John Lampkin author page

John's comment about the AM/FM button amused me. I can imagine younger solvers coming to the end of their solve, wondering, what's AM/FM?

Then wondering, what's a RADIO?

One reason the NYT doesn't take many two-way rebuses is because it's hard for solvers to figure out what they should write in the special boxes. Additionally, what should electronic and app versions consider "correct"? Will people lose their streaks if they enter AM/FM, because the electronic version doesn't recognize slashes? It can be a morass of solver complaints, many of which will be justified. We've chosen to represent the special squares with a slash (see grid below), which made the most sense to us.

I appreciated that John picked some colorful theme answers, ALA MODE and OFF MIKE snazzy. I'd prefer for all of them to be longer, at least as long as MAMMA MIA and HALF MAST, but they're all reasonable.

It'd have been great to have more connectivity in my solving flow. I started and stopped all throughout, and finally got stuck in the bottom right corner. It's so frustrating to be stuck inside a mini-puzzle that the rest of the puzzle can't help you with. The grid would be much harder to fill if there had been no black square between TORT and OUR, but it would have made for such an improved solving experience. There are other ways of opening up the grid, too.

I found it strange to have the M not change from Across to Down, only the A to F difference. That qualm aside, though, I enjoyed discovering the four rebus squares, that last one in the SE a relief to finally crack.

Sometimes Crucivera, the goddess of crosswords, shines down on you with her benevolence. When you research "units of weight," there are only a few American ones that come up: GRAIN, DRAM, OUNCE, POUND, HUNDREDWEIGHT, TON. Amazingly, the four most common(ish) of those can be used to start in-the-language phrases in the form of "(weight) OF (something)."

And those four phrases match up into crossword symmetry? We bow down to you, oh great goddess!

Crucivera demanded a sacrifice, though, in exchange for her gift. I haven't seen such an amalgamation of tough names in a long time: ASTA ATRA ELO ERLE OPEL ULEE. There's also GELEE ASA ESTE. I'd have asked for a revision with just a single ASTA or ULEE, much less crossword glue nearing the double-digits.

From what I've heard, Eugene Maleska (Will Shortz's predecessor) used to delight in including entries only crossword insiders would know. It makes sense in some ways. If you want to build extreme loyalty in a small but dedicated audience, promote elitism.

Will has done wonders to change that, working to make the NYT crossword open to all. Just look at OREO, which Maleska insisted on cluing as [Mountain: Comb. form]. Thankfully, Will went far in the opposite direction.

There's no reason that this puzzle couldn't have been smoother. With an easy layout of 11 12 12 11 letter themers, a crossword up to NYT standards must have color up the ying-yang (apparently I'm not up to NYT standards), and little to no crossword glue.

It's a shame. The gridwork hid a fine theme (I didn't know that GRAIN was a unit of weight, but that's on me) like a ton of bricks.

Whooooooooo's READY TO RUMPLE?! Me, considering ironing is a dirty word in my eyes. Great way to kick off the puzzle. I was so amused that the rest of the solve was gravy.

RULE OF THUMP made me smile too, something so funny-sounding about that.

SLUMBERLAND wasn't as strong a base phrase for me, but that clue! [Whence slouches?] — the combination of those two words tickles me to no end.

I enjoyed how John capped things off with the only double replacement, DUMB AND DUMBER becoming DUMP AND DUMPER. I didn't totally get that one, but it was fun to think of punny names for a garbage collector's memoir. ("Down in the Dumps" is my favorite.)

I wasn't sold on NOSE COUNT — count noses, yes — but I decided I could buy it. I was much more into the other long bonuses: PLUNK DOWN, INNER PEACE, PLAY IT SAFE.

John most certainly didn't play it safe by incorporating long fill in the across direction. That tends to lead to an OLEO of crossword glue, as those long stacked entries can necessitate ESE kind of things.

Better spacing would have helped the center section especially, where some solvers might hitch on ALAR / PELLA next to each other. One thing that could have mitigated this problem: starting the puzzle off with one of the shorter themers. That way, RULE OF THUMP could have gone in row 3, whereas READY TO RUMPLE is stuck in row 4, due to black square issues. But I liked READY TO RUMPLE so much, I'm okay with the price of some STK AMOR kind of stuff that cascaded from John's decision.

For standard theme types, humor and wittiness are of paramount importance. Overall, this one hit for me.

If exercise were only like today's theme! I love doing me some FORK LIFTS when bread pudding is involved. Heck, I'll do some CHEESE CURLS, curling some brie right up to my mouth.

That probably wouldn't be the healthiest lifestyle.

It's tough to come up with a playful Monday theme that's accessible to most every solver, but this one does a good job. My only hesitation was that a TWIST wasn't as familiar (in terms of being an exercise rep) as a CURL or a SQUAT.

Okay, not the only hesitation. It would have been better to have consistent singular/pluralization. Since no one ever eats a single CHEESE CURL (damn you and your tasty yellowy goodness!), it would have been better to make everything plural. Anyway, multiple reps are good for you, amiright?

The revealer, DIDDLY SQUAT, didn't do much for me. On most Mondays, I think there needs to be a revealer to make a theme obvious to everyone. DIDDLY SQUAT actually muddied things up. Why is it worth DIDDLY SQUAT if you do some CURLS with a big ol' wedge of CHEESE as a weight, for instance?

Removing the revealer would have also allowed for better quality fill that was more appropriate for a newer solver. I can imagine newbs looking at TRURO SEDGE HASP IVES and wondering what kind of durned trivia contest they got themselves into.

Working with five longish themers can be so difficult.

Overall, a fine, playful idea. But I would have liked a few more rounds of revision and improvement.

Happy new year! John RINGs OUT THE OLD (deletes Os from the themers in the top half) and RINGs IN THE NEW (adds Os to the ones in the bottom half). Nice concept, apt for tonight's celebration.

It's tough to come up with amazing themers when it's a simple add-a-letter or delete-a-letter. I thought LAST TANG(O) IN PARIS was the best — great visual of a Frenchman in a beret sipping Tang in a café. In the bottom half, URANIUM ORE(O) made part of me chuckle and part of me disgusted. Chucklegusted?

Otherwise, stuff like POL GROUNDS (from "Polo Grounds") wasn't interesting enough of a transformation for my taste.

(CELL RECITAL plays off a cello recital. I played in many a cello recital as a kid, but it felt a bit arbitrary of a term.)

I didn't realize that CAM GEAR was a themer until I realized that the symmetrical MAD CAP(O) couldn't have been real! It's tough to make these shorties stand out, which is why constructors usually don't use them.

A couple of nice bonuses in the fill, GOLIATH my favorite. GO STAG, THE BABE, YIPPIES were all fun, too.

Not as fun was the slew of prepositional adders, BLAME ON, SEAL UP, OPTED IN, FELL TO, etc. These are fine, if not snazzy, but so many of them make me notice how much potential was left on the table. Those juicy mid-length slots … usually, I'd first point out ALION / AHINT, SMEE / SNERT, CCC / CWT etc. as more egregious, but today all those prepositions stuck out for me.

Nice concept for New Year's Eve, the deleted/added Os calling to be used within a big Sunday-size grid.

It's been a fun ride in 2017, thanks again for reading! One of my goals in life is to be a positive influence — at least, not to be a negative one — so I hope we've made your 2017 a little brighter. If not, let us know how we might be able to do so in 2018.

Sometimes it's fun to finish a puzzle and wonder what the heck the theme is.

I thoroughly enjoyed this solve, as there were so many great clues employing wordplay. [It's on the house] for WEATHERVANE, [Emerson or Dickinson] misdirecting toward writers instead of COLLEGEs, [Tooth that turns] befuddling me until I realized it was a COG, not an incisor or molar. But what was the theme?

Took me a while to realize that WEATHERVANE, RAVE REVIEW, DEAD BATTERY, and EMPTY CHAIR are connected by the fact that they all have clever wordplay clues somehow relating to the meaning of "free." WEATHERVANE "on the house," RAVE REVIEW "complimentary," DEAD BATTERY having "no charge," and EMPTY CHAIR simply "free." Neat idea!

It's too bad EMPTY CHAIR felt like the odd man out; kind of an arbitrary-sounding phrase. EMPTY SEAT felt better to my ear, but that's unfortunately one letter too few. The other three themers are so strongly in the language that I didn't even realize they might be themers!

John uses the "windmill" pattern for his four themers. This often makes it easier to construct a clean grid, and John does really well in that regard. The only hitch I had was at GELEE, which I usually think of as a food product. But it's totally fair game, since the crossings are all reasonable.

I might have liked all the themers laid out in the across direction, though — that would have made the theme stand out more for me. As it was, all the great fill — BOWL OVER, SPY RING, BUTT DIAL, even OH BOY — muddied up what was fill and what was theme. That's a usual potential drawback to the windmill pattern, and that factor came into play even more than usual today.

Perhaps using a revealer would have made for a crisper bow on the puzzle? I'm not sure what that would be though, especially since the word "free" is employed in the clue for EMPTY CHAIR.

Excellent wordplay and a colorful, smooth grid, but perhaps some potential for a more impactful a-ha moment left on the table.

Wow, what a workout today! I'm not skilled enough yet to solve every Saturday puzzle without a peek or two, but much of the time I can finish, given enough time. Today's however tied me up and tossed me down that flight of black squares running down the middle. A fine construction though, one that will help me become a better solver. That's one thing I like best about Saturday puzzles — even if you can't do them, looking at the answers to figure out how you might have been able to solve them is a great way to improve solving skills. I'd go so far as to say it's the best way.

John takes on a huge challenge today. Triple-stacking 10's is a difficult enough task. Often constructors must section of that triple-stack with lots of black squares. It's really tough to come up with a good stack that has clean crossings. Introducing a quad-stack makes things way, way more difficult. And check out what's going on in the SE corner: five long entries atop each other. I've never tried this, and I'm not sure I will. I find it just too difficult to come up with entries that are both snappy as clean.

So I was a bit nervous going in, wondering what types of entries I might see. I expected a lot of Wheel of Fortune free letters (RSTLN E), and there was a good amount of that. ESSENES is indeed a [Sect in ancient Judea], but it's not an entry a lot of constructors would get a kick out of seeing in their own construction. It does make things much easier up there though, what with the terminal E's and S's it allows for. I really, really liked the STREET FAIR / POOL NOODLE / ROUGH RIDER stack, and felt like ESSENES cheapened it a bit.

Where I thought the puzzle shined was in the other corners, the NE and SW. Having a much smaller space to work with, John works in great stuff. SMART ALEC next to TIGER MOTH and JERSEYITE, yes! And ONE LINERS with GO BANANAS and SNOW GLOBE, double yes! It's too bad there are a few NEBO ANON ENO AGR pieces holding them together, but overall those were so lively that I didn't really mind.

Sometimes Saturday puzzles go in the misdirectional wordplay direction (which is my favorite) but other times they go in a Stan Newman Newsday Saturday Stumper direction, and this one was the latter for me. With so many opaque clues like [Intensify] and [Cuckoo] and [Cuckoo] and [Some working parts] I found it very difficult to even get a toehold. At first I got frustrated, but quickly remembered that these types of situations are often the best learning experiences. An hour later, I finished. Okay, sort of finished. Okay, cheated! But the important point is that I went back and studied to admire all the good stuff that went into it. And perhaps the next Stumper-ish puzzle I'll solve with flying colors.

Or cheat. I'm okay with that.

Fun Sunday puzzle, using "parting lines" clued for the appropriate profession. My favorite was [The demolitionist ...] BLEW THE JOINT. [The civil engineer...] HIT THE ROAD also made me chuckle, although I would have loved it if it had been clued to the Incredible Hulk. HULK SMASH is my go-to phrase, plus it would have been hilarious to see [The Incredible Hulk ...] in the NYT.

Good job with the layout today, not an easy task to pull together a group of themers with widely varying length. It's often very difficult to use short themers, because they tend to get lost within the noise of the puzzle. But the way the theme clues worked, with the [(Profession) ...] made it really clear which ones were themers and which weren't. Nice.

Well constructed Sunday puzzle. I estimate that Sunday puzzles are roughly three to five times harder to put together than a weekday, given the bigger palette and the higher average word length that Will's specifications dictate. Needing to settle for a few ugly entries is more common than it is in a weekday puzzle. So to have just a few REHEAL, REGREW, SYSTS, OLIO, I ROAM type entries shows the care John put into his gridwork. Even better, he's spread those entries around, not allowing any one section carry too much burden.

Note John's spacing. Eight long themers are not easy to work around (not to mention the four shorties!). But John does really well, placing two rows between each pair of long themers — this spacing almost always works better than just a single row in between. The middle of the grid could have presented a challenge, but John saves the shortest of his long themers for this spot, allowing good spacing between all four of them. Professional layout, that it is.

I did have a lot of trouble in one spot, but that had more to do with the cluing than the grid. IRAE crossing ARLEN usually wouldn't be too bad, in that IRAE is clued so often as ["Dies ___"] that I can fill it in automatically, without even fully comprehending it. And ARLEN Specter is familiar enough, but I find it tough to remember the difference between ARLEN and ARDEN, and ALLEN seemed like it could be that composer. It's probably a fair crossing for many solvers, but it left me a little crabby. Not that this is wrong or right, but the effect of crabbiness was what it was. Perhaps it's a good lesson to me, to actually look up things and not take them for granted!

It usually just takes a few great clues to make me overlook some flaws, and [Where auto racers retire?] for PITS and [Current amount] for AMPERE did it for me. I especially love the latter, in that it totally misdirects from the straightforward electrical measurement for a current, making you think about how much you have in your pocket, or how much the current tally is.

Some themers worked well for me, some felt a bit forced, but overall an enjoyable puzzle. Plus, I learned the term "ecdysiast"! What a fanciful word for that, er, profession.