Mark McClain author page

Six literal foreign LANGUAGE BARRIERs today, a black square breaking up HIN/DU, UR/DU, etc. It's a ton of theme material to work with, and it was fun to see so many different languages. I especially liked the longer ones — POL/ISH and GER/MAN, since it's really easy to work in short chunks such as TH and AI.

Not a surprise that Mark went up to the max of 78 words, given the high theme density. He uses his black squares pretty well to separate his themers, but it does make for a fairly fractured grid. There's a big chunk of puzzle in the upper right, another one in the lower right, and a diagonal running from the NW to SE, with the three sections barely connected. This type of layout makes constructing much easier, since you can tackle each chunk one at a time, but it made for a pretty choppy solve for me.

Also a ton of tough vocabulary and names. I don't think there was anything unfair, but I wonder if TOPOL, LILLE, and MASUR might turn off some newer solvers.

Throw in some crossword glue of DO A, HUIT, I LAY, YELLO (only one way to clue it), RIAA, and it didn't feel as elegant as I like a Monday puzzle to be.

I did enjoy the bonuses of MERCUTIO and GIFT SHOP, though. Tough to work in long bonus entries with so much already going on, so that was appreciated.

It would have been really cool to employ very long languages, using more colorful entries — aMANDA / RINgtone, lifeSPAN / ISHmael, gentleBEN / GALIleo, etc. — but I did like seeing so many languages from around the globe worked in.

Now to figure out how to make AZERBAIJANI work with this theme ...

I like when a puzzle baffles me — as long as I eventually figure out what's going on. Today, we get a fun debut offering, using DARK ARTS to hide the "arts" in certain clues: MARTS, WARTS, TARTS, PARTS, DARTS. I'm curious to see how the NYT's solving app handles this — the Across Lite version with its pound signs in the clues (shown below) so disappointingly fails Mark's fun idea.

This is essentially a "definitional" puzzle, where the clues and answers are swapped. Generally, I like these best when the entries in the puzzle are colorful; of themeless-quality. EXCHANGES (for MARTS) and MOVIE ROLES (for PARTS) are fine answers — but more neutral than assets. I couldn't think of perfect examples off the top of my head, but something like STRIP MALLS or LEAD ROLES are so much more colorful. (Those don't quite work since they're too specific.)

And if only PUB PASTIME didn't sound so definitional — it feels like there might be a solid, snazzy answer that could perfectly define DARTS, but again, I couldn't think of one right away.

Mark does a nice job of working in six themers; rarely an easy task. I was a little worried to see PASTRIES and MOVIE ROLES having so much overlap, but Mark filled nicely around them (not a surprise that ARNE popped up there!). SEMIARID going through that section works, although it's not the most stellar piece of fill.

GLADRAGS, on the other hand, caught my attention. Even when I was down to the last letter, I couldn't quite make sense of it. Not sure I'd ever use that term, but it was fun to learn; a weird combination of two words.

So overall, a nice debut puzzle. Not a lot of crossword glue used to hold six theme answers together (SCI, MAJ, IRES = mostly minor dings), and an interesting find with so many ?ARTS words in existence. Neat to be stumped on the idea until I finally hit DARK ARTS to lift the curtain.