Mark Diehl author page

What a fantastic grid-spanning feature entry in DIDN'T GET THE MEMO! That's the kind of phrase that'll stick in my head.

It can be hard to build around a central grid-spanning entry; certain letters fixed into place, wreaking havoc on flexibility. I was impressed with many of the long entries Mark managed to cross through, DIY PROJECT (do-it-yourself) such a colorful phrase. IF STATEMENT is great, too, at least for us computer dorks. If you're a hater / Luddite, at least it's figure-out-able.

Well done with PICKLE JAR, too, making great use of a long slot parallel to DIDN'T GET THE MEMO. Typically, constructors would break this slot up to reduce the sheer area of the white space, but Mark has never been one to shrink from a challenge. PICKLE JAR is not only a fine entry on its own, but that delightful clue! Think about spears, as in dill pickle spears …

Not all of those long entries sang to me, though. ANGLE PARKING felt more askew than "diagonal" (although the Goog says both are fine), CORN TASSELS now makes sense but only after more Googling, ALTERNATE DAY feels a bit arbitrary, and RAN ARMS didn't hit me right at first. I ended up deciding that each was a fine entry, but all of them together caused a collective pause.

Some solvers will be sending me angry emails that POKER isn't part of the World Series! You idiot, don't you even know the difference between a sport and a game? POKER players (and those of us who used to watch way too much ESPN) know that the big events are called the "World Series of Poker." It's a nice cluing idea that might, unfortunately, get lost on the average solver.

I like Mark's efforts to push boundaries of what's possible. Not everything works as well as standard 70- or 72-word themelesses, but reaching for the stars is a good thing for the art form.

What's this, Mark Diehl on a Friday? The man renowned for his diabolical Saturday creations treats us to an easier Friday. And talk about treats! We get SUZY Qs, a PEANUT BUTTER CUP, some 3 MUSKETEERS, and an OREO. That's a tasty — if diabetes-inducing — mini-theme.

Rare to see numbers in a themeless, so I enjoyed getting C3PO, a perfect way to work in that 3.

I wasn't hot on just getting one PEANUT BUTTER CUP. Where'd the other one from the two-pack go, hmm, Mark? Gimme gimme gimme! A couple of extraneous words also bugged me, CAKES and COOKIE feeling tacked on. They are technically correct, but who wouldn't give you the side-eye if you asked for a SUZY Q CAKE?

Mostly I was irritated by not getting that other PEANUT BUTTER CUP. Who can eat just one?

A mini-theme with this density — including pairs stacked atop each other! — usually doesn't allow for that much extra long fill, but this is Mark, a consummate pro, we're talking about. Such a pleasure to get a vending machine full of HARD NOSED / INCOGNITO / LEAD DOGS, and BROCADE / CORIOLIS force.

I hesitated right off the bat, with the pile-up of NUEVA IZAAK LYNDE, all crossing ANIL. Thankfully, the rest of the puzzle was smoother, but it's a shame that the upper themer stack necessitated a rough start to the puzzle. I didn't think it was worth it. Shortening (pun intended) to SUZY Q and OREOS would have made things much smoother (because you can shift SUZY Q back and forth to find a more optimal position).

I was thrown for a loop by the clue for ROPE. Looped for a throw, what a fun reversal!

Not my favorite mini-theme, but I appreciated seeing something a little different.

I like mini-themes in themelesses, as long as 1.) they're amusing or surprising, and 2.) they don't degrade the puzzle by introducing excess inflexibility.

Today's MAY / THE 4TH / BE WITH / YOU was both amusing and surprising — unusual to have a digit in a themeless, and very unusual to have four separate answers connect.

This Star Wars dork says that the force is with Mark!

Splitting up the mini-theme as MAY THE 4TH / BE WITH YOU might have been better, though. It'd be one thing if each of the four pieces could truly stand on their own. But BE WITH felt partialish (and THE 4TH to a lesser extent). So why not go whole hog and run MAY THE 4TH / BE WITH YOU as a cross-referenced pair of marquee answers?

I also wondered if criterion 2.) had been compromised. You might think splitting into four pieces would make things easier, but it's often not the case since that forces (ha) multiple black square placements right off the bat. While I did like PROCEDURE MANUAL and BALANCED BUDGETS, they're more workmanlike than colorful.

In the case of PROCEDURE MANUAL, literally workmanlike!

A bit of ABEAM ATEST EEN SRAS YRS too. Overall, I think the puzzle could have had more of a remastered Episode VI effect instead of an original Episode IV one (read: bright and shiny vs. you can almost see the strings holding the ships) if MAY THE 4TH / BE WITH YOU had seeded two standard 9x3 stacks.

A ton of great clues today. The telltale question mark did nothing to lift the fog from [Fashion lines?]. Hems? Seams? D'oh! That's fashion, used as a verb. Brilliant AD LIB clue.

[Hard to move] also baffled me, especially with no question mark. One sense of [Hard to move] is heavy, awkward, gigantic. Another is STOIC.

TSA AGENT is a great entry on its own. With a tip of the hat to removing one's hat for a TSA AGENT, it becomes even greater.

Loved the Star Wars nod. I bet if Mark had gone with a 9 / 9 split of the mini-theme, it'd have blown up the Death Star, instead of just missing that exhaust port.

A surprise to see Mark build a 70-worder! He usually stays in low word-count territory, and does so often using no cheater squares, making for grids with eye-popping wide-open white spaces.

I'm amused by Mark's tradition of including dental-related entries, always clued in funny ways. (Mark is a dentist.) Today is no different, with DENTAL EXAM being an [Open investigation?]. An open case, indeed!

I like his care to avoid short gluey bits, dipping only into a bit of AQUI, ELAL stuff. Those could even be argued to be perfectly fine.

And some great feature entries. DATA MINERS, the STETSON HAT, CITY PLAZA, the MARCH HARE ... who I embarrassingly thought was the White Rabbit. Huh. Apparently, they're two different characters.

RAT POISON was a bit grim. Yikes.

And I think I love AQUAZUMBA? Not sure, since it didn't seem like a real thing at first (no Wikipedia entry? Wiki-editors, get on that!). But as is often the case, I was wrong. And even though it wasn't familiar to me, AQUA + ZUMBA = Zumba in the water. Easy enough to figure out.

A couple of other entries gave me an equal feeling of unfamiliarity. I'm used to that in Mark's low word-count stuff, where he might need to use an unusual long entry to make the grid work. Today, it was FORETASTE and MUD FACIAL (mud mask?). They both made sense when I thought about them and looked them up, but they didn't hit me with a feeling of elation as I solved.

Fantastic clue in [Private leaders]. Coming from a business background, I was thinking C-suite people (CEO, CFO, CTO, etc.), as in private industry. Nope, army privates led by CORPORALS!

Overall, plenty of goodness within this well-crafted puzzle to keep me entertained. Knowing Mark's mark of working in dental entries made me enjoy it even more.

Welcome to LAUGH AT MYSELF (LAM-poon) week! I thought I'd try something different, as methinks I've been taking myself too seriously, and that might be hindering my ability to enjoy. And what are crosswords, if not to be enjoyed?

MAKE / LOVE / NOT / WAR start theme phrases today — what a fun hidden phrase! Beautiful themer choices in MAKE IT SNAPPY and LOVE POTION.

I sheepishly admit I put in 70S instead of 60S. So much for being an educated solver! Petty Jeff (PJ) would have whined about how it wasn't fair. But realistically, that one's on me. I mean, come on! The 70s, Jeff? Been watching too much "That 70s Show," have you?

(sheepish nod)

Hmm, what would PJ say about the technical issues? He'd wonder about the phrases ONE TO GO (seems like a partial) and PLAN BS (don't you just have one PLAN B, then you move to PLAN C, PLAN D, etc.)?

But ... bah! Why dwell on these minor issues in an otherwise well-constructed puzzle?

How about CHINK? Okay, I've been called a chink many a time. But, this week's Jeff says that the phrase "chink in one's armor" is a fine phrase. I'm choosing to look the other way.

Love, love, love the SHAMPOO clue. It didn't get me into a lather at all!

If there's one thing today's Jeff and PJ agree upon, it's that we would have preferred a more specific entry for 6 — maybe 6 PACK or 6 GUNS — but either one of us should have been able to identify the 60S from MAKE LOVE NOT WAR, no crossing necessary.

Overall, a fun hidden message that's right on point. Given the country's rocky state of affairs, we could all use a little more love.

I'm enjoying trying out a different perspective. This is the perfect puzzle to kick off a week of making love, not war, on crosswords!

ZENO'S PARADOX! When running a race, you must get halfway there. And then halfway of the remaining distance. And then halfway again. And so on … so it's impossible to actually finish.

My mind was blown when my dad told me this a kid. Blown!

I love it when themelesses have a couple of these standout entries, making them memorable. Nothing else quite hit that same mark for me — NBA DRAFT is great, but it's been used a couple of times now — but that's not a surprise in 68-word puzzles. So tough to get both sizzle and smoothness.

BEERGARITA came close. I'd never heard of it, but it's certainly inferable. Beer + margarita = refreshing drink, or completely disgusting? Maybe if I were younger ...

I've felt like some of Mark's puzzles, especially lower word-count ones, have contained a few iffy-sounding entries. Today, MENU PAGES didn't land for me, nor did TRAM ROUTES. In the end I convinced myself that they're both fine overall, but even then, they felt more workmanlike, filler that helped keep the puzzle together without having to resort to too much ONEA / HEWER type crossword glue.

I also wondered about FAIR DICE. Ultimately, I decided that it was a good entry. LOADED DICE feels much more like a colorful term (not-loaded dice are just called DICE). But the term FAIR DICE is certainly used in mathematical analyses.

A couple of toughies in PRECESS and TETANY. I love the former, as precession is a common phenomenon in physics. Yay, physics! But I can see how some solvers would give it the stink-eye — just like I did for TETANY. I thought that one was fair since it's related to tetanus … except that it's not! Huh.

Ultimately, a solid 68-worder, stuff like COFFEEMATE / IM NO EXPERT making it enjoyable. And a nice insider's nod to Diehl the dentist, OPENS WIDE with a great clue in [Prepares for a drill?]. This non-anti-dentite loved that one.

I've definitely heard the phrase STILL WATERS RUN DEEP before ... but I embarrassingly had to look up what it exactly meant. Apparently "a quiet or placid manner may conceal a more passionate nature." Huh!

To me, a "maxim hidden at the starts of theme phrases" puzzle is best when there's a revealer that describes the maxim in a snazzy way. SAW is too generic for my taste. Problem is, I can't think of a colorful phrase that describes STILL WATERS RUN DEEP.

Heck, I can't even think of a non-snazzy way of describing it, besides just saying STILL WATERS RUN DEEP! Perhaps MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE?

(Doubly embarrassed that I just quoted the "Transformers" theme song.)

Anyhoo, good choices for theme answers. Funny to imagine older people say I'm STILL KICKING! And DEEP THOUGHTS was one of my favorite segments back when I watched SNL.

WATERS DOWN and RUN ERRANDS didn't pop as much — about as exciting as RUNning errands. But they work fine. There's not much you can do with WATERS as a starting word.

I'm curious if switching the maxim to final words would have been better? That would have put ETHEL WATERS into play. AND ... if you ran the themers vertically, you could bury the maxim at the bottoms of the theme phrases … making them RUN DEEP!

Okay, maybe I still don't totally get what the maxim means.

Good gridwork for a Monday. ORLON is a toughie, but I think it's worth the price of SMOLDERS next to an AIR KISS.

I wasn't as much a fan of STOOD IN intersecting ALL IN — feels inelegant to have the crossing dupe — and I didn't care for ESSES … I wonder if black squares at the end of AMASS and the start of ESSES could have cleaned things up.

All in all, a cleanly-executed maxim theme, the saying well-hidden at the start of the themers until the revealer told me what was going on. I just wish the revealer had more pop … perhaps not the best maxim to build a puzzle around.

A Diehl low-word-count themeless! (insert mixture of excitement and apprehension here)

Love those big, juicy, wide-open white spaces in the NW / middle / SE. Yowza, those are tough to fill with color and cleanliness. All three had some great entries and some compromises:

NW: MARIE CURIE! ORANGE SODA! That's the way to anchor a themeless swath.

TUN, eh. MID-MARCH… doesn't that feel arbitrary? Does it open the door for LATE AUGUST, LAST FALL, etc.?

Middle: CLAM JUICE! BLOOD BORNE! With STEADY DIET and EARTHLINGS running through them? Awesome.

BEAN PLANTS … okay. Not exciting, but workable. TRASH MOUTH? Huh? POTTY MOUTH, TRASH TALK, both yes. TRASH MOUTH … not so much.

SE: TEAM EVENTS are fun at the Olympics. FM STEREO isn't exciting anymore, but it does the trick.

ERRATA PAGE … yeah, I guess it works. Maybe it would have been more exciting with a clever clue?

Overall, a real mixture of great and head-scratching stuff. All in all, fair, but tough. Very tough! It's rare for me these days to not finish a Saturday puzzle, and this one defeated me. On the one hand, it made me feel stupid for not being able to overcome the challenge. But it also makes me want to improve for the future.

Keep ‘em coming, Mark! (But maybe, just a tad easier? Please?)

Few constructors would dare to tackle a grid like this. A quad-stack … with another triple-stack running through it? Shudder-inducing! With something so impossibly difficult, my solving expectations run low, wondering how much crossword glue or outright esoterica I'll have to wade through. And the long answers often end up boring.

What a delightful surprise to uncover the snazzy DOUBLE DOG DARE at 1-A! And BARNYARD ANIMALS nearby? Yes!

And down south, DIPSOMANIAC! over ONE THING AT A TIME! over ELLEN DEGENERES! over … SENIOR EDITORS. (*sad trombone*)

Well, three out of four is still fantastic.

ELLEN DEGENERES and SENIOR EDITORS are both so crossword-friendly, what with all common letters and such regular consonant/vowel alternation. But ELLEN is so much more fun, especially what with that hilarious quote in the clue.

I liked that down south region a ton. JOAN MIRO is a great answer running through the quad-stack, as is OLD TIMER. It's hard to imagine how so many sizzling long entries could be jam-packed and interlocked. I thought there would HAVE to be a price to pay, but those two ultra-crossword-friendly entries worked some magic. To have virtually no crossword glue or esoterica (DAIN = hmm) is amazing.

There's a lesson in that. I can just sense constructors racing off to their seed lists, scouring them for similarly crossword-friendly entries …

(Okay, there was a price to pay. But I'm choosing to overlook the TIME / TIMER crossing because everything else was so awesome. It's a TIER 1 DOUBLE PURPLE ALERT INELEGANCY though.)

The top didn't turn out as well in my eyes, what with DEBATERS, ON A VISIT, UNRENTED not very exciting. And LOYD crossing the O of ENNIO? I worry that solvers will miss that square and feel horribly unsatisfied, and I wouldn't fault them. DIRECT DEBIT is a yawner even for this finance wonk. GRACE CUP … wha? Along with ESTAB and BENE, the north didn't do it for me.

But wow, that south half was a memorable standout in the low-word-count genre. If the top had even come close to it, the POW! choice would have been a no-brainer for me.

Mark's byline is one I both look forward to and fear the most. Few constructors tackle giant swaths of white in themelesses, and even fewer do it without using extra black squares to make things easier on them. (Adding black squares at the beginning and end of DENTAL INSURANCE would make the puzzle much easier to fill, for example.) Mark usually ends up with daunting-looking tracts of white that seem impossible to even break into, much less complete. Perfect for a Saturday puzzle — it's supposed to be the hardest of the week, after all.

Often, puzzles like these require made-up sounding RE-, UN-, -ER, etc. words — unsavory tricks that constructors can use to fill difficult areas. I love that Mark refuses to go there, trying to even include a couple of colorful long entries like PRISON RIOT. With its fantastic clue, playing on joint problems ("joint" = slang for jail), I appreciated it so much as I fought my way through the puzzle.

There was another reason I liked PRISON RIOT even more: because this puzzle is so segmented, with the three sections only connected by two answers apiece, I wanted those two answers apiece to be standouts. Sort of eases the blow when you feel like you've been dead-ended in one of the corners.

DENTAL INSURANCE surprisingly gave me a similar reaction. Usually, I'd think this is a dull entry, but 1.) what a great clue, playing on dental bridges vs. river bridges, and 2.) Mark is a dentist! Cool to get the constructor's little wink.

I didn't care for some of the long answers — OISE RIVER felt forced (usually just "Oise" or "The Oise," yeah?), FIVE LOVE sounded odd (granted, I don't watch that much tennis these days), RESIDING and ARIDNESS were a bit arid. But overall, I love this type of wide-open challenge when I can get at least a few sparkly answers like VALID ID, IF IN DOUBT …, PEAR TARTS, HAM ACTOR. Along with DENTAL INSURANCE and PRISON RIOT and their standout clues, I thought this one turned out well.

It's so tough to do low word-count themelesses well. Few constructors dip into the 66-word territory, and for good reason — it's incredibly difficult to produce a puzzle that's both snazzy and smooth. Most tend to run on the dull side, with a lot of neutral entries, or they feel like they're packed with made-up sounding -ER or RE- words, or they're gloppy with crossword glue.

I think Mark did a nice job today, particularly in the middle of the puzzle, given the level of difficulty there — so many outstanding entries filling that eye-poppingly huge swath of white squares. DNA TESTING stacked atop BEAR ATTACK and HAPPY MEAL, along with DOG KENNEL — such great material!

And running through all those were even more top-notch entries like MILITARY PENSION, BETA MALE (wow, that was tough to parse! Not sure why I kept reading it as BE TAMALE …), and IN A PANIC (crossing BEAR ATTACK!). All of that, held together by fine short material like SECS, ITEM, IBIS; not a dab of crossword glue in sight. Very well done.

I can see why Mark sectioned off the NW and SE corners — such gigantic areas are borderline untenable if you can't work on them independently of the rest of the puzzle. I did like the overall results, generally pretty smooth and professional, but entries like EPOCHAL, NOT HERE, and OGEE ARCH don't do a lot for me. NINTH TEE also felt a tad arbitrary, but I guess it's as valid as SEVEN IRON or other such golf terms.

Great cluing potential for MENACHIM — dang it, MENACHEM! (I was 100% sure it was the former.) MENACHEM Begin just begs to be used with clever wordplay, misdirecting to the verb "begin." Today's clue, [Begin at the beginning?] tried hard, but it didn't quite do it for me. "Beginning" does suggest "first name," but I would have preferred something that didn't require a telltale question mark. Perhaps like [Begin founding a political party].

Finally, some great mid-length entries like WHAT THE…, ZEN MONK, EGG DROP, JUNK ART. Overall, a solving experience much better than the average low-word-count experience.

★ Loved this one. A 66-word grid without extraneous black squares ("cheaters") is extremely tough to fill with snazziness and smoothness. Mark has so many great entries, BIOBURDEN my favorite (my previous career was in biotech). SWIPE LEFT is a Tinder thing (so I'm told), so that gives the puzzle some freshness.

What stood out for me was that so many of Mark's one-word entries were so good. I love Arthurian lore, so EXCALIBUR elated me. The word EBULLIENT feels so bubbly, so effervescent, so … EBULLIENT! And what a great clue for ARMADILLO, that it hops straight up when startled.

The fact that ABORIGINAL and ORIGINAL have similar meanings ... I stared at those first two empty squares for the longest time, wondering if there was some trick going on utilizing empty squares. Love it.

Single-word entries are often harder to make memorable than multi-worders — MINIATURE vs. something as neat as the mid-length BBQ RIBS for example — but Mark shined today.

Speaking of mid-length entries, BBQ RIBS wasn't the only standout. CAPISCE?, PUP TENT, OPEN NOW, TOY CAR, ALIMONY all added to my solve. Great stuff.

And what the heck kind of long entry starts with DS*? I was sure I had something wrong, especially since I was thinking about [60s sorts] as people from the 60s. LSD maybe? No, it was 60s ... as in 60 percent! What a fantastic clue/entry pair.

Nice and smooth grid, too. I did hitch on the BANC / BIEN crossing, as I don't know my Indochina War trivia. But this is a Saturday puzzle, so a ["Tres ___!"] clue would have been way too easy.

AIRSOFT was the one head-scratcher for me today. I used to run a boys' group, where we did all sorts of laser tag-type events, so it's mystifying that I hadn't heard of this. But one head-scratcher in a puzzle is fine and even welcome; a good source of learning.

DEWED was just about the only real complaint I had. "Dewy," yeah? But that vowel-consonant alternation in DEWED is so constructor-friendly.

All in all, such a delight to solve.

I admire people who can make good, low-word-count themelesses without using cheater squares. These extra black squares are a tremendous tool that I often employ — I would have found it so tempting to put a black square where STRONG POINT and SCRAWLS intersect, because those extra squares make it so much easier to construct lively, smooth grids. Each pair of cheaters makes the task maybe 10-20% or so easier.

I personally use them liberally, and I generally don't think they hinder a grid's visual appeal, unless there's a whole bunch of them. (Compare today's grid to yesterday's.) Most of the time, I encourage newer constructors to use more of them, because the end product is almost always better. But there's something striking about a Spartan grid like today's, when it comes out this smoothly.

Now, there are a few head-scratchers like RONDELLE and the DRAGONET, along with some neutral space-filling entries like EXAMINEE, RUNS LOOSE and AT A COST. But there are also many colorful ones like MODEL ROCKET and STRONG POINT right through the middle, crossing the lovely AD SPEAK / WATERMELON SEEDS / TABLOID (over MORONS!). What beautiful work in that center.

Another interesting point from a constructing perspective: check out the relative amount of sizzle between the NW vs. SW corner. They look so similar, but they're worlds apart in terms of constructing difficulty. A stronger result in the NW than the SW comes as no surprise.

Why? Because while the beautiful NW corner only really has to work with WATERMELON SEEDS, the SW corner must coordinate with both CAMBODIANS and MODEL ROCKET. That extra layer of constraint greatly reduces flexibility, so instead of great answers like THAT'S HOW and TV DRAMA, we get more neutral EYE TEST (used a lot in crosswords), UNCLOAK, PRACTICE, LALANNE.

It's a common trade-off — more interconnectivity means less flexibility.

I thought Mark did a really nice job with his grid, given his non-use of cheaters. It would have been interesting to see if a pair or two of extra black squares might have given us a little more great RATHOLE and STEPKIDS kind of material.

Mark's puzzles are tough but fair, making for an intense workout. Sort of a CrossFit experience, if you will — I felt the burn all throughout, pushed myself to the limits, and narrowly avoided hurting myself ... but did I feel great emerging with a victory!

Some beautiful answers today. SMOKY TOPAZ is not just a stunning "gemstone" but it's such a great answer, with a final Z as a bonus. And I haven't loved an answer so much as X AND Y AXES in years! It was so inscrutable at first glance … and at second … and at third, but it's a very common term in math that looks so crazy. What a great sequence of Xs and Ys linked together.

(Adding X Y AND Z AXES to the XWord Info word list …)

RUMBLE SEAT is another standout. Why don't today's automakers come up with such cool terminology? They don't look as awesome as they sound, and I can only imagine how uncomfortable they must be, but I imagine my kids would someday fight over dibs on the rumble seat if I had one.

A couple of long answers didn't hit quite as well for me. AGE-RELATED is perfectly fine — and I appreciated it more since my last company focused on drug discovery for AGE-RELATED macular degeneration — but it's not as colorful as the above-mentioned entries. And ONE IN FORTY seems arbitrary — I don't want the door opened for ONE IN SIXTY or ONE IN TWENTY, etc. Finally, IN THIS WAY also more takes up space than sings to me.

And there is a piece of deeper old-school crosswordese in TARNS. Sometimes I appreciate these, in that they provide a toehold into a tough section, but I don't like how this supports the popular notion that you have to know really esoteric trivia in order to be good at crosswords. Along with the arbitrary D TEN, these are more than minor gluey bits in my eyes.

But overall, some beautiful entries and a great workout leaving me feeling stronger than before. Mandelbaum, Mandelbaum, Mandelbaum! And I loved reading Mark's notes — I hadn't noticed the W X Y Z in the corners; very fun. This is exactly why I started asking every constructor for their take, way back when I joined onto XWord Info ... three years ago now!

Mark has done some amazing wide-open themelesses, which tend to be incredibly difficult to solve. It's no surprise that Will chose one of his puzzles for the finals of the ACPT this year, a 60-worder using no cheater squares. You can still order it. Well worth the price.

Today, Mark stays at 68-words, but he tackles one of the harder challenges in themelesses: the 9x4 chunk. Executing on a 9x3 — a triple-stack — is hard enough to do with cleanliness and snazziness, and a quad-stack is maybe five times as hard. I like what he's done with the NW corner in particular. HE GOT GAME is one of my favorite Spike Lee Joints, featuring the great Ray Allen playing Jesus Shuttlesworth. AMENHOTEP is an important name in history (and a cool one at that), and FACEPLANT is a great way to kick off that corner.

STATIONER … that's one of my quibbles with quad-stacks. It's so tough to get four great answers. STATIONER is fine, I just wouldn't personally count it as an asset.

Same goes with AVERAGING and EROSIONAL in the opposite corner. I do think AVERAGING was elevated by its clue [Doing mean work?] — but innately, I don't find it that colorful.

Some of Mark's entries remind me of Byron Walden's style — an incredible wealth of great answers, but some that make me wonder if they're really legit. SHOP VAC is fantastic. So is SLAPJACK (quite a painful game I used to play as a kid). GOBANG … yep, it looks like it's a thing. GAOLER … a jailer in England? MAGNETOS … huh. When a mechanical engineer scratches his head, it's likely that others will too.

Still, there was enough strong material that I really enjoyed the challenge of solving those big 9x4 corners. Mark's puzzles tend to be the type that really stretch me to become a better solver, and I appreciate that process.

Speaking of appreciation, I also want to say a personal thanks to Mark, who's been instrumental in catching some typos and scoring discrepancies in our XWord Info Word Lists. His help has been great.