Jim Quinlan author page

I like it when I have to think about a theme! "Line dancers" become LYIN' DANCERS through the insertion of an "in" sound. Or a long I? Something in between? Hard to explain, but whatever it is, it's consistent. Line -> LYIN', moon -> MOOIN', plain -> PLAYIN', bean -> BEIN'.

Well, I debated that last one. All the others are clued as verbs, and it's a fine thing to drop the g off an -ING for folksy effect. But BEING was clued as a human BEING, noun ... since when do we folksify nouns?

I also debated whether this was Thursday material or not. On the one hand, it's a sound change (addition? replacement?) theme, standard fare for mid-week puzzles. But given how much difficulty I had explaining it — and I still don't think I have it quite right — perhaps it's okay for a Thursday. Sure made me think.

I'd still greatly prefer trickier concepts for Thursdays, stuff that blows the mind by doing something unique. It's an important facet of how the NYT crossword distinguishes itself — not just offering fun, easy puzzles, or tough themelesses, but advancing avant-garde, envelope-pushing material.

It's those uber-clever Thursdays that first drew me into the NYT crossword. Same for many of my friends.

This is a very tough ask. But I think the NYT team is up for the challenge. If I were Will, I'd up the fee for Thursday puzzles. Maybe even hire a set of regulars specifically for this task. Lock them in a room until they've delivered 100 great concepts! A million cruciverbalists, on a million keyboards ...

Big fan of Jim's grid execution. Delightful stuff in CUPCAKES with EARL GREY, APPLE PIE. Puts me in LA LA LAND! I would have preferred the grid not to choke down at two points in the middle — it would have been great to get rid of the two black squares after ACES — but that would have resulted in some tough compromises. The less than optimal grid flow was worth the price of all those goodies, plus a smooth solving experience.

Debut! Jim was nice enough to give me a ride back to the airport after the ACPT, and it's great to see his name on the byline today. He mentioned to me that it was tricky to think up enough themers for this one — once you use DID / DIDN'T, you can't really use it again.

Several of the themers amused me: MATHIS to MATH ISNT / BUSHWAS (synonym of "hooeys") to BUSH WASN'T / KATYDID to KATY DIDN'T all felt consistent. And while CAT SCAN to CATS CANT was different in it parsing, it had a fun transformation.

I spent a while trying to figure out ANIMUSTNT, though — it was a relief to read Will's note after I pondered this question. I get the wacky result of ANI MUSTNT, but its base phrase eluded me. For consistency sake, it had to be ANIMUST, right? But while ANIMIST and ANIMUS are regular words, ANIMUST was some bushwa. So, I think it must be an inconsistent themer, derived from ANIMUST. Er, ANIMUS.

After considering it further, it does fit if it's a looser sound transmogrification, as Will mentioned. It still feels awfully loose, though.

Tricky grid for one's debut. BUSHWASNT is one of those awkward lengths for a middle answer — 9, 11, or 13 are all difficult because they split the sides of the grid into upper and lower halves — but Jim does well to incorporate quite a bit of nice fill into those seven-letter slots. TINY TIM and SASHIMI are an especially nice pair. VAN GOGH is a strong one too, although it curiously missed the perfect opportunity to cross-reference to an crossing answer: his famous painting, The STARRY Night.

As much as I liked all those seven-letter entries, perhaps adding a pair of black squares somewhere to increase the word count to 78 and smooth things out would have been better. With so many three-letter words (23), it's important to choose mostly innocuous ones, more on the end of BET and OAR vs. CDL and OLA.

So, aside from the inconsistent themer (I'd love to hear from someone if an ANIMUST is a real thing!), a fun solving experience with the mid-length fill helping to balance out some of the compromises in the short fill.