Matt Ginsberg author page

About ten years ago, I struggled mightily with a puzzle that ended up blowing my mind. No matter how hard I struggled with that one, I couldn't fill in its lower-left corner. But when it all clicked, it clicked in a big way. It's now fixed in my memory as one of the ground-breakers I tell non-crossword people about (as they roll their eyes and pretend they have somewhere else to be).

Today's plays in a similar vein, with NOTHING appended instead of SECRET — let's call it "secret lite." It works, literally NOTHING there, with NOTHING prefixing BUT THE BEST, TO SNEEZE AT, etc. (NOTHING) UP MY SLEEVE was the best themer; such a snazzy phrase, and perfect for this theme.

I wanted much more out of the puzzle, though. Once I figured out the first themer, the rest of the solve was like listening to my daughter tell the same knock-knock joke over and over. (Dishes who? Dishes the police, open up!) The theme would have had more punch if it had been limited to just the four long entries, instead of a full ten dishes-the-police repeats.

There is something to be said about (NOTHING) BUT NET, though, as one of Matt Ginsberg's companies (funded by Mark Cuban!) is investigating a camera / software system that might be able to predict if a basketball shot is likely to go in. I always look forward to chatting with Matt; he's always got several somethings up his sleeve.

Overall, too easy for a Thursday puzzle. Will Shortz doesn't like it when solvers have to leave squares blank, but I wonder if a central 7 that had to be filled with literally nothing (the down answers would skip those seven letters, similar to the SECRET puzzle) would have been more memorable.

NOW YOU SEE ME / NOW YOU DON'T = phrases where ME is added / other phrases where ME disappears.

Wait, what?

C is the thing that appears and disappears?

Huh.

We'll C about that.

Elegant touch that Matt crossed NOW YOU SEE ME (across) and NOW YOU DON'T (down), and then arranged all his C additions (across) and C subtractions (down) to match. I like that parallel structure.

Solid gridwork, not an easy task given the sheer quantity of theme material. Nothing to write home about in terms of bonuses, but ED HARRIS, BAPTISM, NEMESIS, SEESAWS, SMELTER, GOTCHA, SHEESH are all assets.

Crossword glue? I was nervous when 1-Across turned out to be AMIR, a variant of the usual EMIR, but thankfully the rest of the puzzle went smoothly. When a Sunday puzzle flows with just some RANEE, ANAS, ATA, SASE, that's a win.

The trick might have struck me more strongly if adding / removing C made more sense, and if I hadn't seen the concept a few times before. I'd have also liked theme answers to be paired up and crossed, even more strongly mirroring the NOW YOU SEE ME / NOW YOU DON'T crossing.

The inequality of seven additions but only three subtractions threw me off-balance. Good thing this wasn't a tightrope-walking puzzle!

Today's puzzle wasn't David Blaine. But it wasn't your weird uncle Stevie pulling a stuffed rabbit out of his hat, either.

Some of my favorite puzzles are those that take two different theme types and combine them in an interesting way. I thought Matt did well to start with two-part phrases, where the halves differ by one letter (in the same spot) — Patrick Berry did something in the same vein a few years ago, as did Patrick Merrell. PITTER PATTER entered into the grid as P(I/A)TTER is pretty fun already. But adding a Schrödinger element in the down direction? Very fun!

It's sort of a rebus meets a Schrödinger meets … a repeated word theme? Not sure exactly how to describe it, but it was creative.

I was especially delighted by the AS GOOD / AS GOLD find. I've seen similar theme concepts using PITTER PATTER, JELLY BELLY, and GALILEO GALILEI, but there's something golden about the AS GOOD / AS GOLD find. It was so interesting I had to stop during my solve to admire it.

I also liked how accurate most of the Schrödinger clues were for both options. [Sticky stuff] as GLOP or GOOP = perfect. Same goes for [Scratch, say] to describe FLAW / CLAW. I thought that one was particularly brilliant since it works so well for either option — but in very different ways. FLAW as a noun, CLAW as a verb.

And this former MBA loved the MICRO / MACRO find! How have I never thought of that before?

On the downside, BLOT felt much more apt for an ink stain than a BLOB. And although LET ON / LET IN worked well both ways, it wasn't as interesting to me, as a change of preposition isn't going to win any awards.

ADDED NOTE: Astute reader Luke Vaughn points out that although it's "just" a preposition change, look at how cleverly both fit the clue. LET ON, as in admitted a truth, and LET IN, as in admitted into a party. I stand corrected!

Overall, such an enjoyable experience to uncover those themers. This is a well-made puzzle with great bonuses like DOGGEREL and APTITUDE.

ADDED NOTE: I forgot to mention, Matt is (among many other things) an author! I enjoyed Factor Man, a thriller about a tech guru's world-changing invention.

What cool finds! ORCHESTRATES sounds like "orca straits" = a neat a-ha moment. I love it when you're left with a "how in heck did the author find those?" feeling. I missed some of them as I solved, so I highlighted them below. I don't want anyone to miss WHEATIES as "wee tees"!

The overall solving experience wasn't nearly as fun as the themers, though. EDH in the starting corner didn't bode well. I glunked through about a dozen of these gluey bits, making my solve feel inelegant. A couple of nice bonuses in HOT MIC and ORATORIO didn't alleviate that.

Why so much gloop? Take another look at the grid highlights below. While it's an amazing feat to get so much themage interlocked, there's isn't a subspace that doesn't have two or more themers running through it. No Bueno!

After highlighting the themers, my opinion of the puzzle changed — I would have expected more crossword glue than Matt needed. It's an amazing job, given the fact that a standard 140-word Sunday puzzle is hard enough to make …

But it's still too much fluff. And it was so easy to miss those themers, that even I — an inconceivably anal constructor — didn't see or appreciate the interlock until I did my highlighting. Heck, I missed highlighting a themer and then had to go back through a third time! So I don't think it's a good layout for the NYT's mass audience. Doesn't do the themers justice.

But some great finds that made me want to go back and appreciate each one. I think it could have been a standout puzzle if the themers had been pared back and then presented in such a way to make them easily noticeable — perhaps all in the across direction, or even shading the theme squares.

It's tough when your themers are normal words/phrases, and BORDEAUX is the same length as ORATORIO, DINETTES, IS HE DEAD, ALL ROUND. Way too easy to confuse what's theme and what's not.

Neat idea here, Adlai Stevenson not a TWO TIM but a TWO TIM(ELOSER). Interesting find, that the second half backward forms a real word in RESOLE. I'm glad Will ended up starring the appropriate clues, as these themers would have been tough to pick out, in what was already a very tough puzzle.

Icing on the cake to get a double UEY in the center, STRIK (ESABA) LANCE flipping twice. Great discovery!

It threw me off that all these answers pulled UEYs … to the right. Seems like a big traffic no-no. But since Matt lived in England for a long time, I let this hiccup pass.

I would have preferred to have the themers run vertically, so the UEYs would be done in the proper direction. (Sorry, Anglophiles!)

Nice bonuses in TOO LATE NOW, SYNAPSE, TOUPEES, PARANOIA, PIE SHELL, and … VEEPSTAKES? That last one didn't register for me, but what a great term to learn. (Pols jockeying to get named to a Presidential ticket.) Considering the high theme density, not easy to work in these bonuses.

Wait, wait, wait, you might say — it's not that dense, considering the shorties in SALAR(YCAPS) and TATTL(ELATE). But when you stack pairs like this, the grid quickly becomes inflexible. So, a good job executing, with just a bit of IDEO, ELAL, INST.

Okay, AFLOWER felt inelegant as an "A prefix" constructor's crutch, but it does have dictionary support. GIVE EAR … it also has dictionary support. But again, hmm.

Maybe these entries are more common in England?

I would have preferred going up to 76 words, perhaps by rearranging black squares to break GIVE EAR and AFLOWER into two words apiece. For me, this would have made for a more elegant-feeling grid.

Overall though, a clever idea with some great finds. Fun to figure out all those answers pulling UEYs.

MIXOLOGY indeed, two common words interspersed to create snappy phrases. My favorite was GONZO + RUDER = GROUND ZERO, as GONZO is such a fun word to say, and GROUND ZERO is a vivid entry. BIDE + ODDLY = BO DIDDLEY was another fun example.

I'm not usually a fan of circles quasi-randomly strewn through a long entry, as that usually seems haphazard and inelegant. But this worked okay for me since the resulting phrases were all pretty darn good. I would have liked the two words to stand out better — it's awfully difficult to see GONZO and RUDER unless you're really squinting and toiling and grunting — but it's still a fun discovery.

I enjoyed some of the long fill Matt worked in, too. SEXTANTS and EMBLAZON were particularly nice. Good bonuses.

I wasn't as much a fan of the BIAS TIRE, SALT II, DONE IT ALL, PLAIN FACT sorts of entries. The first two are legit but are more neutral than positive for me, and the latter two seem slightly off to my ear — SEEN IT ALL and THAT'S A FACT or COLD HARD TRUTH seem much more spot-on to me.

And then there's AGNATES and SNAILED … hmm.

I also wasn't a fan of the plethora of gluey short entries required to hold the puzzle together. I don't mind a little A SEC or NEHI here or there, but it did feel like I encountered a lot of gluey bits during my solve — AEREO, NORTE, ISIN, OSA, SERE, etc. Sunday 140-word puzzles are so, so, so tough to make smooth.

Nice theme idea. It would have been great to have some way to make the individual words stand out more, but overall, enough interesting finds to keep my attention.

Cool finding, UNIONIZED either pronounced as UN-I-ON-IZED by a CHEMIST, or UN-ION-IZED by a PLUMBER. Fun mini-theme holding this themeless together.

Themelesses are usually seeded with a few strong entries, and many times these get moved around from place to place, shifted back and forth without regard to symmetrical placements, in order to get better flexibility in filling. Forcing a placement of UNIONIZED in the center of the grid, along with CHEMIST / PLUMBER in symmetrical spots, is a tough way to start.

I like a lot of the entries Matt worked in, UNCLE LEO one of my favorite minor characters of all time. DIET DRUG right on top was fun, too. I'm not totally familiar with PETE BEST, but his auspicious place as a person called the "the fifth Beatle" makes him a neat addition to that corner.

But as a solver, I like a lot of grid flow, and this grid was too sectioned off for my taste. Each of the four corners was a bit of a mini-maze, with one entrance and one exit. I ended up getting badly stuck in the NW, as GREASY didn't totally seem like [Insincerely polite] and EUGENIE / IONA didn't come quickly. No doubt, sectioning a grid off like this helps immensely in construction, but can sometimes lead to dead-ends and frustration for solvers.

And overall, there wasn't enough sizzling fill for my taste, many of the long slots filled with the type of ADDED ON, LACED UP (not far away from UP UP), RAILED AT, PREBAKE entries that felt more neutral than colorful to me. It's tough to create a snazzy themeless when you fix three entries into place with such little flexibility.

I did really enjoy the UNIONIZED syllabication differences though. It would have been really neat to find a few more of these and create a themed puzzle around them.

Really nice finds; phrases that are self-descriptive of a word hidden inside. Sounds confusing, so here's an example: SPLIT SECOND = an order to split the word SECOND into S and ECOND. Another? CALL BACK is a hint that CALL is within CALL BACK … but backward = L L A C.

Matt gives us 11 themers, with a mix of anagrams, split-ups, and reversals. It got a little confusing to me, so I categorized them:

ANAGRAMS: 5

SPLIT-UPS: 5

REVERSALS: 1

To have just one reversal thrown into the mix — and at the very top of the puzzle — felt a bit odd. Sure would have been nice to have a second one to balance it out. Right in the middle of the puzzle would have felt more elegant, too, but CALL BACK is unfortunately an even number of letters, so that's not possible.

As neat as it was to realize that the letters L L A C were within CALLBACK, I think the theme would have cohered better with just the five anagrams and five split-ups.

A lower number of themers would have helped cut down the gluey oddballs, too. I had a rough go of certain sections where themers crowded together, notably in the DIGHT / STAGY area, which felt a bit FLIMSY. I can see the construction difficulty level there is high — that area needing to coordinate around three themers — but staying away from that type of intensely constrained arrangement might have been better.

A little better result in the symmetrical spot, but any time you have to rely on Maleskan words like ORLE, a shift in black squares or themers might be better.

I really enjoyed some of the longer material, TWO ROOM FLATS in particular. Neat that "lodgings" accurately describes a singular lodging. (I had to look that up after it stymied me.) PUBLIC ENEMY and START A FIRE were sure OKAY BY ME.

ME LIKE … well, me no likey that as it sounds odd without the final Y, but it could easily be personal preference.

Some cool finds; perhaps a bit too much packed into a single grid.

A Tale of Two Puzzles today. Interesting twist to a rebus theme, ADs getting zapped in the across direction to form wacky phrases. And it was fun to search for those little AD squares, each one a miniature a-ha moment when I uncovered it.

I'm not totally sure I got it, though. Why was the AD zapped in one direction only? And am I using that "ad zapping" term correctly? I did a search for "ad zapping" and got quite a mixture of results. It also felt awkward to have an extra AD that wasn't zapped in the across direction … at 1-Across, right at the very front. I wondered for the longest time if that was supposed to be a hint to the entire puzzle somehow.

Strong choices for themers, both getting snappy base phrases like FIVE O CLOCK SHADOW (something we rarely see because at 16 letters, it doesn't fit into most weekday grids) as well as resulting answers. BRO MINDED gave me a chuckle, exactly the way a kooky-themed puzzle should kick off.

But other longish fill includes ARISTOS, BARDED, EDESSA. Perhaps a case can be made for EDESSA, I suppose, as it has historical significance. I'm curious who uses the words ARISTOS and BARDED. Bueller?

Some brilliant clues to make the short fill really stand out. I kept a running list because there were so many ones that brought a smile to my face. I think it's worth going back through these entries to appreciate how fun their clues were: FIN, PINS, PAROLE, IDOL, COCAS, RNA, MEAL. And the clue for TASS might confuse some, but once you realize it's referring to ITAR-TASS, the old Russian news agency, it sings. I'm usually satisfied if I get three or four of these playful clues in an entire Sunday puzzle, so to get eight blows me away. Very well done.

Yet other short answers were tough, of the type that potentially turns non-addicts away from crosswords. SERE is ranked so low on my word list that I only can access it when I'm in truly desperate measures. OSO is near that level, as is the extended BRRR. It's funny how strongly just a couple of those types of entries can affect a person's experience (subjective, of course). Will recently mentioned SLA and SDI are entries he's very strongly discouraging as near "puzzle-killers," and I feel like there are a few more that could be added to that list.

Overall, I enjoyed the experience, a hunting expedition for those AD squares lurking in the grid (in the down direction, at least), and making the leap that the ADs had to be zapped in the across. As with most Sunday puzzles, some compromises in the eternal quest to bring out the best of times. Dickensian, indeed. (Although Will says he's not purposefully trying to fool Dr. Fill at the ACPT, I love the image Matt paints of Will twirling his Snidely Whiplash mustache as he plots a la Uriah Heep.)

★ I really enjoyed this one. Sometimes puzzles trying to do too much fall flat, but this hybrid of part tricky Thursday and part themeless-style fill worked well for me. There's not a huge amount of theme — PARTING of the RED / SEA, plus PHARAOH, ISRAELI, MOSES, and EGYPT — but the visual PARTING of the unclued entries RED and SEA was a neat added bonus.

Although there's not a huge theme density at 37 theme squares, the fact that there are essentially five seed answers (four short ones plus RED / PARTING / SEA across the middle) ups the level of difficulty. Matt does well to spread his themers around, placing the four loose ones into different quadrants of the grid, which allows for high flexibility in fill. Take for example, the SE corner. With just EGYPT fixed into place, Matt has great freedom to place colorful entries like SAO PAULO, TIRE IRON, and PEEPER, working that corner through dozens of possibilities.

And the clues are strong, with themeless-level cleverness. YETI gives us a really interesting bit of trivia. [Snake's place, in part] mystified me, until I realized the "snake" was actually a capitalized "Snake," i.e. the Snake River. Great use of placement, hiding that capital letter at the very beginning of the clue. BERG also gave me a great a-ha moment when I realized 4/14/12 was talking about 4/14/1912, not 4/4/2012. Excellent piece of deception.

Just like any puzzle, it's not perfect, with its smattering of OSTE, IDAS, ALEE, A MAN. But notice how these four bits of crossword glue are spread out? That deft touch made those four bits less apparent for me during my solve. And I did find PESACH a bit of an ODD ONE, but it was buried in the recesses of my memory banks somewhere. A Jewish buddy of mine confirmed that it's totally legit.

Overall, a highly entertaining solve for me. I like puzzles that break molds and conventions, and I found the mixture of the trickiness of a Thursday and the chock-full goodness of a themeless to be spot on.

As you're reading this, I will be having a drink with Matt, one of the most fun people to hang out with at the ACPT. He and I share a lot of interests including xws, bridge (yes, the old person card game), and programming, among other hobbies. Reading his Notes made me laugh and also go back to his older puzzles to see if I hadn't missed an Easter Egg (a surprise bonus inside a puzzle, not overtly called out, that only astute solvers will pick up) he cleverly slipped by.

Before getting to the puzzle, another story about Matt. He wrote me about one puzzle to see if I understood it, and I was honestly baffled. I stared at it for the longest time before finally admitting defeat. Check it out and see if you agree with Matt or Will on the clue for 36A. Now that I understand it, I side with Matt. The fact that I couldn't figure it out on my own probably means Will was right, though.

Ah, the puzzle, a extremely tough workout for me, especially the northern hemisphere. Matt works in some great marquee fill, my favorites being GARAGE DOOR, HAZMAT SUIT, and the incredibly difficult to spell SCHADENFREUDE (note: I spelled this wrong even after I double-checked it; thanks David Barnhouse!). What is the latter, you ask? It's that feeling you get of guiltily giggling behind your hands when a bird poops on the head of your enemy (not that I've ever done that — neither the giggling nor the pooping). Ah, those wacky Germans.

The north was so difficult for me, starting with SCHADENFREUDE appropriately enough (no giggling, please). I didn't know what MENE was, so I jammed MANE in, misspelling it SCHADENFRAUDE. Rats! And then the cluing in the NE corner was so opaque that it took a good guess on DEATH to break things open. I might have preferred at least one easier clue up there — [Furnishing in many tearoom] is a really nice clue for TATAMI, but surrounded by so many other vague clues, that area played like a hard Saturday more than a Friday for me. If you had trouble too, take solace that tomorrow's puzzle came much easier to me; perhaps the same will be true for you.

I didn't really get what THE NANNY / LOST / ALL MY CHILDREN meant, or why it was funny as a statement, so I was really glad to read Matt's Note. On previous puzzles, I've tended to agree with Will more than Matt (in the interests of catering to a larger number of solvers), but on this one, I think I like Matt's subtle tongue-in-cheekery better. Sorry Will!

I read Matt's note three times before finally e-mailing him to figure out what I was missing. I literally slapped my forehead when I heard back from him: of course "differently" is pronounced "differently", whether or not the D is capitalized. Good one, Matt!