters in black squares" concepts over the years, this one being super close to Liz's spot-on WUNDERBAR!, and if the beautiful (ART)IFICIAL HE(ART) find had gotten the spotlight, it'd have received some POW! love.

DROPS to TRICKLE to STREAM to RIVER to FLOOD to OCEAN … sounds like the dream I had last night (after drinking a big mug of tea just before bed). Great progression that felt almost exponential. Ooh! Wouldn't it be interesting to plot the volumetric flow on a log scale?

Well, you're no fun.

I appreciated the consistency of TRICKLE, STREAM, RIVER, and FLOOD, all being part of a longer word. Evan could have relaxed his constraints to use RIVER RAT or FLOOD PLAIN, but those wouldn't have felt as elegant. I also liked how this methodology helped to disguise the theme a hair. Not enough so that newer solvers wouldn't figure it out, but enough to please more experienced puzzlers.

Such newb-friendly gridwork. Evan has put a lot of time and effort into honing his craft, and it shows. I can't point out a single entry that would prevent me from handing this over to a newb. The DVRS / VENTI cross could be tough, but it's fair.

I did have a couple of false starts, kicking things off with DRIBS and then DRIPS instead of DROPS. That's not a great way to start the puzzle. As cute as it might seem to relate the clues for DROPS and OCEAN — [Minute bits of water] and [Massive body of water] — a more straightforward clue for 1-Across would have been better. Who calls a drop a "bit"?

I also tripped on TALL ONES, first entering PITCHERS, then TALL BOYS. Similarly with HAIRLOSS, where I first put in HAIRLINE. I did enjoy so much great fill — HEDONISTIC HAN SOLO! — but sometimes I wonder if too much of it on a Monday can be overwhelming; a flood of riches.

I was mixed on the DROPS / OCEAN bookending. They did help alert me to the progression, but they took away from the theme's consistency. TRICKLE, STREAM, RIVER, FLOOD are integrated into longer words, so having DROPS and OCEAN as stand-alones felt dissonant.

Sometimes extras can muddy the waters. They can even make you take a BATH.

Hey, what's BATH doing in the middle of the puzzle? SEAS of confusion ...

Okay, I'll turn off the faucet!

Despite my feeble attempts at humor, this is an excellent Monday offering. On some weeks, I'd give it the POW!

Oh man, I was sure I nailed "Name that Theme." SNICKER ... COMEDY ... I'm buzzing in! What are WORDS THAT RELATE TO FUNNY BUSINESS, ALEX?

(Alex looking condescendingly at me over his glasses)

But don't you see, LOTTO is hinting at Little Lotta, who raised people's spirits worldwide with her feats of strength and … okay, maybe not.

Not only did Evan disguise the real theme masterfully, but what a delightful progression, from DOODLE to SKETCH to DRAWING to the BIG PICTURE—

LOTTO DRAWING? Or is it a LOTTA DRAWING!

And don't forget. She is literally a BIG PICTURE in the comics.

I REST MY CASE.

Seriously though, I've seen hundreds of various thematic progressions, and I don't remember anything quite like this. Artists across the world approve.

Regular reader / sub-editor Nancy Shack wrote me a few weeks ago, wondering if I'm being too critical on "hard" vocabulary that might stymie early-week solvers. Shouldn't there be something for crossword zealots, too? Why not sprinkle in some DEKED PURIM UMAMI GINKGO CONESTOGA?

Nancy makes a valid point. Every one of those entries is fair game, something an NYT solver ought to at least have heard of. However, I'd rather err (heavily) on the side of targeting a victorious, fist-pumping solve for newbs. Filling in that last box and staring at the grid, wondering if you've gotten everything correct, is so much less compelling than yelling with 100% certainty that hell yeah, YOUR UMAMI CAN'T DEKE ME OUT, NYT CONESTOGAWORD!

I sense an impending EDIT WAR with Nancy.

I've been on a kick to LOSE WEIGHT in my quest to become the first-ever Ninja Warrior to defeat the notorious Crossword Wall, where you have to pegboard up a 15'x15' grid, punching out letters as the clues flash behind you.

That really should be a thing.

Fun take on LOSE WEIGHT, the word POUND shedding to POND, down to POD, bloating back up to PROD then to PROUD. DAMMIT I LIKE MYSELF FOR WHO I AM; I DON'T NEED NO STINKING DIET!

I overthought this theme waaaaay too much. Don't people lose weight on the sides first, not the middle? Okay, the first losses are hard to see, so POUND to POND makes sense.

And POND to POD is consistent with that!

Then I wondered, is RIVER PO accessible to newer solvers? I imagine a big chunk of regular solvers would say they learned about the PO through crosswords. Maybe something like NEW YORK PD would have been better? It'd also have been more consistent with the other removals, always coming from the middle.

Finally, Evan will be hearing from MASTER P, his STANDING O withheld, for not including that last step.

My doubts were quickly swept aside by Evan's beautiful gridwork. TEAM COCO / MAROONED / SLY NODS is a great result in a big corner. (Although if you haven't heard the nickname TEAM COCO, that could be a head-scratcher.) Most notably, though, check out Evan's use of mid-length slots: CORNEA, UNICEF, PAPAYA, SAFARI, BOOGIE — that deserves a ton of PRAISE! So many constructors would fill those spaces with whatever worked easily, like A TASTE, ADDS TO, SLAM ON — boring material indeed.

The constructor in me enjoyed the gridwork enough to set aside my (ridiculous) hesitations about the theme. I'd have loved it if there had been something more playful, though, like a more realistic portrayal of the LOSE WEIGHT process: two steps forward, one (make that three) step(s) backward.

If you're going to make a "words that can follow X" crossword, this is the way to do it. Elements that stand out:

Great base phrases. POOL SHARK is so evocative, reminding me of my college days when I tried to hustle (sadly, you need to have the skill to back up your act). I love to WINDMILL DUNK (on an 8-foot rim). BOBBY SHERMAN is the outspoken ex-Seahawks cornerback (thus showing my hole-ridden knowledge base in both pop music and sports)? Bobby could be short for Richard. I stand by my claim, humph.

Equally excellent resulting phrases. SHARK TANK, DUNK TANK, SHERMAN TANK, what's not to love? (GAS TANK is fine but not a standout.)

Tightness. My first impression was that there were hundreds of ___ TANK phrases. After a minute of brainstorming, I revised that to dozens. Then to only a handful. What else might beg to be included? Maybe OXYGEN? Not being able to come up with a slew of other possibilities makes for a tight, elegant theme set.

Interesting revealer. THINK TANK? THINK … TANK! (Think of this as an order or a suggestion.) Much more creative than simply TANK [Word that can follow the ends of …]

Strong craftsmanship. Love the parallel downs of TRAMPOLINE / ALGAL BLOOM, especially since Evan didn't make any compromises in surrounding short fill. Note how he ran these through only one themer (BOBBY SHERMAN) — pro layout, allowing for great flexibility.

Overall though, I wouldn't give this puzzle to newbs, as the theme isn't too exciting, and it's not the most newb-friendly Monday in the world — CYSTIC / YUCCA / SCRUM / TAKEI right off the bat might cause gnashing of teeth and scratching of heads, trying to figure out proper spellings.

Evan's construction abilities have taken a meteoric rise. When I first started working with him, his ability to produce strong fill was … underdeveloped. (As is almost everyone's!) I've seen firsthand how much time he invests in developing his craft, and it shows. It reminds me of Bruce Haight's trajectory.

Mid-length fill is becoming one of Evan's fortes. With a 76-word grid and four themers, I'd expect a solid constructor to produce a squeaky-clean grid packed with about six pieces of colorful fill. Check this out:

• BUCKAROO / IN DENIAL / GOT NASTY
• PECORINO / DRONED ON / FRUCTOSE

In just two corners, he's already hit the mark! But wait, there's more: TYPE AB / WOULDA. BREWPUB. IT'S BAD? No way, it's SUPERB!

Even his short fill: QUIPS. RAMBO. PLAN A. YODA. That's not stuff you see every day.

There was one blip, in TROMPE. It's fair game in general, but it runs the risk of moving the "weird" needle for newer solvers. It's to be avoided in an early-week puzzle, especially crossing APSE. We constructors tend to think APSE is something everyone knows, and we'd be wrong.

The theme works, although it more grazed than struck me. One reason: I've seen many variations on this idea by now. More important is a notion I hadn't considered until Will pointed it out a few years ago: PURPLE, BANANA, and COURTED do nothing for the theme. They spice things up, but ideally, hidden words ought to involve both words of the theme phrases.

Not all editors agree, and no rule says this must be done. There is a reason why Will and Peter Gordon often give me this feedback, though — BANANA is such dead weight.

An alternate concept: sticking with single words, which would have allowed for REINCARNATION. Single-word themes are rare, since they don't bring as much pizzazz as multi-worders, but entries like DRILLMASTER and KASHMIRIS would have been spicy. Heck, DAIQUIRIS by itself is awfully nice!

Now I'm curious to see what other flowers can be hidden at the ends of colorful words. Down the constructor's rabbit hole …

★ When I played golf, my thematic sequence would have been:

TEE SHIRT

WHIFF ENPOOF

ROUGH PATCH

ROUGH CUT

ROUGH HOUSE

SHANK BONES

Ending sadly with MERCY RULE. No GREEN PEACE for me, which is why I gave up the pointless game. Sour grapes? Bah!

Evan did nearly everything right today. TEE, ROUGH, BUNKER, GREEN, CUP make for a descriptive golf sequence, and they're beautifully disguised within phrases. It wasn't until GREEN that I knew what was going on.

Smoothness, Evan's strokes like butter. A couple of minor hitches with some concentrated initialisms in CGI ESL FTC, but those are all ignorable.

And the bonuses! Nothing lengthy, but so much of the mid-length material sang. GLACIER and MT ADAMS. ON THE DL. Slangy ST PADDY. Even some SPRITZ TIRADE to round things out.

Thankfully, CARDI B has been in the crossword twice before, so she didn't give me hesitation. Third time's a charm!

Can't say the same with AVICII, which was the one major barrier to me awarding the POW! Especially in an early-week puzzle, you want to do everything you can to create a moment of "oh yeah, I defeated the NYT crossword!" Today, I got a "umm … I might have possibly finished the crossword, albeit with a bizarre corner, WEIRDER than ever; that can't possibly be right, so let me double-check everything, no, it must be right, but it can't be right because it's so odd" moment.

Not ideal.

It's a constructor's job to put solver above self, setting them up for glorious victory. That didn't happen today.

However, Evan did so well aside from AVICII that I still gave him the POW! Interesting, well-hidden theme, solid and smooth gridwork overall. I'd happily give this one to a newb, with the big caveat that they won't get as satisfying a victory as they deserve.

★ My inner nerd dug the heavy sci-fi bent, from STARSHIPS to TELEPORTS to waking up from THE MATRIX and saying WHERE AM I? Perhaps even a nod to Star Trek's most famous android, DATA, in DATA MINER? Loved it all.

I can understand how non-sci-fi DWEEBs might not have enjoyed the quasi-mini-theme as much, though.

"Stair stack" puzzles (describing the middle three rows) are familiar enough now that they have to shine to be noticed. The middle triplet is almost always great, since if you don't have at least that, it's a non-starter for most editors.

Where this one stood out from other stair stacks was in the lower left and upper right corners. These regions too often get filled with neutral or blah material, since they're often highly constrained by the middle stair stack. Not only are both of Evan's SW / NE corners clean and smooth, but WHERE AM I / THE MATRIX are so strong, doubly so when adjacent. NOSE STUDS and IN STEREO are winners, too.

Excellent work in squeezing the most out of all the long entries. I wasn't big on SWEETEN UP — filler more than an asset — but there were no other wasted long slots. That's a fantastic hit rate.

A couple of amusing clues, too. SEVEN was confoundingly self-referencing — clue number 49 divided by SEVEN itself. I had to stop and think about it, and I loved how it gave me an initial DOES NOT COMPUTE that was quickly resolved.

MOP, with its head usually on its bottom? That's the way to make a boring ol' common entry stand out!

In any particular week, Jim and I don't usually agree on which puzzle we liked best. Jim's words expressed my thoughts on today's puzzle so concisely: "Everything a Friday puzzle ought to be."

Anagrams are often too difficult to figure out, which risks solvers not bothering to go back and untangling them. I like that Evan chose sequences on the easier side to decipher. VESUN starts with a telltale VE-, letting us know that it had to be VE-SUN. You know, the allied Victory in Europe on the SUN.

I admit, the presence of SUN confused me a bit.

Also confusing: the different planets are worlds? I get EARTH, but there's life on MYRECRU?

Er … MR. CEURY?

MERCURY, bah!

I'd have preferred using different worlds that have been inhabited. Like VULCAN. ENDOR. HOTH. I suppose we could allow MARS, given how Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos will soon be terraforming it into a battleground for their dominion robot armies. My money's on the Bezobots.

(Jim pointed out my existenceism bias; that "world" doesn't necessarily mean "containing life." In fact, this dictionary does include a direct definition making the theme valid. It is definition #12 out of 12, but still, it does work.)

Maybe that theme would be a bit too nerdy, but crossword people tend to be (gasp!) a bit nerdy.

In cryptic crosswords, CHANGES is a common indicator for anagramming. It works today, but something like PLANETARY MOTION would have been better. And it would have given a better reason for using planets!

Strong gridwork; I'm impressed at the level of quality Evan is producing these days. Hardly a drop of crossword glue to be seen, and even some goodies in WENT STAG, TD PASS, FANTASY, MALAISE, GYM RAT, WHO ME? No AW MAN from Jeff!

I even briefly considered some POW! love for this one, based on the solid gridwork. The theme didn't quite work for me, though.

P.S. (WARNING: NERD ALERT) There's an easier approach to searching for scrambled strings. Take MERCURY, for example. You can inspect all the 7-letter sequences in your wordlist, checking to see if they have exactly one of M, E, C, U, Y, and two Rs. About five minutes of code and five seconds of run time turned up ARMY RECRUIT(S) and MERCY RULE but nothing else. VENUS was more interesting, with ANY GIVEN SUNDAY, EVENS UP THE SCORE, LEAVES UNSAID, LIVENS UP, and my favorite, NATURE VS NURTURE.

Just like products, insects, and styles, theme types have a life cycle. The very first time a theme is published, it's often groundbreaking. Amazing. Eye-opening. Memorable. Constructors and editors pile on to get in on the new hot thing, and we see more and more examples of it — sometimes as a near copy, sometimes with a little twist. Then, the crest of the wave; fatigue starts to set in. And like all good things, it eventually falls to the wayside as an entry in the history books.

Hidden word themes are in their last stages of the cycle, especially with the same word repeated over and over. However, as with all established theme types, there's usually room for something a little fresh to keep the genre breathing for a little longer.

Today, I appreciated both the juiciness of the revealer — proud to say that I have both an INNER NERD and an outer nerd — and the quality of the themer finds. All of them were good to fantastic, WIENER DOG my favorite. (At my climbing gym, the manager sometimes brings in his little WIENER DOG — it's so dang cute!)

Neat that Evan used a nearly-complete set, too. I couldn't figure out any others besides ZENER DIODE. I imagine all the other electromechanical gearheads out there are screaming in protest along with me, but I think it's a safe bet that this component wouldn't have been Monday-friendly to newer solvers.

Strong execution on the grid, too. Six themers (I think Evan's hindsight is unwarranted; I like every themer a lot), with ACTIVE PLAY, ESCHER, HIDE ME, Nina SIMONE crossing CROON? The puzzle is up … AND IT'S GOOD! Evan's construction skills have taken a quantum leap in the last year or so. Very impressive.

(One minor point: as much as I love D WADE as a player, I'm not sure his nickname is fair game for newer solvers.)

It's tough for me to get excited about a theme type far into decline — the NYT team recently mentioned that they have too many hidden word themes on file already — but it's a rock-solid Monday.

Every four years, I eagerly tune in to Olympic diving. Such power, grace, body control, athleticism. Mesmerizing!

As much as I enjoy insanely complicated dives, something like a reverse 2 ½ somersault pike gets me tense, all worked up. It's incredibly rare for something so daunting to be pulled off to perfection. More often than not, there's at least some technical flaw, a bit of a splash caused by an entry that's not clean. And sometimes, disaster happens. Belly flop!

Simpler dives like a forward somersault tuck can be so much more pleasing. They're easy enough to execute that you're often graced with a work of art and elegance. Not difficult for experienced divers, but it still looks amazing.

I like that Evan's themeless debut came on 72-word puzzle, the equivalent of a forward somersault tuck. Although it's a very low degree of difficulty, check out how well Evan used all his long slots. So much color in NO PRESSURE, SWEET TALKS, BIG PHARMA, ALPINE LAKE, etc. — no TABLE SCRAPs! Virtually no long slot used unwisely.

Well, Evan has a good point — maybe LUSTS FOR. I've become more and more uncomfortable over the years with lascivious-sounding entries like this. Perhaps having a young daughter has affected me more than I know.

Two minor deductions: one, for using so many three-letter words. My solve felt choppy, like I kept on having to go to the next word every few seconds, never being allowed to savor a big, open section. Secondly, grid flow was choked off a bit, black squares creating so many bottlenecked little passageways.

But overall, a textbook example of a relatively easy construction task, executed very well. This is the way themeless constructors ought to be wringing the most value out of their long slots. This judge gives it high marks.

P.S. It didn't occur to me until after reading Evan's note, but what a hilarious term in Hail — er, KALE CAESAR! I don't mind learning something new from my puzzle, and it becomes a joy when that something new makes me laugh.

Shh! IT'S A SECRET, i.e., words that can follow SECRET. The "words that can follow" theme type is largely bygone these days, but I like Evan's effort to elevate it: appropriate to "hide" SECRET words within themers!

Strong work for a debut. Six long themers? A great majority of experienced constructors wouldn't take that on, and if they did, the results would be catastrophic. Evan did incredibly well, stacking pairs atop each other, making sure that his letter pairs were friendly (PASTA SHELL over PEASANT ARMY has a lot of easy AP, SE, HA, ES, LA pairs).

I'm not sure such high theme density was desirable, though. (secret) SANTA, (secret) agent, yes! (secret) menu, okay — the menus you have to specifically ask for at fast food joints.

(secret) stash and (secret) plan? Huh.

I didn't feel like those two added much if anything. I would have preferred fewer themers, which would have made it easier to jazz up the grid. BAY AREA and SKI MASK are good, colorful fill, but I wanted more.

I eventually did recognize all the theme phrases, but I squinted hard at WHAT A GENTLEMAN at first. I suppose it's commonly enough said? And while MARKUP LANGUAGE is technically a thing, at the very least it doesn't feel very welcoming to a newer solver.

Speaking of not welcoming: MSRP crossing ISP. Ultimately, I think even newer solvers ought to have heard of one or the other, but it's iffy for a Monday.

Overall, a nice way to do something slightly different with a mostly dead theme type. I respect the choice Evan made (high theme density), even if it wasn't what I would have done, and I think he did a solid job of executing.