Jeremy Newton author page

THE GIRTH OF VENUS … I wonder how many irate emails we'll get today.

Crossword constructors have long relied on REO to make grids work. Such useful letters! I enjoyed the insidery nod today with the REO BALLOON — which also plays on the REO Flying Cloud! I might be one of the few people grinning at that connection, but maybe I can float this fun idea into more people's consciousness.

REO BALLOON worked well for a second reason: you can easily confuse O and D with a casual glance. (If you're a parent of a six-year-old still working on his letters, you can easily confuse his Q and his … is that an ampersand?) It's perfect for an art FORGERY.

It would have been great to have others so closely disguised. I'm sure there would be some fights in the Museum of Modern Art if they labeled van Gogh's masterpiece as THE STARRY FIGHT. Maybe THE CREATION OF A DAY is easier to overlook since that switch comes at the end, but Y and M are tough to confuse.

Tricky decisions. Jeremy and Tracy's point about random letter changes feeling inelegant is well-taken. Having them spell out something is appealing. FORGERY is apt for the theme, and getting those letters to swap in with the limited number of uber-recognizable paintings is a tough job.

It doesn't feel amazing, but getting FORGERY to pop out is interesting. Not at all a BIG OOF (which apparently is what the kids say these days?), as I appreciated hearing about Jeremy and Tracy's creative process.

Jeremy mixing things up today! It took me forever to sound these out, and when I finally made the leap from THEIR RITES TOUGH to THE RIGHT STUFF, I wondered, why this movie? Okay, it was an OSCAR WINNER, but aren't there hundreds of Oscar winners, and what do these phonetic simulacrums have to do with—

They all won Oscars for SOUND MIXING!

The award goes to Jeremy for such a brilliant set of connections. It all seemed so random, but when I hit that revealer, I knew whose name would be in the envelope.

Themes with nonsensical strings of words force solvers to only use the Downs. While this is a strategy employed by speed-solvers looking to improve their times, it can make for a frustrating experience for us mere mortals. Even after I had pieced together THAITANKNICK letter by painstaking letter, I had to double and triple-check every crossing, because THAIT TANK looked so ICK.

Funny image, Jeremy mumbling to himself as he sounded out hundreds of possibilities. I wonder if his wife or mine looked more worried, as he created or as I mumbled my way through all pronunciations.

Several debut entries, ALIEN LIFE and BACKSLASH solid. Some of the others work as neutral fill — SITTING IN, HEAD ON IN, NODS OUT aren't going to win any prizes — but I paused at WALL HUNG and DO A DUET. Although both are real phrases, what with all the frustration of piecing the themers together, I wanted more familiar surrounding fill to help me get toeholds.

This is the type of out-of-the-box thinking that leads to a standout Sunday crossword. Such leaps, from movie titles to Oscar winners to Oscar winners to SOUND MIXING? Beautiful mix of concepts.

Jeremy is one of my favorite constructors regarding ideas that climb the ranks. AND THAT'S SAYING A LOT, considering how many constructors I admire!

What a fun idea to expand (ALOT), using the justification of IT'S A LOT TO UNPACK. Such an orderly progression, too, from ALOT to ALO T to AL O T to A L O T. Very different from my and my kids' unpacking method, which would see A L O T immediately chucked to the four winds, much to my wife's chagrin.

Tricksy Thursdays can be frustrating for some solvers, so a handful of cluing delights go a long way to keeping up interest. I laughed at JAPAN as the "homeland" for Mothra and Gamera. [Big band staple] piqued the interest of this former jazz band member. (A TUBA is literally a big instrument in a band.) I also enjoyed thinking about a big wheel captain steering the HELM's big wheel.

And those were only some of the TOP TEN! [A big (music) hit might break it] is a creative way to play on TOP TEN.

Great gridwork — I'd expect nothing less from Jeremy. Perfect layout, taking advantage of the 13-letter themers to run MADE A CAMEO and TECHNO BAND through their ends. Weaving in IN HEELS / NAIL SALONS / PIE PLATE / VIETNAM, all at the low, low price of ON UP and ELO (Electric Light Orchestra)? Jeremy's years of hard work shows through brilliantly.

Ultimately, the rebus to non-rebus progression wasn't enough to wow me — too orderly for my slovenly habits — but there was a lot to unpack and appreciate throughout the solve.

Jeremy! One of the most creative constructors out there; he'd be high on my list of Sunday Specialists. One involving doors he wrote with Tony Orbach was such a memorable puzzle.

Today's isn't mind-blowing, only a few months since our last "stretching" puzzle. The Sunday canvas is so big that it's a shame not to use it for big ideas.

However, a secondary way to make a puzzle feel Sunday-appropriate is to use colorful entries that are longer than 15 letters, so they'll feel fresh.

AB-SO-FREAKING-LUTELY is an entry I'd ab-so-fricking-lutely love to build a puzzle around. Not only that, but it incorporates two of the stretched muscles, an AB and a GLUTE!

BEST RAP PERFORMANCE is also strong.

I've been a big fan of BENICIO DEL TORO's work ever since seeing his star turn in "The Usual Suspects," so I loved getting his full name. Even though it's only 14 letters long, so could fit into a 15x15 grid, it'd be an extreme challenge to work it in as 15x15 fill.

Jeremy is so creative about his fill, too, one of the few constructors who regularly debuts entries that we don't already have on our word list. I hadn't heard of the AQUADUCK, only recently learned about THIRST TRAP, and somehow had missed TEAL GREEN.

And AB SO FREAKING LUTELY — this entry alone was worth every minute I put into my solve.

I'm not so sure about ROLL A TWO, as it feels arbitrary. Jim Horne, who's been involved orchestrating many plays over his lifetime, hadn't heard the term SET CREW. So yeah, what makes for strong fill is so subjective.

Jeremy's gridwork is always so polished. His 140-word grid is cleaner than most of the 15x15's this week!. It might seem like he had an advantage with this theme — those stretched squares give fewer overall squares to fill — but it gets tricky with so many funky elongated-letter crossings.

Although the theme didn't delight me — it might have been stronger if the muscles were in anatomical position — I appreciate the reminder that sometimes a Sunday doesn't need a great concept to still have a raison d'être.

★ I love every aspect of this crossword, a beauty that ticked all the boxes. Like Jeremey said, it's not just another rebus, nor is it another play on the pound sign (a.k.a. the octothorpe); it's so much more. Even having a strong feeling that some rebus-like element was in play, it took a long time to piece together the concept: overlaying the equal sign = on top of capital II to form #. What a delight when that finally clicked into place.

Sometimes a rebus gets boring when you repeat it; multiple instances of the same thing over and over, but I was so tickled by the deconstructed HASHTAG idea that it made me smile every time I put it in.

Other aspects of the puzzle felt hard in the right way, too. Little esoterica or crazy dictionary definitions; most of the difficulty coming from wordplay clues that gave me head slap moments:

• If you still don't understand Jeremy's APP clue, think about physically tapping your phone screen. Groanworthily great!
• The sun and Sunoco have in common … the letters S U N? And gas — that's hydrogen gas, for the sun.
• [Thank you for waiting]? The clue is talking to me? Ah, it's a TIP, a "thank you" gesture for someone waiting on you.
• This MBA knows a thing or two about divisions in board of directors. Not quite as much about SAWS creating divisions in literal boards.

And some great fill in GET IN GEAR, MESH TOP, OH LOOK, MAD MEN, NOGGIN, US VETS? Totally worth some DO BE, HOO, IM IT, SMU. Note how all of these, save the last one (Southern Methodist University), are easy to figure out.

GEM, indeed.

WAKANDA ... not forever? Come on, 2020, coronavirus, record wildfires, and flooding hurricanes not enough for you? Such a shocking loss, CHADWICK BOSEMAN dying at a young age.

I loved THE BLACK PANTHER movie and am saddened that there won't be a sequel, at least not without BOSEMAN's presence. Not only was he a great dramatic actor, but his comedic skills showed incredible potential.

I don't remember the HEART SHAPED HERB from the movie, nor do I completely buy SUPERHUMAN POWER as a phrase (SUPERPOWER or SUPERHUMAN STRENGTH is more like it). However, I'm willing to overlook these issues in remembrance of a remarkable actor and iconic title character. It's fantastic to see an African superhero come to prominence, and one that doesn't draw so heavily on stereotypes, like Iron Fist.

I'm not usually one for themer interlock, but there's beauty in CHADWICK BOSEMAN linked to THE BLACK PANTHER, with TCHALLA and WAKANDA locked into place. I'd have enjoyed the puzzle with simply these four — perhaps even more than with the harder to recognize HEART SHAPED HERB and SUPERHUMAN POWER, especially since that would have allowed smoothing out of MSS, SO HOT, etc.

A fitting tribute to a man struck down far too young. Themers aptly crossed, WAKANDAn style.

Did anyone else put in GADOT FOR GAL? No? Me neither, ha ha, only a total buffoon would do that!

Who would have thought there would be five actors, each with a last name meaning "want"? What a constructor's dream, to have such a tight set of people, all of whom are crossworthy — and who fit the rules of crossword symmetry!

Will Shortz often shies away from running people-based themes, because they can feel trivia-heavy. If you don't know JANUARY JONES and DONNIE YEN, for example, it's not going to be a lot of fun to uncover these names.

Even if you don't know Yen, though, it's so awesome to see another Asian leading man in the movies, especially in the "Star Wars" franchise. Not that it makes up for the SEA aliens (stereotypically evil Asians) in Episode I, but it's a start.

At first, I wondered if the theme would have been better done in a straightforward way, listing NIA LONG, CHRIS PINE, JANUARY JONES, etc. Then I realized you'd need some revealer to make the concept clear — maybe WANT as the last entry?

Would that make the theme clear, though? You almost need to add (for) after all of them, since JONES FOR is so much better a synonym for "want" than JONES.

So if you're going to add FOR anyway, why not go with Jeremy's kooky approach?

The POKER clue ... you see, when POKER was first invented, chips were non-existent, so people used checkers, and that's why to this day they're often red or black--

Huh? "Checkers" as in "a person who checks"?

I knew that.

(Joel Fagliano is a poker player, so I'd go all in that he had a hand in this clue.)

I noted zero blips in the grid as I went, not a surprise given Jeremy's gridding skills. Smart themer placement, wise deployment of black squares to separate them, and the best of all, the sagacity to stick to a highish word count, not trying to do too much.

Overall, a tidy set of five actors with something fun in common. Enjoyable presentation as well.

Neat idea, to have WORK and LIFE balanced … on sets of black squares that look like balances! Along with WORK LIFE BALANCE (conveniently 15 letters long; a constructor's dream), plus WEIGHS and SCALES, it made for a pretty picture.

Jeremy is so good with his gridwork. One of his sticks in my mind as a favorite Sunday, partially because it required such incredible craftsmanship in incredibly jam-packed regions. Similar requirement in today's puzzle, what with so many down answers needing to work with each other on both sides of the scales.

Take the left side, for example. Not only do PIECE OF WORK, SAFE FOR WORK, REWORK, and NETWORK have to work (pun intended) together through TOO REAL and FRET, but PIECE OF WORK and SAFE FOR WORK have to coordinate all the way up to the top. So many constraints to work around.

The result is nice and smooth, although I did hitch on TOO REAL, wondering if it needs to be (ALL) TOO REAL. And I've seen NSFW plenty, but never SFW. In the end, both did seem passable, though.

Interesting long fill elsewhere in the grid, too. I particularly enjoyed MAGIC LAMPS, PHOTO OP, and BBC NEWS, especially what with that crazy-looking BBCN* four-consonant start.

VEGAN PIZZA … I wondered about that. It is a real thing, but I worry that it opens the door for the arbitrary VEGAN BURGER, VEGAN SANDWICH, VEGAN POT PIE, etc. And AS YOU DO sounded out of tune to my ear. (Maybe because I'm not a Brit.)

It did feel repetitive to have WORK and LIFE and then WORK LIFE BALANCE. Plus, the .puz file was coded with rebus squares of (WORK)(WORK)(WORK)(WORK) and (LIFE)(LIFE)(LIFE)(LIFE), whereas I really wanted them to just be W O R K and L I F E. The grid and answers (below) are adjusted to the non-rebus approach, which I think is more elegant.

Interesting visual concept, along with some great execution, given the dauntingly dense theme-packing.

★ It's been seven years of constructing, and I've only now started to realize how difficult it is to create a captivating Sunday 140-word puzzle. Part of it is the sheer difficulty of adhering to Will's limit of at most 140 words — WAY harder than some other editors' 144 max — but a bigger part is coming up with a concept that holds solvers' attention through a 21x21 grid. This gets even tougher when considering how varied the NYT's solving population is.

Personally, I often don't enjoy the Sunday puzzle as much as I would like — I often get tired of it halfway through or even sooner. And I have very high expectations for Jeremy — I think he's one of the greats when it comes to Sunday puzzles — so I was honestly a little disappointed to figure out that this was "just" a theme including the dashes inside entries like UH-OH and PUSH-UP BRA. Felt like I had seen similar punctuation-related themes before (2015, 2013, 2007.)

Great a-ha moment to discover that wait, there was more! Took me over half of the puzzle to finally realize that Jeremy had replaced some regular words with hyphenated phrases — PHOENIX, AZ going to PHOENIX A-Z was so amusing. And each themer using an interesting word-to-hyphenated-word substitution helped hold my attention. My favorite was AMERICAN GOT HI-C for its unusual breaking of GOTHIC into GOT HI-C, plus the amusing result.

Jeremy is so good with his long fill. There wasn't as much as we usually see from him — CROP CIRCLE, TIME LOCKS, and VIP LINES the standouts — but there's a reason for that. Any time you have to work with crossing entries, a grid quickly becomes tough to fill. He could have gotten away with relying on short dashed fill like UH-OH and HA-HA everywhere, but I love how he pushed himself to work in THE PO-PO (slang for the police), FREE WI-FI, and PUSH-UP BRA. Doesn't leave much room for long fill throughout the grid, but when all your theme material is this good, that doesn't matter very much.

Really tough to hold my attention all the way through a Sunday puzzle. Big thanks to Jeremy for this one that greatly succeeded!

Sound change theme, two-syllable words ending in -RROR getting their last syllable dropped, and the first syllable replaced with a real-word homonym. Complicated! I liked that all of the final words had a replacement that made me work to figure out the base phrase (ROCKY HORROR, CLERICAL ERROR, REARVIEW MIRROR, SHEER TERROR).

REARVIEW MERE felt like the weakest of the bunch, as I kept on staring at the word MERE, wondering what I was missing. (The dictionary lists "a small lake or pond" as a secondary definition of MERE. Curious.) I wonder how many solvers actually looked it up vs. shrugging and moving on.

I like that Jeremy used a complete set — can you think of any other words ending in -RROR? — and all four sound changes worked in exactly the same way. Such completeness is so elegant. It would have been perfect if MERE had been a more common noun, but what can you do.

I'm mixed on THREE RS as a revealer. What about the poor O in -RROR? The THREE RS just doesn't seem to describe what's happening very well. I think I would have preferred to do without it.

Speaking of doing without, ADOLF next to SHEER (terror). Yikes.

Jeremy always does such a nice job with his long fill, and he goes big today, working in an astounding eight (!) pieces of long fill as well as some mid-length stuff. Very few constructors would tackle such a task, and cramming in CHINA SHOP, PEN NAMES and SAYS A LOT into a corner which already has a theme answer is a bold move. I don't like the long partial A HOME, but APRS and AMI are minor.

The CRAZY EYED corner is easier, with just one long piece of fill, but working in the bonus of GO AWOL makes it tricky as well. Again, Jeremy executes well on it.

And some beautiful pieces of languages in BUM A SMOKE and I SURE WILL. Jeremy is such a star at working great long fill into his puzzles.

Although some aspects of the theme execution didn't quite work for me, I still really enjoyed this one.

A ton of theme material packed in today — eight long ones plus the symmetrical IS NOT / IS TOO revealer. It got a little confusing to me, including a few I had to really think about, so here's a listing in order:

I really liked DANCING CUISINE, a crazy sound addition from DANCING QUEEN. FICKLE THERAPIST was my second favorite, as it took me forever to figure out that it subtracted the sound of IS from PHYSICAL THERAPIST. Neat how every one of the eight themers utilizes a huge spelling change, not just adding/subtracting the letters IS.

It's hard to pack in eight themers, and really hard to pack in eight long ones. Check out the pairs of themers, either directly stacked or just one row apart — that's crazy hard to do with so many pairs. I'm not used to seeing the smattering of glue like SSR, SSS, YSER, A B OR C from Jeremy, but it's understandable given how difficult it is to pack this much theme in.

Overall, I would have liked to separate the IS NOTs to the top half, and the IS TOOs to the bottom. The word transmogrifications were hard enough to figure out that I couldn't keep straight which themer was *starred and which was **double-starred. Additionally, some of the sound changes felt a bit strained to me. MISERY to MURRAY for example — the UR sound in MURRAY doesn't really match the ER sound in MISERY.

Finally, Jeremy is so good with his fresh fill that I might have preferred just three themers of each type in order to get more of the KERPLUNKS and OH HELL NO kind of material.

Some neat themers though, and an entertaining solve.

★ I thought more about why I like Jeremy's puzzles so much. Part of it is he just seems like a good guy — it's been amusing trying to get him to stop calling me "sir" — but mostly, I love his creativity even as he sticks to the "one square, one letter" rule. Trying to innovate while keeping a single letter in a single square is incredibly difficult.

Jeremy does it again today, executing brilliantly on an idea the likes of which I can't remember. He takes snazzy phrases where the second to last word is IN, and uses a crossing to imply that "in." WHAT HAPPENS (IN) VEGAS … for example.

But wait, there's more! He finds crossings so that the final word forms another valid word in its crossing. For this example, VEGAS becomes VEGA(N)S, obfuscating the theme. Very cool to see these entries which can read as two completely normal words. Even though there are thousands of X IN Y phrases, it couldn't have been easy to find a set that displayed crossword symmetry AND had this property of the Y word intersecting the X so that it formed a different, regular word.

And Jeremy has a knack for colorful phrases, the likes of which I identify with only a handful of themeless constructors like Josh Knapp and Peter Wentz. The best constructors are always on the lookout for punchy phrases that can add zest to a puzzle, like TOWN DRUNK. Even YO DOG works in that regard. Check out Jeremy's older puzzles to get a sense of how much great vocabulary he's introduced.

Now, just as with any puzzle, I didn't find it perfect. To me, the phrases would have been more apt if they had been X THROUGH Y instead of X IN Y. But that's minor; a tiny speed bump.

Finally, two standout clues:

• [Guard at a gated community?] = ST PETER. I'm going to have some questions to answer at that gate.
• [Green dwarf] had to be one of those _STAR kind of filler entries, right? D'oh, it refers to a tiny BONSAI.

Another extremely well-executed Sunday puzzle from Jeremy. I tip my hat to you, sir.

★ As a crossword commentator, I live for days like today. I initially was disgruntled by (what I thought were) gibberish rebus squares all along the walls of the puzzle. On my average solver days, I would have set it aside without another thought.

Thank goodness I analyzed it afterward, because what an amazing a-ha moment! It's my favorite puzzle of the year in any venue so far, and I hope to convince any haters out there why it's so incredible. I struggle to think of a single puzzle in the past several years that I've liked better.

Like me, there will be many solvers out there who entered "STRAW" in the first square, "STRA" in the one below it, "STR" in the one below that, etc. Made no sense why [Targets of some cryosurgery] was a bunch of nonsense rebus squares. It took me a couple of minutes to realize that each of these answers is literally CLIMBING / THE WALLS, i.e. the STRAW of STRAW BALE actually starts at the square marked "30"! Similarly, that square starts the STRA of STRAINED, and the STR of STRONG DRINKS, all "borrowing" from the WARTS entry.

Sometimes a puzzle is awesome from a solver's perspective, sometime it's incredible from a constructor's view, but rarely do I find both in spades. The aspect I appreciate the most as a constructor is that Jeremy found a way to innovate without relying on rebus squares — squishing multiple letters into a single square in different ways. Jeremy's approach of using a "turning answers" approach to the nth degree is amazing, all while sticking with a single letter in each box.

And the technical challenge of it! Sure, each of the six instances is somewhat separated so he could build each one independently, but he still needed to stick to crossword symmetry. To balance STRONG DRINKS with DIGESTIVE AID, and NOT EVEN A LITTLE with TASMANIAN DEVIL … I did figure out how to arrange things to get some computer assistance, but it's still a wickedly difficult task to pull off so cleanly.

As if all that weren't enough, Jeremy keeps at it with great mid-length fill like ME FIRST, SCRAP HEAP, HAS A SMOKE, etc. Pure RAPTURE on my part.

I can't remember when I've been this elated to have the chance to gush about a crossword. I've always looked forward to seeing Jeremy's byline, and this enforces my notion that he's one of the best in the business.

Jeremy goes one step further than the standard "words hidden in themers" puzzle type, by incorporating SET IN / STONE for an additional layer of complexity. I appreciated the puzzle even more after finishing, thinking about what a difficult time he must have had in finding strong themers which 1.) contained precious stones 2.) broke those stones into exactly two parts, and 3.) had to have an "E" in between those two parts.

That's a huge number of constraints, so to find such entries as strong as PONY EXPRESS, GAME THE SYSTEM, and POP A WHEELIE is really impressive. And Jeremy could have chosen short *SET* answers (like ASSET, SETI, etc.) to make things easier, so getting CHEESE TRAY and LEASE TO OWN in those difficult spots is much appreciated.

Just in case the theme concept isn't totally clear yet, I highlighted the SETs "in stone" below. With the tremendous number of constraints this condition placed upon the grid, it's a wonder that Jeremy was able to fill it so well, even tossing in some goodies like RECKON SO, NERF GUN, and the Wheel of Fortune sequence RSTLN E (the free letters in the bonus round).

A couple of clues to point out:

• [Facetious string?] — "facetious" contains AEIOU in sequence.
• Did you think [You may put stock in it] had something to do with faith or trust? No SOUP for you!
• [One connected with the force?] teases us poor Star Wars dorks, "the force" referring to a police force.

Overall, I like the push to do something new, Jeremy taking an established theme type and giving it an additional layer of complexity.

Today's author, Jeremy Newton, wrote one of my favorite puzzles in recent memory, one around Beethoven's Ode to Joy. This puzzles marks his tenth puzzle for the NYT, qualifying him for our "Most Prolific Authors" page.

Today's theme is explained by FOLLOWING THE / PRESCRIPTION, i.e. phrases containing the relatively rare RX pattern, hardly ever seen outside the MARX brothers and MARXISM. The phrase itself feels a little questionable, FILLING A PRESCRIPTION sounding better to my ear. I'm also not convinced that FOLLOWING THE PRESCRIPTION is that accurate of a revealer, as I would interpret that as "phrases that follow the RX letter sequence." Maybe I'm missing something?

ADDED NOTE: indeed, I totally missed a clever additional layer to the theme. I've highlighted the RXs in blue, so you can see their travel from SICK all the way to WELL down a diagonal path. Very cool! I'm really glad to have read Jeremy's note so I can appreciate the puzzle fully. Neat!

Jeremy sure picked some nice themers. I've been a huge X-Men fan for all my life (if you don't know what material Wolverine's skeleton is made of, I shall scoff at you), so seeing PROFESSOR XAVIER was pretty neat. SOLVE FOR X is also snappy, a beautiful phrase for us math dorks. Overall, X is such an infrequently used letter, it was neat to see so many instances of it strewn about the grid.

Not that records matter much (I think the solver's experience should be paramount above all else), but Jeremy gets up there in terms of number of X's. If you're interested, you might be interested to peruse all the record-setting letter counts for the Shortz era.

A bit of crunchy fill today in RSTU, ARIL, SPUME, etc. which made it a very tough solve for me. But one thing I'd like to point out is Jeremy's excellent usage of moderate-length fill. Check out the great colloquial 7's: MGM LION, GO BROKE, SWELL UP, ROM-COMS, and my favorite, THING IS... What fantastic use of usually boring 7's! And the 6's, even more difficult: HOT WAX, POOR ME, FESS UP!, FULL ON. GO COLD. I know some solvers much prefer a super-clean solve (no EPH, RES, ERN, etc.) without a great deal of snazz, but I appreciate the trade-off Jeremy gave us today. So much goodness in that mid-length fill.

Wish I had been more clever and picked up all the theme layers on my own! I blame the post-ACPT blues. Hurry up and get here already, ACPT 2015!