Patrick Berry author page

"Themes are fun." To me, that's a drastic understatement, especially when it comes to Sunday grids. There's so much space in a 21x21 grid for creativity, for artistic license, for dreaming up the bold. We've seen so much audacious grid art, visual puzzles, even standard theme types taken so beautifully to the grand stage.

Sunday grids have so many squares that I think it takes a lot to hold a solver's attention through the entire solve. I've seen many friends walk away from a puzzle halfway through because they figure out roughly what's going on … and then there are more interesting things to do. I felt a touch of this today.

No doubt, there were more clever clues than a typical Sunday puzzle — probably by a factor of two. I was particularly taken with the ONE WAY STREETS / [You can't go back on them] pairing. That's brilliant!

But for me, it wasn't enough to hold my attention through the entire solve.

Perhaps a less ambitious grid — say a 136-worder? — would have allowed for more jazzy feature entries, and for even more clever clues? Maybe that would have made up for the lack of theme for me.

I'm in full agreement with Jim about the uniquely Berryesque craftsmanship. I'm a huge admirer of Patrick. And I think experimentation in anything is generally good. But man oh man do I appreciate a fantastic theme that's able to carry me through a 21x21 grid with gusto. There's a huge world of untapped themes floating around in the ether, and I hope that Will doesn't let unthemed Sunday puzzles intrude upon that.

Jim and I enjoy comparing reactions to a week's worth of puzzles, and I've found that much of the time, he enjoys the Fridays and Saturdays more than the others. For me, I'm always in search of the next great theme. Vive la différence!

I've never seen spoonerisms done with three-word phrases. They were tricky for me to untangle, so here's the list of base phrases:

BEAK OF LAD STRUCK: streak of bad luck.

THE STUCK HOPS HERE: the buck stops here.

PALE HAIRY MASS: male perry hass. Er … hail mary pass.

TERROR OF BAD GLIDINGS: bearer of … glad tidings?

ROCK STAR CASES: my stupid brain keeps starting this one with "cock." Thankfully, it's actually stock car races.

THE FANTA TRAY SALE: the Santa Fe Trail.

HEAL FIGHT AT ROME: this took me forever, embarrassing since there are only five possible permutations remaining. Feel right at home.

The best spoonerisms are the ones where 1.) it's a snap to figure out what the person actually intended, and 2.) the spoonerized phrase is titillating, embarrassing the speaker.

Luckily, a few of these did snap right into place for me. Not so luckily, very few of the resulting phrases amused me. No surprise — it's so tough to find phrases that work this way, that it's a small miracle that Patrick was able to find these seven.

Even with a theme that wasn't on my wavelength, I always appreciate a Berry grid, silky smooth as usual. I can count on one hand the number of constructors who can create a Sunday 140-word grid with just some minor KTEL NEATH kind of stuff — way, way, way under the norm.

Highlight for me: the Shortz-era debut of PENAL CODE, with a brilliant clue, misdirecting to English class: [Rules for forming sentences]. Puzzle was worth doing for that alone.

Solid 66-word grid from the master. It's so tough to execute well on these low(ish) word count themelesses, most of them failing either on too much crossword glue or too little pizzazz.

PB pulls off pretty quad-stacks in the SW / NE. AT A GLANCE / CAT LITTER / O PIONEERS / WHAT ELSE with a PARKING LOT as slang for a jammed highway! That's about as good as you can expect from such a huge swath of white space to fill.

Nice touch on OSCAR / DE LA RENTA paired together … in subsequent grid entries! It's a shame that OSCAR didn't come first, but the pairing was still juicy.

My spidey sense did tingle when I hit ALDEAN. Okay, my knowledge level of country music is only slightly better than a reanimated corpse, so I shrugged ALDEAN off as someone maybe I ought to learn. But then LAMAR Odom … I'm a big fantasy b-ball fan and LAMAR Odom … sigh, such unfulfilled potential. Not only did he have the chance to become an NBA legend what with his all-around talent, but HE HAD A CHANCE TO BECOME CROSSWORTHY AND HELP CONSTRUCTORS TREMENDOUSLY!

Then, FRAN and … Kukla and Ollie? Huh. STEUBEN as a defunct art glass company? ANTOINE as Fats Domino's real name? I knew that last one because it's saved a few of my harder grids, what with all those constructor-friendly common letters.

Huh.

Even the great PB had to pay a price in those giant SW / NE corners. Most mere mortals wouldn't work with quad-stacks to begin with. Even fewer would try to "turn the corner" with them — imagine how much easier that NE quad-stack would be to construct if JIBE became black squares. If only he didn't include so many esoteric names. I'd have even been fine with a bit of short crossword glue instead, if only for variety.

Often, I think quad-stacks aren't worth it. Even PB couldn't get four out of four sizzlers in either of his. Usually, I'd suggest breaking up one of the entries, say placing a black square at the N of CLEANS OUT and the L of AT A GLANCE, so you can make three out of three sizzle. But in this case, those two entries are the least juicy answers of their respective stacks. Given that everything else around them is pretty darn good, leaving those two intact doesn't change much. So it's okay by me.

Solid work overall, for a low(ish) word count grid. Shame about all those tough names.

PB has been focusing on low word count themelesses over the past few years. A 64-word puzzle is notoriously difficult to execute on with both color and cleanliness, and I wonder if his work has suffered a tad by staying within this genre.

There were a lot of strong entries — METEOR SHOWERS / SOCIAL STUDIES made for a nice middle crossing pair — and CAT HAIR and RED APPLE are pretty good too. But there were so many entries that didn't do much for me. As a solver, I don't get much out of piecing together something foreign to me if there's too much of it.

It would have been fine — great, actually — if it had been one new person/thing, perhaps BARBARA JORDAN, for example. I loved learning about her! Leader in the Civil Rights Movement, so many firsts in politics, a Presidential Medal of Freedom, etc. I should have known about her, and I'm glad the puzzle prompted me to want to learn.

But then you toss in ROBERT ALTMAN. Okay, I should have known him, too. LEO FENDER? Huh. ACOMA … the historic pueblo? "Tony n' TINA'S Wedding," the off-Broadway play? MOREY Amsterdam? Coolidge's VP … DAWES?

I often hear from non-crossword people that they don't do crosswords because they're all about trivia. That's mostly incorrect, but I can see how a puzzle like today's might reinforce that idea.

It still mostly has the masterful PB touch — an average 64 worder might contain 5-10 dabs of crossword glue, whereas PB uses fewer — but it didn't give me the same elation as PB's themelesses from a few years back. I'd love to see him go back to higher word counts.

SMORGASBORD of great answers jam-packed into that wide-open middle, MONKEY BARS, GEORGE WILL, the CASPIAN SEA, and a LAYWAY PLAN doing the MESS AROUND. That is one beautiful swath of goodness!

My first impression of the puzzle was that PB had used a ton of cheater squares — three in the very NW, the one below NAT, the one before GEORGE WILL — 10 in all. Usually I barely even notice them, but today, there were so many strewn about that the overall visual effect stood out to me as inelegant.

I can understand why PB did it, those cheaters making it so much easier to fill the NW and SE smoothly. But aesthetically, the grid didn't appeal to me. Personal preference of course, but feels like kind of a cheat to use so many.

PB has been working with low word-count puzzles these days — usually 66, which is tough to pull off — and sometimes I wonder if he'd be better off sticking to 68s, which I think is his sweet spot. He produces such stellar work at 68 words.

For example, I'd love to see what he could have done by placing a black square at the Y of DEADEYES. That might have allowed him to remove the four cheaters in the SE, and still get two great entries where OPERA BOXES and RETOTALED sit. To me, RETOTALED doesn't do much but take up space.

Odd to see both CEBU and SHOAT in a PB puzzle. He's usually so careful to avoid entries that could seem esoteric. They're both perfectly fine words, just not PB-ish.

I did love PAX ROMANA, GAS BILL, OPERA BOXES, and that fantastic middle section. I'd bet that if PB had stuck to his 68-word sweet spot, he would have made his NW / SE as impressive as his middle.

Ship puns, ROCK EM SOCK EM ROWBOATS (robots) giving me a big laugh. Such a funny image, such a ridiculous game concept. AINT SEEN NOTHING YACHT (yet) was also a winner in my eyes. It's not often that I enjoy pun themes this much.

Some constructors would try to distinguish a straightforward pun puzzle by going down below 140 words, by crossing themers, by packing way too many themers in, etc. But the Master knows the limits of Sunday puzzles so well, avoiding these traps on his way to delivering his trademark incredibly smooth grid, crafted with so much elegance.

Okay, nine themers is pretty difficult to pull off, especially when some of them are long. I would have actually been fine without SEMI TRAWLER, but since PB worked it in without compromises, it's a nice bonus.

One thing constructors ought to note: look at how many cheater squares PB used ... without making them feel like they were really cheating. There's two on the top row (after AVAST and after BAH), one before RYE, one after ELI. (The one before ROCK EM SOCK EM ROWBOATS doesn't count in my eyes, since it's forced by the 20-letter themer length.) That's eight (!) cheater squares in total, but I barely noticed them, since they're so spread out; none of them clumped up. Cheater squares help SO much, and not enough constructors use them.

Not a ton of bonuses in the grid, but with TAPE DELAY and its fantastic clue — it gives a censor time to remove a curse (word)! — NUMERO UNO, RAT TRAP, HANGS IT UP, these do the trick.

As with every PB puzzle, hard to point out even a single subpar entry. I hadn't known Neal BOORTZ, but learning one thing out of a puzzle is a good thing for me. And all the crosses were easy enough.

Not every Sunday puzzle has to be groundbreaking or even novel, but this is a perfect example of how a tried and true theme type can be executed to such a degree of elegance that it still shines.

Solid PB offering, three juicy answers stacked atop each other in HARBORMASTERS / TEN GALLON HATS / TURKEY DINNERS. PB has such a knack for selecting seed answers that are both snazzy in themselves and that lend themselves to great cluing. Best example today: TEN GALLON HAT is made even better by the clever [High tops?] wordplay. I missed the puniness of [Pier group?] the first time around for HARBORMASTERS, but such nice twist on "peer group."

Too bad TURKEY DINNERS didn't get a wickedly clever clue. Feels like there's something you could riff on like "for the birds" or "giving thanks" or something. Maybe referencing the Presidential tradition of pardoning the turkey? (My attempts at Berryesque cluing are so sad …)

Nice to get SILVER LININGS running through that stair stack, too. Though again, it would have been awesome to have a less straightforward clue than [Optimists' discoveries]. Maybe something about Optimist International? Not quite sure what that would be, though.

As with most PB puzzles, there were a ton of great clues spread around. My favorite was [Pair in "Carmen"], for which I embarrassingly filled in CASTAWAYS at first. So much for my years and years of playing in symphony orchestras. Great misdirection, leading away from the musical CASTANETS knocked together.

Also as with most PB puzzles, so smooth. BEEFED got an odd clue, referring to making complaints, but BEEFED up is perfectly fine, so no complaints here. My wife alerted me that KENO isn't super well-known where she's from (Indianapolis), but if that's your weakest link in short fill, that's, well, Berryesque.

I love how Patrick's puzzles almost always feel both challenging and doable, rarely relying on esoteric answers — they're so often accessible to a huge swath of solvers, regardless of age or fresh pop culture knowledge. I have noticed that recently, his puzzles don't have as many colorful answers (akin to TEN GALLON HATS) as I like, though. Would have been great to get a few more of those in place of STATE BANKS, CLUTCHES, KENMORE, SEA OATS, etc.

PB is the master at making ultra-clean puzzles, filling this tough 64-worder as if it were a 72-worder. Check out how wide-open that middle is, requiring eight (!) crossing long answers. Doing that all with nary a dab of crossword glue is amazing craftsmanship. There are some great entries right through that tough middle: I GOT THIS, YOURE FREE TO GO, and POUND STERLING are all top-notch.

I've recently found myself looking back at previous PB themelesses to compare and contrast. I tend to like his higher word-count puzzles better than his lower ones, since the latter tend to use more entries that I'm not familiar with, or that don't sing to my ear.

Now, the lack of sizzly answers will almost be a given for a PB low-word-count themeless, considering his incredibly high standard when it comes to avoiding crossword glue. In a 64-word puzzle, it's nearly impossible to get both an uber-jazzy and perfectly silky-smooth puzzle. In today's puzzle for example, SHIP OF THE LINE (?), REST AREA (a bit dull), and HOUSE TRAINING ("house trained" or "potty training" sound more natural to me) wouldn't go in my listing of the puzzle's assets.

Same goes with MEASURING, BANG BANG (feels a bit arbitrary), TRUMBO (although to be fair, having two little kids hampers my ability to watch much of anything these days). And the HOULIHAN / GNEISS crossing … I think it's ultimately fair, but it felt borderline for those who haven't seen much M*A*S*H and don't know fairly deep geology.

Where PB continually distinguishes himself is in his clever cluing. Some of that could be from Will and Joel, but PB's puzzles always seem to have at least a half dozen great wordplay clues. My favorite was [Ruler's role], which had to be related to government — except that it was referring to a MEASURING stick. Beautiful way to elevate an otherwise drab entry.

Ultimately, a smooth and enjoyable solving experience, just like most all of PB's offerings, if not that sparkly.

There are few constructors who can put together a 66- or even 68-word themeless as smoothly as PB can. Today, he goes all the way down to a 62-worder, one of the toughest tasks in all of construction. A puzzle with so few words is bound to have big white spaces to fill, and today it's that giant swath in the middle. So many long entries intersecting each other!

A constructor's secret: those "stairstep" chunks of black squares in the north, west, east, and south can make filling a low-word-count grid like this almost an order of magnitude easier. Not only do those blocks chip away at the number of letters you need to put in, but they tend to stagger entries, making for more favorable vowel/consonant patterns.

It's a tricky balance, though — use too many of these stairstep chunks, and your grid looks visually unappealing. (Also, overanalytical/anal constructors notice your overusage and annoyingly point them out.) I like PB's result today, pairs of stairstep chunks forming two implied diagonal lines from lower left to upper right. Pretty.

The result is amazingly smooth, not a surprise given PB's emphasis on avoiding crossword glue. However, the usual trade-off between snazziness and smoothness comes into play even more than usual, with the former suffering. I only got excited about a few of the answers in that big middle: PENNY ARCADE, HERE WE GO, and SPEAKEASY.

No doubt, it's subjective. But HOUSE CLEANS doesn't do much for me, for example. (CLEANS HOUSE is much more evocative; a term for making huge changes in an organization.) And I more or less know what a FIRESCREEN, CRADLE SONG, and STONE CIRCLE are ... but I wouldn't go out of my way to incorporate them into a themeless. The last one was a real letdown — I so badly wanted the awesome STONEHENGE.

Along with the oddball LARRUP and arbitrary SIX-YEAR-OLDS, I felt the grid didn't have nearly as much pizzazz as I generally want.

But a 62-word grid is a feat in its own right, and they're usually full of crossword glue splattered liberally around. Impressive, to have executed so smoothly on such a hard task.

I don't know if there's anyone better at clever cluing than Patrick Berry. His last few grids haven't had many marquee answers that are jazzy in themselves, but he's given us such great clues that the entries themselves don't need to sizzle.

I usually stop to write down standout clues as I solve a themeless, about two or three times on average. I stopped at least five times today:

• [Heady stuff] is a colorful phrase, and it describes a foamy ALE so well.
• [Takes the edge off] is also a great phrase, perfect misdirect for SANDS (as in removing a burr). Both of these don't require the giveaway question mark at the end of the clue, either.
• [Sharp club] made me think of a mace or some other weapon. Nope, a club of smarties in MENSA.
• [Indian bread] usually is NAAN or NAN or maybe even ROTI. Not this time, describing Native American currency, WAMPUM. I've seen a lot of plays on "bread" as a term for currency, but this one had a nice extra twist.
• When would a population go from one to two, to zero? In Eden, with Adam, then Adam + Eve, then both getting the boot.

I do like to see at least a handful of jazzy entries in themelesses, though. ASTEROID BELTS and SAUSAGE DOG are great, and even this pop music idiot knew some lyrics to SUMMERTIME BLUES. But MAD TEA PARTY … well, it appears to be the correct name, but it sounded funny to my ear as I solved. And QUEEN OF MEAN is a catchy nickname, but it does feel outdated at this point, especially for a feature slot in the puzzle.

Along with the more neutral BLEW INTO (adding a preposition rarely impresses me), and SELECTEE, I would have liked a little more zing in the long entries themselves.

Still, I was so entertained by the solve. Patrick is so good with his cluing.

I love me a PB themeless roughly once a month, every one doing something different in grid layout. We have a "topologically similar grids" feature (hit the "Analyze" button below and scroll down), and it's no surprise that there are no similar grids in our database. I love that drive to innovate.

So glad Will ran this one on a Saturday instead of Friday! In general, PB's puzzles are more Saturday-difficult than Friday-easy-breezy for me, since he uses such devilishly clever wordplay, obfuscating answers so much. I love it when [Something work-related] turns out to have nothing to do with corporate work, but artistic works in a COMPANION PIECE. But having that great entry/clue pairing in such a wide-open space made it so difficult for me to crack.

I did enjoy that top, once I eventually got it. I wasn't sure what MOMMIE DEAREST was, but apparently, it was quite a thing back in 1978. I wasn't sure who Christina Crawford was — heck, I'm barely familiar with Joan Crawford — but I bet people of an older generation might think this entry a total gimmie.

Very unusual for PB to allow such segmentation in one of his grids, the black squares chunking the puzzle into a top, middle, and bottom. It's not the worst kind of segmentation — the connections in the NE/SW are slightly more open than the very choked-off tunnels in the NW/SE — but I didn't care for the choppy nature of my solve.

Also unusual to see STETS in a PB. I can just see him at his computer, wringing his hands, wondering if he could allow such a minor ding past his sky-high standards.

And the puzzle did have an older feel to me, what with MOMMIE DEAREST, the discontinued LESABRE and XTERRA, and ROSEANNE. But given that there are likely a lot of older solvers out there, it's good to have a puzzle targeted there in a while.

Impressively clean 62-word puzzle, albeit with a few more liabilities than PB usually allows. The wide-open nature of the top and bottom made them two incredibly tough workouts.

Exceedingly smoothly themeless, as per usual for PB. There weren't any feature entries that I *squeed!* over, but there were several that were very solid. I especially liked YOGI BERRA, N'EST CE PAS?, and the PURPLE COW / CREAM SODA combination.

When using a standard-ish themeless layout — triple-stacks of 8-10 letter-long answers in each of the four corners — constructors often seed each corner with a single answer and build around them. Each of the four seed entries can help its respective corner sing. This can, however, lead to problems knitting the corners together into a single, fluid puzzle.

I wonder if Patrick started with HOLDUP JOB and maybe PURPLE COW, allowing his filling process to flow eastward without having to meld into other seed answers. I'd bet good money on HOLDUP JOB as the starting point, since it's one of the most interesting phrases in the puzzle, and it's never been used in a major crossword. (Although I did wonder if STICKUP JOB was snazzier.) The fact that MUDFISH crosses it — another new to major crosswords entry — and I'd double down that bet.

The result is as smooth as always. I'm pretty sure that it's a result of a ton of trial and error even for the great PB, and what differentiates him from other themeless constructors is his willingness (relentlessness?) to keep on restarting a section over and over and over again until he finally can create something silky-smooth.

This process also tends to result in a grid that's not always the sparkliest or freshest, but that's the trade-off PB typically makes, and it usually makes for a very satisfying solve.

KILEY was a toughie, but the crossings seem to be all fair. TITO might be tough for some, but Josep Broz TITO is no doubt someone that educated solvers ought to know.

Patrick's themelesses almost always leave me with such a feeling of satisfaction, his puzzles so smooth and solvable. I always feel sorry for the poor sucker who has to follow him. (insert foreshadowing here)

★ Beautiful puzzle; quintessential Patrick Berry. Here a few identifying factors that I identify with PB's themelesses:

• A wide-open, well-connected grid with no real choke points
• Well under the maximum of 72 words, creating a good challenge for solvers
• Interesting layout of black squares, always trying something new
• Some very good long answers like TEA CADDIES, HEAVEN SENT, RISING STAR, SPACE SUITS
• Very little to no gluey short answers needed to hold everything together
• Some neutral answers converted into assets through the use of a great wordplay clue, i.e. [Immersive experience] misleading toward a surround-sound theater experience, away from a dunking BAPTISM
• No really flashy answers, but also no trendy answers that might mystify / dissatisfy big chunks of the solving population

Themelesses always involve trade-offs, and each constructor has his/her own weightings on how important each of the above categories are. Some do low-word count puzzles with a lot of neutral / bleh answers, some have really flashy entries with a ton of crossword glue holding everything together, etc. Patrick's blend of factors works really well for me.

I don't always absolutely 100% love Patrick's themelesses — there's rarely a single mind-blowing entry that makes one of his stick in my mind — but they hit every criterion I use for evaluation at such a darn high level. I really, really, enjoyed this one, an ultra-smooth, wide-open solve with a lot of very good entries and not a single hiccup in gluey short fill.

I appreciate Patrick's continual efforts to push his boundaries, to explore new territories even though he's widely considered the greatest crossword constructor out there. Check out his constructor page to see the wide range of themeless grids he's tinkered with.

An interesting black square pattern today, forming a sort of number 2. I wondered if there would be some sort of mini-theme, but I don't think there is one. Drat!

I am mixed on the liberal use of black squares in the upper right and lower left corners though — they make my constructor's brain think so strongly about how much easier a puzzle like this is to fill with them in place. And visually, they do eat a big chunk off each corner. I'd be curious to see what "Crossword Jesus" could have done with three black squares in each corner instead of six. (Might he actually have limits?)

For a 64-word puzzle, it's very smooth; prototypical PB. Some of the answers gave it somewhat of an outdated vibe for me though, what with ROSEANNE CONNER being off the air for decades now, and a CASSETTE TAPE nearby to boot. Throw in Jack LALANNE intersecting both of them, and the bottom felt more fusty than classic, which is the feel I usually get from a PB.

NISSAN TITANS is a curious choice for 1-A. Not having heard of this truck before, I read up on it to see if there was something that distinguished it, perhaps a fun fact that would give solvers a chuckle or a good piece of trivia. Not so much, as far as I could see.

And two tough crossings: ALYDAR / SYLPH and GOANNA / GEE. I think both are fair, and all the words are fair game, but the esoteric GOANNA especially feels a bit un-Berrylike.

Overall, it has the smoothness that I prize out of themelesses, especially given the very low word count, but some of the feature entries didn't give me the sense of elation that I look for.

Patrick had me at the clue for ENGINEERS: [Scientists dream about doing great things. ENGINEERS do them.] It's something we all know to be true, deep down in our hearts, isn't it? Admit it! If James Michener said it, it must be true. Ipso facto, Q.E.D.!

No? Dammit Jim, I'm an engineer, not a logician!

Speaking of engineering, what a great job of engineering in this grid. Typical themelesses rely on a lot of three- and four-letter words to hold the longer material together. Without the shorties, the constructor is forced to work with giant open spaces, the likes of which often prove unfillable — unless you resort to a lot of neutral or flat-out ugly entries, that is. I rarely tackle any sort of quad-stack, since I've found that after dozens of hours, I end up relying on a couple of ugly little bits, along with some ho-hum space-fillers. That's not the kind of solving experience I relish.

None of Patrick's four corners is absolutely perfect, but they all get pretty darn close. The SW stood out for me, so much great material packed into that stack. COIN PURSE / HONOR ROLL / JET SETS are all excellent, with just ENGRAFTED a bit blah. But with KING JAMES running through it all — along with no liabilities down there — that's some incredible work.

Patrick uses a construction technique today that I've slowly picked up on over the years: it doesn't look or feel like he's segmenting the grid into quadrants, but he carefully places his middle black squares so that he can very nearly work on each section by itself. Once you place the S of ACHES, the S of PRATES, and set KING JAMES in, that SW can be tackled independently of everything else.

It's a tremendous advantage to be able to work on a subsection without worrying about the rest of the puzzle. And since there are enough entrances in and exits out of each corner, the puzzle still breathes. Great trade-off between the constructor's and the solvers' needs; very smart placement of those central black squares.

I wasn't aware of OLD BAILEY, a British criminal court, but I enjoyed learning about it. Along with some fantastic clue / entry pairs — [Life preserver?] getting at Life cereal in a CEREAL BOX, e.g. — it's a beautiful piece of grid engineering. Most weeks I'd easily give it the POW! but later this week there's another one I liked even better.

Classic Patrick Berry, a smooth 68-worder filled with a ton of solid entries. I appreciate the "classic" feel of PB themelesses, nothing that's faddish; that will be forgotten a year or even a month from now. I also like that he takes great care to incorporate a variety of answers into his work, aiming to give a little something to just about everyone. From the old-time LOUIS PRIMA to a more modern THE OMEN (with a great clue, referencing its ominous 6/6/06 release date!), from the 13th century classical STABAT MATER to the colloquial EVEN STEVEN … what nice range.

I enjoy seeing PB's experimentation in themelesses, almost always something new that he's trying out. Today he features a stair-stack of five long entries, a great quint featuring TWEENAGERS, NAIL SALONS, JOB TITLES. As usual, his grids have some neutral-ish entries like CHARACTERS — a bit dull since it's kind of a pedestrian word in everyday language — but also as usual, he elevates those with clever clues. [Book collection?] indeed hints at the CHARACTERS making up a book's cast.

PB is one of a very small handful of people who can pull off 68-word grids without resorting to the crutch of dabbing crossword glue here and there. So it was a little surprising to see AT SEA, ESTER, HIE today. These are very minor uglies, ones that would hardly register with me if this was anyone but PB. I have such a high bar for him though.

Also sticking out a bit is some lost potential in cluing. [It goes station to station] for FUEL TANKER was pretty good, but it felt like it could have misdirected much more sneakily to radio or other types of stations. ICEMAN ... [Nerves-of-steel type] felt like awkward usage. I'd have much preferred a clue referring to any one of the people given that awesome nickname over the years.

FYI, FRAN refers to "Kukla, Fran, and Ollie," an old TV show where Kukla and Ollie were puppets.

But overall, another smooth and classic 68-word puzzle from the master.

Different take on a quote puzzle, YOGI BERRA's famous "A nickel ain't worth a dime anymore" shown in double-letters. I liked the attempt to differentiate this from other quote puzzles by incorporate the quote using doubled letters. Sort of references the quote itself, given that two nickels do equal a dime.

The quote of a quote puzzle has to have great humorous or thoughtful impact in order to make all the solving work worth it. The a-ha moment for me wasn't as strong as I would have liked, mainly because it felt like there wasn't a very strong connection between the Yogiism and the fact that it was presented in double letters. I wonder if a different quote about "seeing double" would have been better?

Very difficult to pull off this grid, considering how many doubled letters PB had to work with — and in order! I liked getting some SCAPEGOAT, GAS CAPS, INTROVERT answers, which helped to keep me interested during my solve.

I did hitch at the various SDI (Will has said he wants to phase this one out), REARM, ASTA, SNO, EDD entries, because this is PB we're talking about, the master of smooth grids. This assortment of crossword glue would go unnoticed if this were any other constructor, but Patrick's bar is so high that this felt like a letdown. And having to go to 144 words — four past Will's usual maximum — was even more unusual.

So I investigated. Is it really THAT tough to pull off this feat of so many doubled letters, in order? Turns out, yes — and in spades! I played around with a grid to see if I might be able to put some more space between double letters, deploy black squares differently, etc., but there are so many of those letter pairs to work with. This is a much, much, much more difficult task than I had originally thought.

Given that, I appreciated this puzzle more than my original impression. Still, it would have been nice to get a stronger a-ha punch connecting the quote and the execution.

Yet another new grid pattern from the master, this time using a ton of interconnect to form his grid skeleton. Check out how the "stairstack" of PASSED THE TIME / DON'T LET ME DOWN / ROBERT PRESTON has not one, not two, but three long answers running through it — AGGRESSOR NATION, FREIGHT TRAIN, LAKEVIEW TERRACE. Talk about constraining yourself right off the bat!

As if that weren't enough, PB limits himself to 66 words, as is his norm these days for themelesses. And then, he deploys his black squares such that the solver has excellent grid flow, never really at risk of dead-ending anywhere. It al combines to form a very tough construction challenge.

I liked that NW corner the best. It should be much easier than the NE/SW corners, since it's more sectioned off. But it's still difficult, since it's already constrained by a lot of the grid skeleton. Good results; BREWS UP crossing EGGNOG and LEGAL PAD are all nice entries. For those of you (us) who still didn't know what REGINA meant, it's apparently the R of the E.R. in the "royal cypher." Learn something new every day.

I wasn't as impressed with the rest of the puzzle as I usually am with PB creations. There is some strong YULE LOG / FIRE LANE, TRIAL RUN material, but some of those long slots are taken up by more neutral entries like NOVEMBER, REAWOKEN, ETONIANS. This is a common issue with such difficult constructions — it's so hard to convert a high percentage of your long slots into snazzy material when you have so little flexibility. Even LAKEVIEW TERRACE I found a bit on the dry side.

Still though, PB gives us his trademark smooth solve, never dipping into the crossword glue to hold things together. Not my favorite PB themeless, but still entertaining.

Some really neat sound changes today, words starting in A reimagined so that the A acts as an article. APACHE HELICOPTER to A PATCHY HELICOPTER, how cool is that? THAT'S AMORE to THAT'S A MORAY, ALONE AT LAST to A LOAN AT LAST, and my favorite — AGGRAVATED ASSAULT to AGGRAVATED A SALT — these all are genius! That last one is particularly strong, given the huge spelling change involved plus the kooky visual of one sailor needling another.

The others didn't do as much for me, especially the ones where a letter was simply dropped. A RIVAL DATE gives a funny mental picture of two suitors jockeying for position, but ARRIVAL to A RIVAL isn't nearly as clever as APACHE to A PATCHY, in my eyes.

As usual, a grid that's clean as a whistle from the master. Especially impressive since he went down to 138 words, a tough construction challenge in itself, plus he squeezed in nine themers. It's unusual to see even an AFORE in a PB grid, but that's about it in terms of gluey bits. I did think AFORE was especially unusual, given that it sounds like it could be part of the theme.

Also as usual, some great clues to spice up the solve:

• An EPITAPH often contains "lies" … as in "Here lies …"
• How is a "Colonial home" a HIVE? If the bee colony is described as "colonial." (insert groan here)
• I love it when colorful phrases are repurposed for kooky definitions. "Land line" describing a COAST is beautiful.

Some clues I had to really think about:

• [Hand makeup] describing CARDS? You'd think that this bridge player would have gotten that sooner.
• I thought I was a "Peanuts" aficionado. EUDORA? Apparently she wears a purple knitted cap? Huh.
• "Ex Machina" is a 2015 film featuring a robot named AVA. Turns out that having a one-year old toddler pretty much wipes out all my ability to keep up on films.

Hey, PB's first foray into the "4x black square stairsteps" pattern since 2008! As Damon Gulzynski so accurately described, these stairsteps are like training wheels for themeless constructors — they make grids exponentially easier to fill, especially when it's a grid with wide-open spaces.

PB uses them moderately and wisely, achieving a stunning middle region. Check out that triplet of DUNCAN HINES / TALKING HEAD / GOES ON A DIET with SPANISH MAIN / FAITH NO MORE / TURN SIGNALS running through it — all in a giant swath of white space!

I typically "score" a themeless by starting with a count of assets, subtracting a count of liabilities, and adding in a vague number of points for "coolness factor." If the final score is above 10, I generally find the puzzle to be very strong.

I've never been able to quantify that last aspect very well, but today's puzzle helped me think about it. I was wowed by the puzzle as a whole, but when I went back to count the assets minus liabilities, I ended up with a score of roughly 10. PB puzzles are usually much higher than that — usually around 13 or even higher. So my "coolness factor" addition for this puzzle must be at least 3 points.

Thanks for indulging the annoying engineer in me. Ahem.

As always, PB excels at his cluing. I like how he selects entries not just for their innate color, but for how conducive they are to taking a clever clue. [Lightens up, say] makes GO ON A DIET absolutely sing. Same with [Side lights?] for TURN SIGNALS. Great stuff.

SHIRR is unusual to see in a PB puzzle, but it does appear to be a real word. The dictionary defines it as "gather by means of drawn or elasticized threads in parallel rows." Huh. But it does make that big SE corner work, and the benefits of FIRE UP, ARCANA, X RATED, DEADBEAT well worth it.

As usual, I could give most every PB the POW! But there's one I liked even more this week.

Sound change theme, an "ah" sound lengthening to "awe." These types of themes live and die by how humorous the results are, as well as the strength of the base phrases. Body-building to BAWDY BUILDING worked perfectly for me — that phrase brings up all sorts of fun imagery. I also liked "The Mod Squad" to THE MAUDE SQUAD, getting a visual of Bea Arthur as a thug.

Knotty pine to NAUGHTY PINE is a great transformation, but the resulting phrase didn't make enough sense to me to be funny, especially given the clue relating it to a "bad kid." SHUTTLE CAULK felt a bit too real — they probably use some sort of sealant on space shuttles, yeah? — to be funny. So, a mixed bag for me.

As usual, Patrick executes so well on his 140-word 21x grid. Using eight themers makes this construction even more difficult, but PB still manages to work in bonuses like DEWDROP, SPYCAMS, CLOUDSCAPE, and LADY GAGA (cool bit of trivia too, that her followers are known as "Little Monsters").

What makes PB really stand out on Sundays though, is the silky-smoothness of his short fill. I love seeing an entire grid of this size that doesn't use even mild crossword glue, because my experience says it's one of the toughest challenges in construction.

And beyond my personal sense of aesthetics, I think having this level of smoothness is valuable to solvers, leading to a higher degree of satisfaction upon completion. Mike Shenk of the WSJ said it best, that the constructor's top priority is to set up a challenge, constructor vs. solver, but to do it in such a way that the solver will ultimately prevail.

Struggling is a good thing when those final boxes fill in regular words. It's not nearly as satisfying when you have to rely on having done crosswords for years, knowing your common crossword glue in order to get a complete and accurate solve. Too often on Sundays, God help you if you don't have that experience, so I really appreciate PB's strict attention to detail when it comes to fill smoothness.

Standard PB fare, well-executed as usual.

Check out that big swath running from top left to bottom right! It's one thing to work in four nice long answers — SISTERS IN LAW (with its sneaky plural NOT ending in S), ONLINE POKER, LADIES FIRST, and HOMESTEAD ACT — but check out how the pairs of entries are locked so cleanly together by all those six and seven-letter answers in the middle. The more I stare at it, the more impressed I am.

And crossing a double-stack of long answers into a triple-stack like APENNINES (the Italian range) / WENCESLAS (with a clever clue nodding to Carole King) / NEOLATIN = a real feat. Constructors usually try to separate all their stacks as far away as possible, but Patrick crosses them together so smoothly. (Yes, some solvers say EPEE gets overused in crosswords, but it's a perfectly legit word.)

There were a few long answers that I thought were just neutral — ENSCONCED … okay, just ENSCONCED. Pretty amazing.

Given the high bar Patrick has set for himself, I wasn't as taken with the top right and bottom left corners. They were nice bonuses — many constructors would have been happy with just the NW to SE swath — but STEALTHIER feels just neutral to me, and LENS COVERS doesn't hit my ear nearly as well as LENS CAPS.

Additionally, Patrick's layout in those corners uses many more three-letter words than usual, which tends to make the puzzle too easy. For example, if you have a three-letter word referring to a bathroom, it's going to start with L (LOO or LAV). And entries like ALE and ELM and LYE have been used so many times that it's tough to come up with a new and devious clue. Those two corners fell all too easily for my taste.

As always, I love Patrick's innovations and experimentation in grid design. So cool to always see him work with a totally new grid design.

Sound change puzzle, this one using pairs of words connected by a drawl. MORE to MOWER, HEIGHTS to HYATTS, WRITERS to RIOTERS, it's fun to see the transformations of one real word into another real word.

Ah, except SURE to … SHOER — that's not as much of a real word in usage as the others. I give that a pass though, as the resulting themer is funny: PRETTY SHOER as [Attractive blacksmith at a stable?].

As with all PB puzzles, the execution is clean. Very few gluey bits, only the minor kind of GOGH (feels partialish compared to VAN GOGH) and PRU sort of thing. Executing cleanly on a Sunday grid is perhaps one of the hardest construction tasks out there, and PB does it so well.

I appreciate that PB almost always sticks to a 138 or 140 word grid. It's so difficult to get down much lower than that without compromising cleanliness to a level which starts to take away from my solving enjoyment.

PB's puzzles tend to have a "classic" feel to them, a timelessness, a sense that someone could pick them up ten years from now and still enjoy them. That's very different from the puzzles with a "fresh" or "current" feel to them. Both have merits, IMO, and it's fun to get the variety. While I love seeing long fill like CV JOINT, EPICENTER, and PET NAME, sometimes I do feel like I want something with a little more personality out of his longer fill. Then again, my solving enjoyment is almost always made even higher by his stellar cluing:

• [Bass organs] made me think through all the different types of church organs out there before I stumbled upon GILLS (bass being a type of fish!)
• POLE VAULT is an [Attempt to pass the bar?] in a kooky way.
• I've seen variants of [Cold shower?] for SLEET before, but I still like the wordplay.

Some of these might be Will or Joel's clues, but I tend to see a lot of outstanding wordplay in PB's puzzles in general. Just a few of these dotted throughout any puzzle increases my solving pleasure tremendously, and that's even more important in a Sunday-size grid where my attention often wanders.

★ In an effort to spread around Puzzle of the Week awards, I've recently held Patrick to an impossibly high standard. So many of his themelesses could have been a no-brainer POW choice — almost all of them are that good — but I can usually find some minor nit to pick, some point of critique that us mere mortals can learn from.

Not today. It's a great feeling to be able to gush over a PB puzzle, even as I compare it against his own lofty standards!

What really sold me on this one was those daunting NW and SE regions. Almost no one quad-stacks entries these days, because it's so difficult to fill them cleanly and colorfully. Usually there's some crossing answer which causes a groan, or some answer within the stack which is pretty neutral at best.

Patrick doesn't just use a (quasi-)quad-stack today — he RUNS LONG ANSWERS THROUGH THEM. Not only that, but he DOESN'T SEGMENT THESE CORNERS FROM THE REST OF THE PUZZLE, which usually people need to do in order to pull this off. Such beautiful grid flow.

I never work with these sorts of gargantuan swaths of white space. They're just too hard to execute on. So it's stunning to see all the snazzy material, all pulled off with the usual PB uber-cleaninless. Take the bottom right. SHOULDER STRAP / WHITE FLAG / HONEST ABE / IN ESSENCE is great enough by itself. (So challenging to parse HONESTABE, which I thought was some football player #16, HONES ????) Run IT'S A PLANE through that all, along with no gluey crossing entries = amazing.

Same goes for the upper left. RICE A RONI, BLENDED IN, SAY CHEESE, DEEP SEA DIVERS, with ACEY DEUCY running through them (and no junky fill). Dang, that's incredible.

FILLIP was a tough word for me and I don't know I'd ever use it to replace "bonus," but I liked learning it. AQUIVER doesn't sound as good to me as ALL AQUIVER, but it's no problem.

The only complaint I had was that PB's puzzles as of late have been so wide-open, so difficult to start, that I've found them much harder than any other Friday puzzle. Maybe Saturday would be a better slot.

Some of my friends call PB the Crossword Jesus, and it's puzzles like this that justify that name.