Natalie Murphy author page
1 puzzle by Natalie Murphy
with Jeff Chen comments
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I wondered what all those random circles were for, initially. It turns out they were for initials! Presidential puzzle for Presidents Day.
JFK = JUST FOR KICKS is perfect. Not only is Kennedy commonly referred to by his initials, JUST FOR KICKS is a great phrase. Incredibly difficult letters to work with, too, making JUST FOR KICKS a gem of a discovery.
Also excellent: GOING WAY BACK, for similar reasons. It's not as stellar because Bush the younger was more of a W or Dubya, but GWB works. The letters are easier to work with, too, so there are alternate phrases like GUESS WHOS BACK and GIANT WATER BUG.
HAVING SAID THAT is such a juicy phrase. HST, though … it's in crosswords all the time, including a previous presidential trigram puzzle, but the Wikipedia article doesn't have a single reference to HST.
As fun as it was to get so many themers, it might have been better to drop one. Five longish themers are no (Light Bulb) Joke. The layout automatically forces you to deal with Y??G, which has few possibilities. YANG would be fine, but YEGG is some HST-era crosswordese. I thought Will Shortz would have put it on his dreaded "puzzle-killer" list by now. Also in that region: LIANA, which one can make a case for as reasonable, but I've heard a lot of complaints about it over the years.
Fun debut idea and apt for the holiday. Some tough crossings and inelegances to work out, but that also feels apt given that those are elements to a POTUS's job.