Katie Hale author page

Rhyme generally doesn't pay these days in crosswords since it's a well-worn genre, but if your endings use drastically different spellings, they can still thrill. Great selection of themers, spicing up the finds by incorporating them into colorful phrases like FAST AND LOOSE and WHAT THE DEUCE.

Neat that -EUS is the only spelling Katie and Zachary missed. Absolutely the right call not to jamba something like CULT OF ZEUS into the puzzle.

Fun start to the puzzle, NASA crossing ASTRA. I'd usually avoid the latter in an early-week puzzle, but that's an entertaining pairing. Maybe it's too science-y for some with HYPOTENUSE already in the mix, but my only complaint was that HYPOTENUSE wasn't diagonal, connecting with OPPOSITE and ADJACENT to form a trigonometric picture.

Man, I'm square.

Er, triangular.

Clever use of cheater squares in the upper left and lower right. The second J of JAMBA JUICE reduces flexibility so that extra black square comes in clutch. I'm not wild about newb friends running into NENE crossing MIEN, but it could have been much worse without that cheater.

LAY TO WASTE and STOOD ASIDE are fine long Downs. Nothing spectacular, but they do the trick. I appreciated the efforts to amp up the mid-length fill, SLY NOD and SPOOFS giving some BOOSTS.

There are all sorts of subgenres within rhyming themes, and this one still works well enough.

My son is obsessed with "Grizzy and the Lemmings." I don't get it, but he and his classmates have these hilarious conversations about how much they hate that darn grizzly. BEAR'S IN their collective MIND, indeed, and it's even given me a chance to teach Jake about the different meaning of the word "bear."

I also favored FALLS OUT OF FAVOR, switching meanings from "plummet" to "season after summer." Although I've seen this change of meaning many times before, this particular implementation worked well.

And the coup de grace: such an apt way to conclude this theme: the PUZZLE'S OVER!

BATS FIVE HUNDRED might be confusing to the sportsball-haters out there. Baseball is my least favorite of the major sports, but a friend of mine assures me that "batting five hundred" — getting a hit five hundred out of every thousand at-bats — is a term batted around. Impossible dream, considering that batting even four hundred is extremely rare, but a person can field such dreams.

It was fun to read about the DARK HUMOR that unifies Katie and Scott. Also fun to have AIR GUITAR appropriately next to PLAYS A TRICK.

I wasn't wild about the theme, since there are so many possibilities for an S to be turned into an apostrophe S, plus several of them didn't change meaning much (PLAY as a verb is similar to PLAY as a noun, for instance), but that PUZZLES OVER conclusion gave me many smizes.

DON'T USE THAT TONE WITH ME … how does Katie know the extent of my kids' tone-deafness? I force myself to smile and encourage them through music lessons, all the while wondering how much I could sue their teacher for aural damages. Hey, I have a fun idea — LET'S PLAY THE QUIET GAME for the next ten years!

Excellent selection of phrases that are in the language. I kid about my kids all the time, but I love them. It's neat to laugh at these phrases repurposed for comical effect.

Because if you don't laugh, you cry. And cover your ears.

DON'T USE THAT TONE WITH ME was my big winner, not only from my personal experience as a parent, but because it draws upon my years of hiding in the back of cello and trombone sections, hoping the conductor wouldn't notice me. As my practice habits tailed off, so did my tone.

I wanted bigger changes out of most others, though, along with more humor. YOU'RE GROUNDED does apply to both misbehaving children and pilots, but the meaning is too similar.

I'LL TURN THIS CAR AROUND came closer in the humor department, though it's not exactly a phrase I've heard any mechanic say.

And I've heard many librarians bristle at the stereotype of them shushing people. Libraries have shifted to meet the needs of new generations and styles of working. And if there's one person you don't want to throw the book at you …

Beautifully clean puzzle, much more so than the average Sunday 140-worder. If I could only get my kids to clean their room to something a tenth this level! Although there are not many bonuses aside from the stellar PINK PANTHER and TWO LEFT FEET, giving solvers smooth sailing with only a SERE wind is a huge accomplishment.

I can see why Will Shortz green-LIT this puzzle. The New York Times tends to prefer erudite themes, so you can bet Will would show this one some love(craft)!

BREAKS THE LAWRENCE was the winner. There's something so vivid about the phrase. I was raised to hold books on a pedestal, so I took strange pleasure with this, akin to gawking at a traffic accident.

GIVES A FAIR SHAKESPEARE also intrigued me. Neat that it changed the meaning of "fair" so drastically.

It's a shame some of the alternates didn't make the cut. THROWS A FITZGERALD is what I did when I first read "The Great Gatsby," a teenager wondering what the hell(er) was the big deal. BUNDLE OF JOYCE made me laugh, too, imagining English majors treating a precious tome like an angel(ou).

I appreciated the consistency in always tacking the author onto a phrase that ends with the first part of his/her name, but I'd have loved an extra layer — a finishing the paint job with a second coat(es), if you will.

Maybe all book destruction, with a Fahrenheit 451 meta-theme — HITTING THE BOOKS, perhaps? Riffing on GREEN LIT(ERATURE) ... with phrases about nature? I didn't have an immediate light-bulb moment, but it'd have been fun to chew on this. There are so many themer possibilities that something extra to lift the puzzle to the next level feels within grasp.

Although I didn't lift a stein(beck) to the concept, I enjoyed feeling smart, being able to fill in the authors' names quickly. My education weighed more heavily on tech than humanities, so I'm glad my checkered past(ernak) didn't catch up with me today. Sometimes an easy-breezy Sunday is just what this tweedled-dum(as) needs.

★ What a neat variety of "literal wordplay" tricks! I love that not one of them exactly repeats:

• PAY (literally crossing) through THE NOSE
• PAT ON (top of) THE BACK
• SMALL MINDED squeezed into three squares as (MI)(ND)(ED)
• TONGUE IN CHEEK interpreted as CHE(TONGUE)EK
• ALL EARS = an entry with all EAR rebuses
• Stretch one's legs = ONE'S LEGS elongated to OONNEESSLLEEGGSS
• BELLY UP presented vertically as YLLEB
• SIDE BY SIDE breaks the "no duplications" rule, but in a fun way

I had to work hard to dig up all eight hidden gems, and although there were frustrations along the way, I stretched my brain to its max, having to think in all sorts of different styles, and eventually crossed the finish line.

All that, with only a single short fill ding in PSA? Considering that the Sunday average is about ten gluey bits, that's amazing.

Heck yeah, I SEE WHAT (you) DID THERE — dozens of painstaking iterations to finally arrive at this high-quality product. Can't wait to see what LIEs AHEAD for this pair.

★ This is a perfect example of why people shouldn't listen to me.

If Katie had approached me for feedback, I'd have replied that the general approach is fine — we've seen sports term reinterpretations for golf, basketball, football, and many more. However, a mishmash from all different sports? What is this, a Calvinball crossword?

Moreover, I'd have suggested that terms like UNPLAYABLE LIE might turn off sportsball haters. Heck, even OFFENSIVE REBOUND might have that effect (unless you're a bball junkie like me). Will Shortz has such a vast solving population to address that he usually pushes to the masses.

The fact that Katie picked and chose from the entire sporting universe, looking for odd and interesting terms that best lent themselves to reinterpretation, is exactly what made this puzzle stand out.

Maybe you don't know the dreaded 7-10 split in bowling, but what a clever idea to imagine it as a time to leave. I'm no golf fan, but I could at least guess what an UNPLAYABLE LIE might be. Such a huge change in meaning, to an untruthy statement that can't be rebroadcast.

It was probably even funnier pre-2016 ...

It'd have been so meta if the grid had a black corner square in the NW — a perfect STARTING BLOCK to insiders. Still, an empty square can be called a "block," perhaps.

I also appreciated that Katie didn't try to do too much with her grid. Work in a handful of bonuses (RAISE HELL, TEEN MOVIE, YO YO TRICK, UNION REP), take meticulous care to avoid crossword glue (only APA and INRI is outstanding Sunday cleanliness) ... it's not a complicated formula, but so many constructors push too hard to feature some snazzy bonus they're in love with, aim for a personal-best low-word-count, etc. and end up with a product that I hear tons of complaints about.

Even not knowing some of the phrases right off the top, I still breezed through the entire puzzle, solving in record time due to the grid's top-notch smoothness. That made me feel smart, and who doesn't like feeling smart? Ten minutes of pleasure and ego-boosting, accentuated by several humorous highs? Yes, please! Every Sunday NYT needs to be at least this good.

One of the key principles in marketing is that it takes multiple mentions before a brand name begins to register in people's consciousness. ABBA seems to have that down pat! I listened to a ton of ABBA in college, never noticing that their (gigantic) discography contains so many repetitive titles. So much for marketing, but neat observation, Katie!

ABBA is in crosswords with surprisingly high frequency, given that 1.) it doesn't exhibit any consonant-vowel alternation, and 2.) those Bs aren't the easiest letters to work with. Over 150 Shortz-era appearances, putting it in the top 150 most-used entries! This has more to do with the As still being extremely useful, no matter their position within the word, but it's fun to imagine constructors trooping away with "Super Trouper" in the background.

Solid debut gridwork! I breezed through, such a smooth product, with my only pause in the north region. PINKO and STENO feel 1950's-esque, and ABO might become apparent as blood typing letters only after some thought.

With only three long theme answers, I expect a ton of long bonuses. TOMATO SOUP and PANTOMIMES added spice, and GAMERTAG might speak to a generation of eSports fans. I would have liked more out of the EMISSION slot, but the mid-length HOT BATH, SINBAD, and MR COOL helped make up for that potential left on the table.

Loved the YELP clue, a website where you go to see "the stars." Hopefully, five stars!

It would have been great if all the phrases had been as naturally clueable as GIMME GIMME GIMME, a fine phrase on its own ("Daaaaad, I neeeeed that!!!"), since the kooky clues alerted me right away that something weird was going on.

I wonder if anti-ABBAites will be more apathetic or even against this puzzle, but this fan of the Swedish supergroup enjoyed the glimpse into their titular marketing prowess.

Excellent Sunday puzzle, well above the overall average. Note that I didn't say well above Sunday average — Sundays have been underwhelming and not as well-executed as weekday puzzles in recent memory. Thus, this puzzle is way above the typical Sunday offering these days.

It's not a groundbreaking concept — change the R sound to a W, emulating TODDLER TALK — but there's definitely room for tried-and-true concepts if they're done well. And this one is exemplary. We usually judge a sound change puzzle by:

Neat spelling changes. RAIN to WAYNE is fantastic, as are ROOM to WOMB and RISKY to WHISKEY. Not a one is a simple R to W letter substitution, like REB to WEB or REED to WEED.

Amusing results. Batman having to pay for Batmobile upgrades with a paper check = hilarious! Finishing dinner by HITting WOK BOTTOM. And a feel-good moment with AN ELEPHANT IN THE WOMB.

Colorful bonuses. BEER BREWER, DEAD HEAT, HARD SELL, VANNA WHITE, THE F WORD (cheeky!), that's great. But wait, there's more? LIMERICK, NCAA GAME, BO DEREK, ON A HUNCH. Wow!

Smooth short fill. I didn't hitch once in my solve. All you can point out for sure are ALEE and YEE. Given that the typical NYT Sunday has about a dozen dabs of gloop, this is outstanding.

There's no secret to executing on a grid like this. Get yourself a reasonable word list (that separates fine entries from questionable ones), and keep on testing different grid skeletons until you land on something that works without relying on any glue. You'll undoubtedly have to introduce a dab or two to remove dupes, select more colorful bonuses, etc., but more than five is plain lazy. It baffles me that the norm is about 12.

Christina gets how to make a great puzzle, forcing herself to work with only fine grid entries. This is the Patrick Berry school of thought that most everyone aspires to. Yet she's one of the handful who's shown that she truly gets it. It's fantastic that she's passing on these lessons to others.