Jake Halperin author page

I love a tricksy Thursday that breaks the rules in an innovative, entertaining way. However, plenty of solvers detest Thursday tricks because they're too hard, too kooky, or too rule-breaking. Today's felt like a solid compromise — a theme that employed standard wordplay but was still tough to uncover, in an interesting way.

I appreciated that Jake used a variety of letter modifiers: LONG, HARD, SILENT, CAPITAL. At first, CAPITAL felt like an outlier, but I liked that it introduced something unexpected.

Doubling letters also made for a cool extra layer. It's unusual to come across the II pattern.

Three perfect examples of the kooky phrases, too. [Wight] is an ISLAND containing a LONG I sound. [Crunch bar] starts with a HARD C and is a type of CANDY. I didn't enjoy "Johnny Mnemonic," but it sure is a MOVIE featuring a SILENT M in its title.

CAPITAL SIN didn't ring a bell as strongly as Seven Deadly Sins, but it's a standard term in Christian theology. Sloth starts a sentence here, but since it isn't typically capitalized, I didn't find this answer as cool as the other three.

I enjoy learning terms that are self-explanatory when you study them afterward. SHAKY CAM is exactly what it sounds like. BEG-A-THON made me laugh. I don't know if I'd ever use it in conversation, but it's such an amusing word that I might toss it in.

I didn't know what VELARS meant off the top, but it felt apt to include a sound-related word in this puzzle.

It takes a special kind of non-tricksy Thursday to appeal to me, and this one hit my sweet spot.

FUNNY bone not a bone but a NERVE, SHOOTING star is a METEOR, KOALA bear a MARSUPIAL, and a PANAMA HAT is … huh? The needle scratched across the record on this one. Turns out it is of Ecuadorian origin, those clever craftspeople marketing to the gold prospectors coming through Panama. CALL IT LIKE IT IS doesn't apply in marketing!

This puzzle reminded me of a Sunday also playing on "but it's not actually." There are so many other possible entries for today's: ST PETERS ELLIPSE, INDIAN NUMERALS, HOLY GERMAN EMPIRE, and it feels like there are dozens more.

I love how AKERS is presented. I'm sure there will be sportsball haters who send me WHY DO YOU FORCE ME TO KNOW RANDOM ATHLETES rants. Well, I would hardly call FIFA's "Player of the Century" random. What an achievement!

It's a shame that Loerna OCHOA didn't get the same treatment, presented simply as a "golf great" instead of showing off her incredible record of 158 weeks as the top-ranked LPGA player.

For a five-themer puzzle, especially one with stacked answers, six long downs can be too ambitious. However, fantastic long downs helped to make up for some EQUI LUNN ALLO SYS KMS URI, the sextet of HIGH HEELS, SALVADOR, DITTO MARKS, TANGENTIAL, RENEGADE, and AT A GLANCE are all good to great.

It's a reasonable trade-off, though placing a few more black squares between TANGENTIAL and RENEGADE could have helped. I'd have been fine with only four long downs, too, which would have given them more room to blossom into a quartet of all A+ entries, while keeping the grid cleaner.

Checkout that fun southwest corner: AQUA, ASEA, TUGS jam-packed into a nautical puzzle? HEY YA!

A PIER (appear) ON THE SCENE, WHAT'S UP DOCK (doc), FOREVER MOOR (forevermore), QUAY (key) DEMOGRAPHIC. I'm terrible with pun themes, my acceptance rate with them roughly 0.0%. These appear inconsistent, since DOCK and DOC are perfect homophones, QUAY has different pronunciations, FOREVER MOOR is twisted in a different way.

Maybe I should try my hand again, but …

Never moor.

Although the theme didn't resonate — I'm not much of a boater — several clues delighted. SIR plays on "entitled," as in "someone who's been given a title." TSA concerned with "air bags," i.e. bags that will go in the air.

Speaking of air, the PSI clue might go over some people's heads. It's a clever misdirect, hinting not at monetary inflation, but tire inflation (pounds per square inch).

For those of us who spent years in the dating trenches, I was fooled by "the hardest part of a date." That's the PIT, not the pits, as in meeting up with someone who calls you from outside the bar, having shown up drunk and having dumped her motorcycle in the parking lot, unable to get it up.

(The bike, that is.)

★ I love a clever "two characters combine to form another one" concept. We've seen two Us into a W, Bs split (top/bottom) into D+D atop each other, even some awesome letters combining to create symbols. I'm kicking myself that I've never thought of tossing numbers into the mix.

The genius part of today's notion is that people write numbers in a more homogeneous way than letters. The B into D+D puzzle works great if solvers write in allcaps, but what if they're lowercase users? Or worse yet, what if they're squigglers?

How many ways are there to write a 3, though? It is true that 1s have more variety, whether you use a single stroke vs. incorporating the serifs, but either way, once you slap a 3 to its right, you've unmistakeably got yourself an uppercase B.

And that revealer! UNLUCKY BREAK = B breaking into unlucky 13. That's Stephen-level thinking (both King and Hawking, mind you). I haven't WITTed (wish I'd thought of that) a concept so hard in ages.

Great grid, too. Some of Jake prior grids have been rocky, containing too much crossword glue. Not today's. He worked in enough excellent bonuses — PUN INTENDED, FLASH FREEZE, COUNSEL, BLUNTS (I live mere blocks away from three pot shops) — while forcing himself to keep the short stuff smooth, only a touch of FLA GIA IONA. It's a great balance between color and cleanliness.

Finally , a clever touch, using BIPOLAR as one of the crossing answers. How apt for a puzzle splitting one character into two.

13ravo, Jake!

My partner in crime, Jim Horne, loved this puzzle, a clear POW! choice for him. I'm in full agreement that there's some genius in the theme. How to even describe it, though? Start with phrases meaning "yadda yadda yadda" ... and echo the final word at the beginning?

No — the final sound? Yes, that must be it.

Wait. UDDER and OTHER aren't homophones. Are they all puns?

Calling all rocket scientists and brain surgeons to help me …

For Jim, a puzzle's theme is (almost) everything. I can see the wisdom in that approach, especially when you're talking about a completely novel idea. After umpteen years of solving and analyzing crosswords, it's so rare to experience something for which you can't immediately point out a predecessor. Huge props to Jake for a rare accomplishment.

I construct a lot more than Jim, and this is the lens through which I evaluate all crosswords. It's tough for me to overlook things like URI ISR ELAL GTE. I don't know what to think of EXPM, either — does that open the door for EXPD and EXAG (attorney general)?

(I'll admit, the latter is relevant in revolving-door Trump era. *rimshot*)

Both Jim and I agreed that UDDERS AND OTHERS was the weakest themer. Eliminating it would destroy regular crossword symmetry, but mirror symmetry would easily work with 15 15 9 15 (or some permutation of those lengths). Mirror symmetry would have been appropriate for the echoing theme, too!

Jake is great when it comes to including long bonus fill, today's puzzle no different than his others, with BITSTREAM, EGO TRIP, FAKE TAN, OAK TREE, TANGELO. Given how much juiciness his puzzles usually exhibit — as well as a lot of crossword glue — I'd love to see a move toward a better balance.

Crossword themes go through life cycles, from birth to maturity, to past their prime, then out to pasture. Occasionally, though, there's an exciting evolution that extends a theme category's lifespan. Hidden word themes are reaching overexposure — Will Shortz recently said he has too many of them on file — but when you can find two related words within a phrase, that's notable.

Cool finds today, THEN AND NOW hinting at past tense / present tense verb combos. For all these years that I've been fascinated with DIDGERIDOOs, I've never noticed DID and DO inside that word. Neat discovery.

I didn't like it as much as one we saw a couple of months ago, though. One reason I enjoyed Erik Agard's more is that he included longer, more interesting finds. Not only are ATE and EAT short, but they're composed of common letters that are easy to work with. Using our Finder, I came up with a bunch of other fun ones: CHEATED DEATH, PATENT LEATHER, SENATE SEAT, WATER HEATER.

Constructors must often find a balance between smooth and snazzy, often one of them coming at the cost of the other. As with Jake's previous puzzle, this one had so many great bonus entries — WAGE WAR, CRIME BOSS, ON YOUR MARK, NEWS AGENCY, FIRST SNOW, CORN DOG, such lovely use of long slots! — but they came at a heavy price.

An elegant crossword has no more than 3 or 4 short entries that editors tell you to avoid. The 5-letter ones stand out more than the 3- and 4-letter ones since they take up more space, and ELEVE ENCLS GCHAT (outdated now), HIDER (along with STARER), IN ICE (partial-sounding) = too many. Add in even more 3- and 4-letter gluey bits, and it feels far from polished.

It's tough enough to build a grid around five themers. Audaciously weaving six long(ish) down slots through them often means trade-offs that are hard to swallow.

I'm enjoying the rebirth within the "hidden words" theme genre. Curious to see what new directions clever constructors take.

TO SAY THE LEAST as a task for a monk? That's a quality one-liner. Made me smile.

TO PUT IT MILDLY as a Thai cook toning down the spice … that's close to working. Would I ever say to a chef to "put the spice mildly"? Maybe if his/her spice had lit my brain on fire and I was having trouble stringing words together.

Sadly — or amusingly, depending on if you were me or the observers around me — that's happened before.

TO NAME A FEW is perfect for a task given to the parents of octuplets!

Wait. TO NAME A COUPLE? That's a phrase in usage?

Great theme idea. I'd have loved for Jake to keep brainstorming, letting this one marinate until his brain could turn up one more solid themer. Going with only three themers — none of them grid-spanners — is already dicily thin. Then embiggening one of the three to make the puzzle work is no bueno.

I liked Jake's choices in long downs, four out of four winners. Some solvers not as witty or urbane as moi might not recognize the great Niccolo PAGANINI, you know, that guy who … classical music ...er ... he was a … composer … no wait … conductor?

SHUT UP YOU.

With just three themers, you owe it to NYT solvers to give them a fireworks-quality grid: stunning, full of oohs and aahs. Jake came close with this quartet of long bonuses.

Unfortunate to have some duds, though. ALGAL is hardly AN ACE up anyone's sleeve. I was a big fan of "Futurama" but even I'd have a tough time expecting the broader solving community to know LEELA's name, much less how to spell it.

Toss in some crossword-crutchy NEAP ORANG OPELS, and the grid could have used another round of revision.

Overall, a fine idea that could have used more aging to develop better body, refinement, and distinction.

A lot of PROs and CONs in this puzzle! Long ago, I'd thought of a similarly thought-PROvoking CONcept, but I could only find PROXY CONTEST, PROCESS CONTROL, and some iffy ones like PROVOKING CONFLICT. I'd never considered flipping CON and PRO. I liked that this oddball notion opened up possibilities like CONCLUSIVE PROOF — that's a great phrase.

CONSUMER PROFILE and CONTENT PROVIDER aren't as sparkly, but they work. It made me curious to see what else was possible.

I liked CONCERT PROMOTER, CONTRACT PROVISO (sue me, I'm a nerd MBA), CONICAL PROJECTION (says the math dork), CONJUGATED PROTEIN (sense a pattern here?). The last three aren't as general-audience-friendly, but CONCERT PROMOTER would have been solid.

Why only three theme phrases? Part of it is that it's tough to fit in a fourth when you already have to work in PROS and CONS.

Er, CONS and PROS. Man, presenting them in reverse order still feels so weird. Makes me wish PESSIMIST had been incorporated into the grid to help explain things. That might have been too complicated for an early-week crowd, but the puzzle would have cohered much better.

Great bonuses, something that all three-themer puzzles need to feature. MIND BENDER, FATALISTIC, JET POWERED, UNBIRTHDAY? Yes yes yes yes! Jake did a great job spacing them out, too, keeping them well away from the PROS and CONS in the SE corner. Good planning.

There were some trade-offs, though; more than I would have liked. Is AMAJ ETAT (and ATEMPO to a lesser extent) worth JET POWERED, especially in an early-week puzzle? I think no, but I can see the other side of the coin. If there hadn't been so much AVOIR AM SO TMAN WTS YOS overall, it'd have been easier to overlook.

Tough call. Color vs. cleanliness is the eternal struggle for constructors. It's especially difficult in today's grid, since one usual fix — using a cheater square at the C of FATALISTIC — would mess up CONS.

Interesting concept, overall. I like it when someone comes up with a solution I never CONSidered PROSpecting.

I appreciate seeing ideas I doubt I'd ever think of. How fun, to take normal phrases and interpret them as travel editions of classic board games! LIFE ON THE RUN stood out for me, as 1.) I loved the game as a kid, and 2.) I could imagine LIFE ON THE RUN as a clever marketer's title for an actual travel edition of Life. FLIGHT RISK was fun, too, for similar reasons.

GO ON VACATION didn't hit me as strongly because the base phrase isn't as snazzy as the others. It's a fine thing to say, but I don't know that I'd seed a themeless with it like I would with FLIGHT RISK.

And CAR TROUBLE … Trouble is a game? I played a lot of games as a kid, but not this one. Even after reading the Wikipedia entry on it, I don't recognize it. (Apparently, it's similar to Sorry!, with which I had a love/hate relationship.)

What an ambitious grid for one's debut. Very few constructors would stretch to work in six bonus entries, and even fewer would succeed in converting so many of them into such juicy juice: SOUND EFFECT, FOOD GROUP with a brilliant wordplay clue in [Cooking class?], TACO STAND, LINGERIE.

ANIMATED GIF didn't do it for me as much since most GIFs I see these days are animated ... so I just call them GIFs. And ANTISLIP felt a bit workmanlike. Still, four great bonuses is admirable. Jake used solid technique in working the bonuses in, spreading them out and alternating up / down positioning to achieve good spacing.

ADDED NOTE: turns out that most gifs aren't animated. Maybe I'm a little vined out ...

The grid did skew to the side of snazziness at the cost of smoothness, though. I first noticed it at ASCAP, then ELOI (the "Time Machine" race this sci-fi buff was so turned off by when first getting into crosswords). Then ENS, OEUF, ORAMA, FRIO, VAR. It wasn't so bad as to make my nose wrinkle, but it did leave me with an impression of inelegance. Perhaps just four long bonuses instead of six would have made for more grid flexibility and smoothness.

Still, an interesting, novel theme is hard to come by these days. Looking forward to more from Jake.