Michael Schlossberg author page

This puzzle sure brings back memories … of when I could put virtually any food in front of my toddlers, and they'd happily eat more than just TIDBITS.

Right, the book was a staple in our household, too.

Great idea here, the VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR munching through seven themers on its way to spelling out TIDBITS. Solid example of the letter-buried-in-hidden-word genre that's becoming more replicated these days.

Michael's desire to get the holes to line up — mirroring the book's layout! — is admirable. This is an extremely difficult task, though, nearing the impossible. With mirror symmetry, six themers lined up is not that bad. Adding a seventh in the center column makes life miserable. Not only do you have to jam in that extra themer, but a long vertical entry in the center column forces you to build a triple-stack around it.

Why is that? Look where Michael has CUPBEARER. Note that COURT RECESS and ORIGINAL SIN could be shortened to nine letters apiece, but there's no way to get them any shorter (without creating one-letter unchecked squares).

The unfortunate result is that the caterpillar (and solver) has to zig-zag through the seven themers. Might be a good thing for the caterpillar at least, given that he needs the exercise to burn off all that gluttony.

Great seed of an idea, and impressively clean gridwork, but TIDBITS didn't give me a fist-pump. It would have been great fun to brainstorm what other meta answer land more strongly, or to doodle with grid art in an attempt to create a wiggly caterpillar out of black squares.

Another puzzle for sneakerheads — it's gotta be the shoes! BEAVIS AND BUTTHEAD are a pair of loafers, and CAMPAIGN PROMISES come before no-new-taxes-style flip-flops. LIQUID PLUMR is a noted name in (drain) clogs, and ARTIFICIAL HEARTS are custom-fitted pumps, of a sort.

I wasn't quite as hot on WATERGATE BURGLARS, since the phrase is from half a century ago, but it makes me laugh to think of their Hamburglar-like hamhandedness.

I liked the idea behind the PARKING TICKET clue, but [Slip before putting on a boot?] felt like it slipped a bit in its awkwardness. Not enough to give it the boot, though, thankfully.

Will Shortz and the NYT team are cracking down more these days on Sunday grid layouts, especially those with excessive short entries and ones exhibiting choked grid flow. When you have seven long(ish) themers, it's tough to avoid using a ton of short entries, so the best you can often do is to make them as unnoticeable as possible. Solvers might hitch on stuff like MKTS and QAT, but everything else is impeccable.

As for grid flow, the NW and SE corners are nearly cut off from the rest of the puzzle — they are only connected through two themers apiece. This helps immensely in construction, part of the reason that Michael was able to achieve such smoothness, but it does risk solvers getting stuck in what feels like one of three mini-puzzles. If you have to sacrifice one or the other, Michael made the right choice to prioritize a smooth solve.

Hardly a puzzle that fell FLAT.

The pre-production drafts that Jim Horne and I reviewed had a normal grid with none of the lines removed. We were baffled. Between the two of us, it's almost always the case that at least one person (Jim) can explain what's going on to the dolt (me). Staring at our computer screens, we quickly figured out DOCTORS (without borders) and guessed maybe (no end) IN SIGHT.

Then ATTENTION sure got our attention. What phrase was it supposed to evoke? We came up with ATTENTION (deficit), (undivided) ATTENTION, (center of) ATTENTION, ATTENTION (span), and more, before it lost our attention. Wait, (losing one's) ATTENTION?

I love it when a crossword highlights the benefits of print media over newfangled electronic ‘puters. Give me a pencil and paper any day of the week, gol durn it! There's something wonderful about paper winning a single battle in the war it will eventually lose.

Michael did so well to play on so many edges — sides, bottoms, tops, dividers — each jabbing and punching at computers. Granted, it's like a blind-worm tickling Hagrid, but you gotta root for the underdog.

Featuring TOPLESS DANCERS made me uncomfortable. Tough to figure out what a more family-friendly entry might have been, though. TOPLESS BEACHES? GLASS CEILING?

And even with the pdf hardcopy, I had to think for yet longer about ACCUSATIONS before coming up with (groundless). I did achieve victory eventually, though, so—

Oh. It must be (baseless) ACCUSATIONS!

Now I really need something to TAKE THE EDGE OFF.

Hiccups in my drawn-out solving experience aside, WHAT FUN, indeed. I appreciated the range of ways Michael played upon this phrase.

Some great finds! These can be discovered programmatically — assemble a list of book titles, write some code, sit for a few days while your computer chugs away — but, amazingly, Michael found so many pairs of books that 1.) nest one inside the other, and 2.) are similar enough that a single clue could describe both of them.

HEIDI and THE WIND AND THE WILLOWS both fit the clue so aptly! Incredible that such specifics as "children's classic" and "country dwellers' friendships" are spot-on.

HATCHET is a classic of middle-grade lit. Gripping survival story that I highly recommend. The clue is a bit stretchy to encompass both books, but it mostly works.

There's something so impressive about a long title like OTHELLO inside FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS. However, when you have to broaden a clue like describing OTHELLO in "Southern Europe" … that's not as impressive.

Nor is describing DUNE so generically — how many millions of books are about family and free will?

TO MAKE A LONG STORY SHORT didn't work for me. That would have been a perfect revealer if you could find something like LOVE or MORTALITY within FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS, or EGOTISM or ALIENATION in CRIME AND PUNISHMENT. That can also be done programmatically, but it's a much broader search space that might make your computer beg for mercy.

Is there a better revealer? Or do you even need one? A title like Two-for-one Special of Story Within a Story could have been excellent.

While there were some character development issues, I loved the novel-ty of this concept.

Ow, stop sticking me with those sharp plot points!

It's funny to think about yelling HONEY, I'M HOME in the pandemic era. Jill would roll her eyes at me because I'm always home. Just wait until HONEY I'M GIVING YOU SOME MUCH NEEDED ALONE TIME gains traction.

It seemed evident from the get-go that STREET had to be thematic, and once I uncovered STEPS, LANDING, DOOR, I was sure it was some sort of AROUND THE HOUSE idea. Neat to be surprised that HOUSE wasn't even in the revealer.

It took me a while to figure out that it was a progression instead of a random collection of home-related things. I would have bet a hundred bucks that I've never had a LANDING, but it turns out I've had many. Starting at the STREET, coming up the STEPS, landing on the LANDING, opening the DOOR — that's a tidy sequence. Neat that each of those words can be disguised (more or less) at the ends of phrases.

Solid Monday gridwork; such a smooth product. Maybe STENOS aren't as ubiquitous as they used to be in the 20th century, but it's still an important profession. SPACE SUITS and SKINNY DIPS added great color, too.

HONEY, I'M HOME evoked images of 1950's sitcoms, which clash with Jill and my philosophy about splitting household and childcare tasks 50/50. I'm curious if people say HONEY I'M HOME these days? Shania Twain has a catchy version that flips the script, anyway.

Looking past that moment of discomfort, I enjoyed the unexpected and orderly progression.

I couldn't wait to see what the pyramid of circled letters would spell. This had to be some awesome Pascal's triangle or peg-jumping theme.

E … F P?

T O Z?

More like W T F. But that made me even more curious.

L P E D …

P E F C D.

O K ... Y Y Y?!

Ah! There are repeated Ps and Es. Is "mind your Ps and Es" a thing?

Oh, right. I should read the message … I passed my EYE TEST?

*squinting like I do at the optometrist's office*

I'm usually the one to play the "this would have been awesome if" game, but Jim Horne beat me to the punch today. He had a similar suggestion to Mike's, starting with a 3x3 square of nine Es at the top, with 2x2s of Fs and Ps after that. That would have been fantastic, getting much more at an actual eye chart.

I kept the ball rolling — how about if the lowest line of five letters was fuzzed out in gray! Better yet, what if it contained nonsense characters, a la Hans Moleman?

Jim, the Simpsons infidel, reacted much more with a question mark than a smiley face.

Although the EYE TEST gag didn't land for me, I enjoyed the attempt at something different. More importantly, Michael did a wonderful job of incorporating enough interesting fill to keep up solving interest. BANYAN TREE and PROM QUEENS are top-notch. UNADORNED is kind of unadorned, but along with YAPPED SNEERS there's a lot of sass.

★ I love getting cleverly stymied in "Name That Theme." NUTS AND BOLTS. AN ARM AND A LEG. Clearly, it's X AND Y phrases. Let's figure out what ties them more tightly.

Wait. LIGHTNING ROD?

Bzzt … literally!

At that point, I went looking for hidden words like SAND in NUTS AND BOLTS and MAN in AN ARM AND A LEG. Nope.

Maybe BOLTS, LEG, ROD are all different parts of … a Wankel rotary engine?

Even this mechanical engineer snickered.

Wait! The BOLTS is the nickname for the San Diego Chargers. The LEG … is the nickname of their punter, Mr. ROD?

An appropriate bzzzzt!!! for that Chargers theory.

Such a huge smile on my face upon uncovering FRANKENSTEIN. All three themers work beautifully, these figures of speech literally things that Dr. FRANKENSTEIN needed. You might even say that this joke was a graveyard smash.

Ow, stop smashing me!

A couple of blips in execution, not surprisingly showing up in the 1.) big NW corner (LAOTSE crossing ARS) and 2.) middle, where two themers squish together (ENGR crossing the ambiguous G CLEFS). Much of this stems from having to squeeze themers together since the 12-letter FRANKENSTEIN had to go in row 12, not 13. Some massaging could have helped boot out the AMIE/AMI and SNERTy crossword glue, but there's a case to be made that goodies like AD LIBS, MEADOW, AMOEBA, ROADIE, TWISTY, DONKEY …

And now that I see all those mid-length bonuses, I'm perfectly fine with these trade-offs.

What I want most out of a crossword, especially these days, is a few minutes of diversion, maybe some smiles, and even a laugh. I got all that and a whole lot more today. You might even say I was buzzing with electricity—

Bzzt bzzt BZZZZZZT!!!!

Today's puzzle is a curious mix of "disparate definitions of a single word," rebus, and grid art. Let's look at them individually.

Disparate definition themes often flop because the grid entries sound like dry dictionary definitions. Phrases like GAME IN A HALL and DOG IN A NURSERY RHYME? Yuck! I appreciated that Michael steadfastly held to in-the-language themers. ABSOLUTELY RIGHT that NURSERY RHYME is a much better entry than DOG IN A NURSERY RHYME!

Also nice: the four definitions are so different from each other — term from Scrabble, dog from a song, the Bingo hall game, and an exclamation. I've thought about many words that could lend themselves to "disparate definitions" themes, but Bingo never crossed my mind. Surprising that there are four different ways to get at it.

Putting the word "Bingo" in the clues, though, gave away the game right from the get-go. Hiding the theme until the end, with BINGO as the last across answer, could have generated a solid a-ha moment.

Although, if you had already figured out the FREE rebus, you would have already known what's going on.

Hmm.

Rebuses with only one instance aren't common, and they can be hit or miss. The question is always, is it worth the potential solver confusion? Today, I was plus/minus on it. Yes, it did hint at a Bingo card, but only one of the four themers was about the game of Bingo.

It's also strange to work FREE into such a long piece of fill, GLUTEN FREE CEREAL. I love that entry, but I spent some time wondering how this, the longest phrase in the puzzle, was related to Bingo. Something like MR (FREE)ZE is equally fun, and it wouldn't muddy up the thematic waters. Even better, it would make grid construction easier.

Finally, the grid art aspect. I loved the visual of a Sunday Bingo puzzle from more than a decade ago, because it went whole hog. You want Bingo? You got the B I N G O, along with a whole bunch of numbers and a FREE space!

Interesting mix of thematic elements today. Not completely successful, but I liked the attempt to create something fresh.

★ Animal themes have been done ad infinitum in crosswords, so an extra layer is essential. Thankfully, that's what Michael has given us today. Note that it's hardly a loosey-goosey (ha) set of themers, but nice and tight — every phrase is an animal's part, expressed in a possessive format. I enjoyed the 50/50 approach of having two themers as "X OF THE Y," and two as "THE X'S Y."

Outstanding debut gridwork, too. Monday products ought to be newb-friendly, with the potential to convert those on the fence. One major tenet is to make your short stuff unnoticeable, allowing a solver to breeze through without having any needle-scratching-across-a-record moments. There were two blips in ALEE and ORY (the latter heavily globulous), but that's an admirable result for any constructor, much less a rookie.

I appreciate that Michael didn't try to do too much. Stick to 78 words your first couple of times, so you have the best chance of coming through with a beautifully smooth early-week product. Toss in a pair of bonuses like HEAR ME OUT and MY MISTAKE, and call it good. If you can insert a bit of SHA NA NA, DRY HEAT, and a Z in BREEZED, definitely do it! As long as you can do it with minimal compromises, that is.

Too often, experienced constructors hear the call of the dark side, aiming for an audacious product that newer solvers might end up cocking their heads at — or worse. Today's is a perfect example of a welcoming gateway; a crossword with a simple yet novel theme, and a grid that allows for a fist-pumping victory. Bravo!