Peter Gordon author page

★ My friend Frewin and I recently won our 16-team fantasy basketball season. That's a threepeat of either finishing first in the regular season or winning the playoffs ... without watching more than five minutes of NBA games for the past three years.

That may seem strange, but what I love about fantasy basketball is much more the fantasy than the basketball. Formulating a strategy to win at least five out of nine categories every week (points, assists, rebounds, etc.), figuring out player salaries, roster construction, number crunching, Monte Carlo analysis — it's a data miner's dream.

If any future Seattle Sonics execs are reading, I happen to know a quant jock who would work for free …

That analytical technician in me appreciated Peter's offering. BRACKETOLOGY is such an entertaining term, perfectly describing the statisticians attempting to optimize their March Madness brackets. An entire branch of math is devoted to predicting what upsets might happen. Well, "math" is a strong word for it, but some have shown elements of success.

And the grid technician in me admired the set of constraints — FINAL placed at 4-Down, ELITE at 8-Down, and SWEET at 16-Across. That is sweet indeed, as it's so difficult to get specific entries at specific locations. Not only that, though! Intersecting BRACKETOLOGY with FINAL and ELITE is elite technical wizardry.

The non-basketball watcher and wordplay-seeking solver in me was plus/minus on the overall theme, but this technical feat — a Nikola Jokic-like triple-double with defensive stats, zero turnovers, and a 50/70/95 percentage shooting line — made this STEM-head sit up and want to figure out how Peter did it.

If you asked me, could Peter come up with four entries whose meanings change drastically with an apostrophe? I'd answer absolutely, HE'LL IF I KNOW him.

I was going to make a joke about apostrophizing, which has a dictionary definition of address an exclamatory passage in a speech or poem to (someone or something), but since I still don't understand that sentence after the eighth reading, I should never have started this paragraph.

Kudos for the EGG SHE'LL PAINT and WE'RE WOLVES finds. The additions of spaces makes these more interesting than the simpler changes of LETS to LET'S and I.D. to I'D.

Grammar and punctuation aren't for everyone (Jim Horne loves it!), so the bonuses were appreciated. RITZ BITS and GUESS WHO are so colorful. GETTYSBURG is laden with imagery. Excellent mid-length material, too, AZALEAS, ZIPLOC, GODSONS, even YAKUTSK scratching at this gamer's long-ago memory. Not entries you see every day! Like ADULT MOVIE.

No, I didn't mean it like that! Only that ADULT MOVIE has been in the NYT before; I wasn't saying that—

LET'S DROP this post right here.

FRESH PAIR OF EYES is not only a colorful figure of speech but also a perfect rationale for "add two I's into a word to form a new word."

It's not hard to dash off a few lines of code to get a list of words that become new words with two Is added — check out our new Replacement Finder, which does a simpler version of this. Some curiosities that Peter didn't mention: AIRINESS to James ARNESS, AS I SAID to ASSAD, BIALIK to BALK (evoking the recent travesty of Mayim Bialik not getting the permanent Jeopardy! job), etc. My shoemaker never SOLED, SO I LIED, for PIETIES sake!

However, it's much harder to integrate these specific words into phrases that generate a laugh. Tough to find a base phrase involving ASSAD! And most resulting phrases feel more awkward than amusing (see: FOR PIETIES SAKE). Great job with THOROUGH FAIRIES, hilarious image of meticulous pixies (the opposite of my children). And I loved POLKA IDIOTS, a sort of "Three Stooges at Oktoberfest" mash-up.

Like every editor, Peter has his specific tastes. He's not concerned with 3-letter words, whereas others hard cap them, and he can't stand partials, whereas some others prioritize them. Well, their argument is that if you must have a dab of gluey fill, at least solvers can easily fill in something like [ONE ___ (common rating scale range)]. Not so easy, perhaps, to crack the Pro-Bowler AL TOON. Peter is much more forgiving when it comes to names.

I'm curious how many solvers even noticed that Peter took great care to avoid extraneous Is in his theme phrases. I used to be right there with him, but these days, it feels like a factor constructors value much more highly than solvers.

Although only a small handful of constructors can be trusted to produce a solid 136-word grid, Peter is one of them. He made the most of his long slots — TRUTH SERUM and TOOTSIE POP are fantastic — and there's so much more FIRE BOMB, SWEATS IT, TELEPORT, WILDCARD, not to mention all the juicy mid-length bonuses. Easily overcomes the minor ASSN EDS EER ITE SYS trade-offs.

Not groundbreaking, but a solid example of a straight-over-the-plate theme type.

A single letter circled in an entry is so mysterious, so secretive. It makes me feel like a kid perched on the edge of my bed at 4 a.m. on Christmas morning. (GET BACK TO BED, TESS!) What's in the circle? A hidden message? A map? Leading to the location of the Holy Grail's resting place?

It didn't take long to uncover SEA CUCUMBER, and my initial reaction was like receiving socks. (They're a much more practical present than LEGOs, Jake!) Letter homophones are a crossword staple, and while they can still be effective, as this outstanding LGBTQ one, they need something extra to shine. After uncovering WHY YOU LITTLE ..., even this Three Stooges fan said more nyet than nyuk. It felt too easy to come up with all sorts of examples — besides Peter's above, there's TEA TOWEL, PEA PATCHES, BEE BEARD, etc. Themes don't need to be tight, but if you can't possibly think of a single other themer, that can generate a "wow!"

Glad I took a second and third look. Did you notice that each of the letter homophones doesn't start with that letter of the alphabet?

• SEA CUCUMBER
• WHY YOU LITTLE
• EL LIBERTADOR
• EYE IN THE SKY

Great finds! There aren't many letter homophones that work this way, so unless you want to make up kooky themers like EWE UNIVERSITY or ARR REDUNDANCY, this theme set is less socks and more LEGO Batman Wayne Manor Batcave with Gold-plated Batmobile.

I'm not always a fan of Peter's Monday grids, as they tend to skew extremely difficult. RAREBIT might be hard enough for a newer solver, and crossing it with OLIVA ... as much as I love the wealth of bonuses like BEA ARTHUR / BARCELONA / BUCKTEETH, there's no way I'd give this to my newb friends. However, I'll happily cite this tight theme as a shining example for newb constructors to study.

The last time I played Scrabble, I nearly got my girlfriend (now wife) to break up with me. She's roughly eighty-nine times more learned than me, so the only thing I could do to keep in the game was to play defensively, blocking off all possible ways she could form words. Hey, sometimes you have to play for the close loss instead of risking the blowout! It's just plain smart.

Hey, where are you going? Ah. Anywhere away from me. Got it.

I'm not the target audience of this puzzle, so my confusion might be oversized. After reading the clue for SCRABBLE five times, I still didn't understand it. "… are legal plays but cannot be formed …" What is this, a legal contract? It read like this to me: [According to clause six, section seven a, the aforementioned letters form the play, but not unto the form of the aforementioned word in play of letters …]

It means that these are all recognized words in the official Scrabble dictionary, but they can't be formed on the board. That's an interesting piece of trivia.

Speaking of trivia, don't put me on your "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" call list. I thought I knew finance like the back of my hand, but apparently there are some moles I never saw. Glass-STEAGALL legislation?

Hold on, let me look that up while I eat my POTTAGES.

As a SCRABBLE player only in a cornerback sense, I might have enjoyed this more if the clues had pointed out why each play was impossible, like Peter did above. PIZZAZZY (do people say this?), you can only use three Zs (one Z tile plus two blanks). KNICKKNACK, same issue with the four Ks. STRESSLESSNESS, same issue with the seven Ss (only four S tiles plus two blanks).

Now, who wants to play? What, you think my defensive style shows no class? I'll show you classlessnesses! Or maybe not, since I can't legally form it.

Quote puzzles take so much heat from so many solvers. I constantly hear complaints about them: they're boring, tedious, annoying. The genre may be overdone — "step quotes" go way back to Eugene Maleska — but as with most every genre, there's room for examples that are well done.

Since the quote makes up all of the theme material, it has to generate a big smile or laugh — it's an all or nothing proposition. Today's was too insidery for me, sort of the NYT patting itself on the back for being a pop culture reference, but I can see the amusement factor for others. And it was nice to get the throwback to "Sex and the City" — I shamelessly admit that I watched every single episode. Go Harry!

As with all quote puzzles, I struggled for traction since you can effectively only solve using the Down answers. However, if you make the Down answers and their clues interesting, that makes up for a lot. Some standouts:

• Campbell's first soup was … TOMATO! Nice bit of trivia that I guessed with no letters in place.
• That ODD clue felt odd at first. Two-thirds of all Fibonacci numbers? Why should that be? I sat down and wrote them out — 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55 — realizing that an even, odd, odd pattern emerged. How is it that this math nerd never knew this?
• Jon AGEE, the palindromist, clued with such a fun title. One of my daughter's friends is named Otis, and I'm going to go tell him to sit on a potato pan. How does he come up with such great material? (Jon, not snot-nosed Otis.)
• "The War of the Currents," what a title! Took me a while to determine it had to be TESLA vs. Edison.

It's not a perfect grid — right off the bat, REMORA, IMARET, KVELLED are tough words, and to cross them is borderline unfair — but there was enough to enjoy: SUN DEVIL, BOATYARD, the curious FOGBOW.

I have low expectations for quote puzzles, and this one exceeded through its strong cluing, holding my attention.

Did you ever notice that A S P is contained within SHAKESPEARE? That there is a great murder mystery in the making. Untimely death due to fever from too much drinking, my asp.

Like Shakespeare, we constructors are an obsessive bunch. A majority of the time, I'm only pretending to listen to people, simply nodding to cover up the whirr of gears as the crossword ideas spin about. I'd love to trace the firing of synapses that led Peter to this concept. I've seen many like it, including full words within another word of a phrase, plays on contained letters, and awesome "kangaroo words," but I haven't quite seen this.

Editor of the "blazingly hard" Fireball crossword, Peter tends toward tough fill. I don't know that ABSALOM crossing IM PEI is unfair, but it is ripe for newer solvers to make a frustrating mistake. PRITZKER PRIZE is better, since even though ZYDECO is a toughie, there's another check on the Z from the nature of the theme.

You might wonder why HEROS isn't spelled with an extra E, like HEROES? Or what the clue means? It's clever, a HERO sandwich being (literally) a long lunch. Hopefully, that doesn't go over too many Monday solvers' heads.

I enjoyed the novelty of the concept, although seeing how many other phrases there are made it less interesting — there's something appealing about a given set of themers being the only ones possible. Maybe it could have been tightened up somehow. Perhaps choosing a related set of themers, or even something as simple as all ones starting with the same letter.

It also would have been great to find some appropriate revealer, a raison d'être to give it a more of a "wow!" than a "huh, that's a curious letter pattern observation." How neat would it be to play on WHAT'S IN A NAME?!

Peter's suggested titles crack me up. Not because they're funny, but because they make me laugh at my own idiocy. I read "Eureka moment" and figured he accidentally referenced a different puzzle. No? My train (wreck) of thought:

• Eureka … how is Aristotle involved? Knowing Peter, Aristotle's name might be hidden somewhere?
• D'oh! It wasn't Aristotle in the bathtub. It was … hey Kool-aid Man! I mean, hey, Siri!
• Siri: ARCHIMEDES, dummy.
• That's what I meant all along. Stupid brain and SIRI, you thought I was being serious? SCREW you! Get it? Archimedes screw? Ha ha, I'm so clever!
• Archimedes screw. Huh! Answers screw up the grid in some way?
• (down an hour-long rabbit hole)
• EUREKA means "I've found it." That's so not applicable to me vis-a-vis Peter's meaning.
• WTF does "vis-a-vis" mean, anyway? What's it doing on a Tuesday puzzle's revealer?
• (down another rabbit hole--hey, "vis-a-vis a visa" is funny!)
• (after an hour) Brain: Jeff, didn't you grow up in California?
• Siri: California, you know, whose STATE MOTTO is …
• QUIET, YOU! I KNEW THAT!

Amazingly tight set of themers. I didn't recognize any of the words as STATE MOTTOs, but perusing the Wikipedia page in a vain attempt to make myself appear more educated than I really am (yes, I have two master's degrees), I discovered that there are only five states with one-word (English) mottos. Amazing that they can all start reasonable phrases!

I wonder if shading the words FRIENDSHIP, HOPE, FORWARD, INDUSTRY, would have been a better approach. Given that exactly 0.002 out of 100 Americans could identify these STATE MOTTOs, it's not like it would have given away the game, and it would have helped them stand out.

How about running them vertically … so that the MOTTOs looked like they were at the top of a flag! (Brain: you know that not all state flags have their motto — ENOUGH ALREADY, BRAIN!) That could have helped with the layout, too, allowing for STATE / MOTTO to be in mirror positions instead of oddly broken up at the last and second-to-last across slots.

It's not a clean or newb-accessible grid, what with a whole lot of ARNO CBER NEHI NIMH, etc., but I appreciated the theme more and more over time. It was the right balance of teaching something without feeling teachy.

Any else take off their glasses and call their optometrist while solving this puzzle?

Talk about daring! I worked on a puzzle with three adjacent pairs of doubles, and that was hard enough. Double that to six pairs, and you get crazy strings like SSAABBOOKKEE. I can barely look at those twelve letters without thinking I finally need reading glasses.

Some of the theme entries are awkward, like who would ever say QUEEN NOOR ROOMMATES or DOES SAAB BOOKKEEPING, but kookiness is the name of the game with a theme like this. I thought I wouldn't enjoy it after my eyes went unfocused, trying to make sense of SSIINNEEDDOO, but I'm going to remember this one.

I could have done with a couple more bonuses besides PIRATES BOOTY, MAKING A STINK, TRAP DOOR, and a few less ADM ELKE ESE SRTA STS, but all in all, it's a reasonable set of grid trade-offs for a 21x21 puzzle.

I appreciated this one more with each time I re-read the themers. Not all of them hit that strongly, but I have to admire the sheer audacity of the concept. Now I'm wondering what's the largest possible number of doubled letters strung together. If you tossed aside any semblance of the entry making sense, could you achieve ten pairs? Fifteen?

Down the rabbit hole I go ...

(Peter's two scrapped themers: CONDOLEEZZAANNEELLIOT and WALTERREEDDOORREEKED)

At first, I thought Peter had given me notes for a different puzzle, one where theme answers either added or subtracted an S. It took some puzzling to figure out "S±1" was alphanumeric code: S + 1 = T and S — 1 = R. Every theme phrase has no consonants besides R and T. Clever!

Great change of pace. ARTIE typically would hint at themers starting with R and T, like RORSCHACH TEST, RAINBOW TROUT, RETURN TICKET, and RAT TERRIER.

Wait a second. RAT TERRIER is in the grid. Neat that it could fit either criterion, today's "no consonants besides R and T" and the more typical initialisms approach.

Peter focuses on ultra-hard puzzles for his Fireball subscription service, and sometimes I wonder if that makes him not ideal for creating early-week NYTs. It's one thing to have a couple of toughies in EULER and TAHINI — two entries I'd expect most educated NYT solvers to know — but to cross ERNO and ARAMIS?

Along with some RPI and ORNE, I wouldn't give this puzzle to a newer solver for fear of turning them off crosswords.

It might strike me more strongly if the two consonants were less common, but I'm not sure how doable that would have been. Maybe something like ON THE DL could have been fruitful? Let's see ... ADELAIDE, DID A DEAL, LOADED DIE ... darn it, needs another 9-letter entry. And good luck with ON THE QT!

All in all, though, a refreshing take on double-initials, with some colorful finds like TEETER TOTTER and TRATTORIA.

Added note from this anal engineer who can't leave something alone: EQUATE TO, ETIQUETTE, I QUOTE, TAQUITO. QUIT IT? I wish I could!

Actors with initials identical to the characters they played. I was a huge "Blues Brothers" fan when I was younger, so JOHN BELUSHI / Jake Blues came easily. Neat realization — how is it that I never before made the connection?

ANTHONY / HOPKINS playing Alfred Hitchcock was another interesting find. I haven't seen the film, but it's on my list, as Hitchcock's vast body of work amazes me.

JAMES STEWART as Mr. (Jefferson) Smith, too. Although, who calls him "James"? His prim and proper grandmother, perhaps?

The others weren't as interesting since the names aren't as recognizable. You ask anyone on the street, what's the last name of the famous director Alfred? Or the last name of Jake and Elwood in "The Blues Brothers"? You'd get a lot more right answers than if you asked for the name of MARK RUFFALO's character in "Spotlight."

Interesting grid layout. I wouldn't have thought to try intersecting JAMES STEWART / ANTHONY and LIZA MINNELLI / HOPKINS.

Why, though? Why not use a more traditional layout, MARK RUFFALO in row 3, LIZA MINNELLI in row 5 or 6, ANTHONY / HOPKINS split in row 8, etc.? It'd be more like a movie poster presentation — appropriate to the theme — and it doesn't separate ANTHONY and HOPKINS in an awkward way, where solvers will likely encounter HOPKINS before ANTHONY.

The unusual layout did make for some rarely-seen opportunities. A lot of great bonuses, BIKER BAR, NORMALCY, TIMELINE, MINGLES, UNWRITTEN standing out. Some were in unexpected places, too, which I like. Good to be surprised every once in a while.

But let's consider the liabilities on the other side of the balance sheet. AS A LARK is a 7-letter partial. BOSSA can only be clued in one way. ESS ESO, SCI, SST? And the solve felt choppy, so it wasn't a surprise to see 26 3-letter words, four more than some editors allow.

It's a unique theme, and I like encountering something I haven't seen before. Not an idea that wowed me, though, and it would have benefitted from more a traditional themer layout.

Great find, three mid-length words that look like they should rhyme, but don't. The technical term for that is EYE / RHYME. I hadn't heard of that phrase before doing crosswords, but it's no doubt descriptive.

There was a puzzle two years ago that played on all sorts of EYE RHYMEs. I liked that Peter went above and beyond today, finding not just pairs of longish EYE RHYMEs, but a trio.

It made me wonder, is there a quartet that would fit the bill? Anyone brighter than me out there?

(Clearly, yes. Peter reminded me of COUGH, TOUGH, BOUGH, DOUGH. Now, can anyone think of a set using all words of 6+ letters?)

As much as I enjoyed the trio today, it made for a thin-feeling theme. Phrases of length 11, 13, 11, that's it? Only 35 theme squares? Okay, there is the EYE / RHYME revealer, but the way it's broken up into two shorties, it doesn't feel like it adds to the theme density.

I generally am a strict symmetrist — no exceptions to the rule! (Okay, it's not as much a rule, as a norm.) But I'd have preferred something like Peter's last bending of the norm. In that one, TRIATHLON made the theme feel meatier (and the lack of symmetry surprisingly didn't bother me). Having EYE RHYME as one entry would have made it felt more like 11 + 13 + 11 + 8 = 43 theme squares, which is decent.

Tough grid for a Monday. I liked it, but it's not going to be anyone's gateway drug, not with entries like RESTIVE, NETHER, TRADE ON, PATOOT. Those are all fair game though, and along with the plethora of long bonuses in MERCUTIO, EDIT MENU, EPIDEMIC, ATTA GIRL, even PESTLE, FAKERY, SATIRES, it's colorful and fresh.

The theme is tricky enough — especially if you've never been to a PRET-A-MANGER, or if you've never heard the term EYE RHYME — and the grid so snazz-dense, that it's a great Tuesday or even Wednesday puzzle. Not one I'd give to a NYT newb, though.

★ I take a second look at every crossword I write about, so I can remember what the constructor did well or what could be improved. Occasionally, I change my mind after that second look.

It's rare that I give something a third look and unheard of for me to change my mind after that third look. Appropriate that it happened today, given the TRIathlon theme!

My first impression was that CYCLING stuck out as the only hidden word. RUNNING was by itself, and SWIMMING had the -LY attached. Felt inconsistent.

Second impression: it was neat that Peter managed to find three solid 15-letter phrases using these three sports. There aren't many options with any of them, at least none that gives away the game immediately (SWIMMING POOL, RUNNING LAPS, etc.)

I wouldn't have thought more about it, but Jim mentioned that he thought this was a great puzzle. Took me a while to see his thinking, but I gradually came around. Here are a few reasons:

• All the bonus fill: CD SINGLE, COLD FEET, AD NAUSEAM, US STEEL, even COEQUAL, is interesting.
• Minimal crossword glue: maybe ILIE and RIAL will be tough for newer solvers.
• Some great clues, a treat for a Monday. There's a duo named "Peter and Gordon"? Indeed! After doing so many of Peter's puzzles over the years, this tickled me.
• Z and X worked smoothly into the east section. It can be tough to integrate two rare letters into a tiny region, but Peter did it well.

A lot of love about this one, especially since I used to be a triathlete back in the day. I might have considered mirror symmetry (with themers in rows 3, 6, 9, 12), but I respect Peter's decision to put TRIATHLON in the usual "revealer" position. I didn't mind it not having a symmetrical theme partner (at least, not after my third look).

Solid work.

I've heard anecdotes that the average crossword solver doesn't even notice themes, just mindlessly filling in squares until it's done, then wiping their butt with it.

I kid!

At least for the e-solvers. That'd be messy.

While I do give the NYT solving population much more credit than the average crossworder, I wonder how many people will miss some of what's going on today. It might be too easy to shrug at what seems like a S* S* phrase theme, which we've seen many times before.

I've missed parts of themes enough times that I'm hyper-aware of it these days. Not that I needed it today! Of course, there's more! I didn't miss another part of a theme yet again!

Okay fine, I did.

Peter takes this tried and true "initialism" theme type a little further, mixing it with the also tried and true "vowel progression" — using A E I O U (and sometimes Y), in that order. It's a creative blendification, although I wouldn't say it was exciting.

I *think* I liked that Peter went the extra mile by including the sixth themer. It's not easy to find phrases starting with SY* SY*, so kudos for taking on the challenge.

Although, I'm a big jazz fan, and SYLVIA SYMS was only on the periphery of my knowledge base (admittedly, I'm not nearly as good with jazz singers as with instrumentalists). I wonder if SYMBOLIC SYSTEMS would have catered to a wider audience? Not sure.

Also, six themers nearly always strains a grid in all sorts of places. I'm not a fan of using entries like ENERO, LTYRS, ERLE, that seem like they could stymie newer solvers. I'd much rather stick to lesser glueys like ASSN, PPS, PRES, SSE, UNI, which seem much more gettable.

I liked some of the bonuses, SARTRE, AU REVOIR helping keep up my interest. And I don't quite remember this particular mixture of theme types, so bonus points for novelty.

ADDED NOTE: Gerry Wildenberg says, "I pioneered the same theme that Peter used today."

I often fail in trying to explain what "tightness" means when applied to crossword themes. Today's puzzle illustrates the concept so much more clearly than I ever could — can you think of any other phrase in the form of (black and white animal) + (one other word) = in-the-language-phrase? Not me. That makes this theme superbly tight.

I could barely think of another black-and-white animal. There is the orca — Peter's note refers to the great Sam Donaldson's annual crossword awards, which unfortunately don't quite have the cachet of the Oscars.

Not yet, at least!

What other animals? Maybe … husky (the dog)? Dalmatian?

You might have wondered why Peter went to 16 columns, instead of the usual 15. He could have made ZEBRA CROSSINGS singular, which would have also made the themers more consistent (so that every themer was singular), right?

Well, yes and no.

Here's the LONG ANSWER why:

ZEBRA CROSSING in the singular would have forced all the themers to be squished into rows 4 6 8 10 12. With long themers, that sort of compression is rarely easy to fill around.

Wait … why is that?

Couldn't he have kept PUFFIN BOOKS in row 3?

Yes. But a-ha! What happens to SKUNK CABBAGE then?

With the normal 15 columns, there must be three black squares at the end of SKUNK CABBAGE. That, in combination with the black squares at the end of ZEBRA CROSSING, would force a huge number of black squares at the sides of the puzzle. It'd be horribly unsightly at best, and at worst, it would net a request for complete redo.

Here's the SHORT ANSWER why:

Because reasons.

The 16-column crossword is surprisingly difficult to execute on. Even if you go up past the usual maximum of 78 words, which Peter did (81), you usually end up with (at least) a pair of big corners that becomes hand-wringingly difficult to fill smoothly. That SW, with NEATH OSTER ESSEN, is gonna be unwelcoming for some newbs.

Throw in ELOI, an answer that baffled this sci-fi geek when he first started crosswords, and KOD — I think it's legit as KO'D (knocked out) — in the opposite corner, and it's not a puzzle I'd give to a newer solver.

Overall though, I was pleased by the opportunity to explain "tightness" much better than I usually do. Such a tidy theme set.

Such consistency in themers — two (city) + (meat) and two (meat) + (city) phrases. Tidy and elegant.

I had a slight pause with VIENNA SAUSAGES being the only plural, but heck, how many times do you see a single VIENNA SAUSAGE on your plate?

(In my case, there will always be zero VIENNA SAUSAGES on my plate. I can barely stand to look at those things!)

Textbook execution, exactly what I'd expect from one of the masters in the business. A couple of solid bonuses in UNSUNG HERO, INFIELD FLY (it's a rule where if the pop-up goes short and if the guy drops it … eh, who am I kidding, I don't understand it either), even MAINSAIL, AT LARGE, and SARA LEE.

Technical detail: if you break MAINSAIL into two entries by adding a black square at the N, you can clean up the ENE hanging out in the north. But since Peter kept the rest of his grid so clean, I like this trade-off a lot.

Did you hitch on the NAB clue, too? [Catch cold?] — I think that's supposed to play on catching a cold -> catching someone cold in the act? I like the attempt at clever cluing, but it felt too tough for a Monday puzzle. Or in my case, for a sleep-deprived dimwit.

AUTO was much more fun for me — tough to figure out that an AUTO might be an "ingredient" in a (traffic) jam, but it produced a satisfying a-ha moment for me. Once I finally got it. Ahem.

Overall, a strong example of Monday execution. I've seen many themes like this with countries (FRENCH TOAST, SPANISH RICE, etc.), but doing it with cities was a nice twist.

TRIGGER / WARNING … is what?

"A statement at the start of a piece of writing, video, etc., alerting the reader or viewer to the fact that it contains potentially distressing material (often used to introduce a description of such content)." Huh! I've of course seen these before, but the term TRIGGER WARNING was new to me.

Today, Peter uses it to tell us that three themers "hide" different weapons with triggers. I liked RIFLE THROUGH best, since it's a pretty colorful phrase, and it doesn't directly get at the shooting type of RIFLE.

BAZOOKA BUBBLE GUM does the same, but I've always thought of it as BAZOOKA GUM. I know, pedantic difference, plus the Wikipedia article is titled with BUBBLE in there. I'm clearly wrong here, as you can see in the pic.

RIDE SHOTGUN is the best of the themers, in terms of its snazziness, but the term originated from people in stage coaches riding up front with an actual shotgun. I suppose the term is *sort of* disguised, as these days, not many people ride in the passenger seat with a shotgun sticking out the window.

I hope!

Fortuitous how the three long themers interlocked, to form a backbone to the puzzle. I'm not sure I liked it as a solver, though. It's so much easier to read long entries from left to right, compared to top to bottom. I would have preferred to have BAZOOKA BUBBLE GUM go in the middle row, with TRIGGER / WARNING flanking it, perhaps in rows 6 and 10.

I think Peter sometimes takes too many liberties with early-week puzzles, using tough vocab or esoteric names, or using a bit too much crossword glue to achieve a low word-count puzzle. I wasn't hot on MCI, ERG, TUM, DDR, but that's mostly passable for an early-weeker.

And I did like a lot of the ALLSPICE, ZOOTOPIA, FIREPLUG, WANGLE, ASYLUM fill. Certainly, the unusual layout helped make all those entries possible. Heck, with HESSIAN, HYDRATE, ARCHWAY, EPONYM, it would almost qualify for a decent themeless puzzle!

Overall, it's still a hard solve for a Tuesday, but not in a bad way.

Tight and specific theme set today, adjectives in the form of [food] + [body part] + (E)D. Not sure I would have ever thought of it! MUTTON HEADED is so much fun to say.

I've heard of HONEY TONGUED before. Silver-tongued felt more spot-on, but honey works too.

BUTTER FINGERED felt a bit odd in the adjective form. It does have dictionary support, but don't you call people butterfingers, not BUTTERFINGERED?

CHICKEN LIVERED? Lily-livered, yeah. Chicken, yeah. But chicken-livered? I'd be a bit chicken to use that in actual conversation.

Oh, there's PIE EYED in the middle of the grid, too. I've seen that term in crosswords before.

Note how little flexibility Peter had in laying out his grid. With PIE EYED in the middle column, he was forced to place the 14s in rows 3 and 13. You can shift BUTTERFINGERED one square to the left, and/or swap it with CHICKEN LIVERED, but there's not a lot of options otherwise.

I thought Peter did pretty well with his grid bonuses, a lot of interesting entries like PROUD PAPA, SIBELIUS, RED TIDES, BUDAPEST helping keep solvers amused if they didn't connect with the theme.

There were some prices to pay for all the big swaths of white space: IONA, TODDS, SOV, DEO, SSE feeling gluey. It's not a trade-off I would have made for an early-week puzzle, but I can appreciate the thought behind it.

More and more though, I feel that themes and grids ought to sync in their difficulty level. This felt like a Monday theme with a Friday grid, and that created some dissonance for me. It was so hard to solve the grid, for just a Monday-theme payoff.

And there were several clues I struggled with:

• BADGES are [Heat shields?], in that "heat" is slang for police. Police badges are shaped like shields. That's very clever, but pretty tough for this early in the week.
• A LORELEI is similar to a siren, a female who lures sailors to their death. Thus, a "rock singer."
• An expert in calculus isn't a mathematician, but a DDS (dentist). (Calculus is a build-up on teeth.)

Aside from all the theme/ grid/clue difficulty mismatch problems, I enjoy encountering theme sets I wouldn't have thought of myself.

Great idea, NO MAN IS AN ISLAND refuted by CUBA GOODING JR, IDRIS ELBA, and … BRET EASTON ELLIS. I was only vaguely familiar with that last one, but most best-selling authors ought to be crossworthy, yeah?

He also felt out of place because no one refers to ELLIS Island as just Ellis (do they?), whereas CUBA and ELBA are islands on their own. Sometimes it's tough to find enough examples to flesh out a crossword theme, and you have to accept some not-quite-ideal themers.

As Peter said, mirror symmetry is sometimes a lifesaver. The constraints are weird — it works, as long as all your themers are odd in length, or you have one pair matched by length + two that are odd-numbered in length. But that matched pair can't be too long!

It's a very specific set of constraints, but when it works, it works.

You can also do some neat things, like split up PERRY / ELLIS, as it's 5 / 5. I might have preferred that, myself.

I haven't been crazy about Peter's recent low-word-count grids recently, as they introduce too many compromises for an early-week puzzle. Today's grid felt much stronger, the openness allowing for such goodies as BRAZILIANS and GRIZABELLA. Along with TEABAGS / SANGRIA + PLUG-INS, this was a lot of great material to keep solvers going.

A couple of entries did make me pause:

• GDANSK might be tough for newer solvers, but the crossing answers felt fair. And that GD- start is interesting.
• CRUDITY made me hitch — isn't it usually "crudeness"? CRUDITE, as in the French appetizer, might have been more up my alley, but it's probably more foreign (yes, pun intended) to less-experienced solvers.
• HD TV SET also felt slightly off. The SET felt like a tag-on.

But overall, a nice grid. Going down to 72 words can make a good change of pace, as long as the result is smooth, which today's was.

Who knew there were so many phrases where each word ended in T? Who would have even thought to search for those? I can imagine a constructor coming up with it if there was an actual term like FINALTIES. (T RUMP isn't bad though!) So kudos to Peter for uncovering a nice concept.

Oof, I had issues with the gridwork, though. I did love KNEE BRACES, SCALE MODEL, GOES STAG, even APOGEE. Great stuff, helping to enhance my solve.

But it's so tough to fill a themeless-level grid (72 words) with regular theme density, color, and smoothness. It's an unholy trinity — you can pick two of those, but you can't achieve all three. I thought the puzzle suffered in the smoothness category.

The worst for me as the LILMO / ADELEH crossing. I guessed correctly at this square, but I can see a case for many other letters seeming right.

(Jim thought ADELE H ought to be a gimme, a famous work of one of the most impactful movie directors in history. So perhaps I ought to have known that one? Still undecided.)

Then there was ASON. SESS. IAL. AGUE. FARO crossing KAHANE.

Constructors have to make trade-off calls on every puzzle they build. Going to a low word count didn't work for me in this one; the high prices to pay = not my cup of T.

BTW, all the clues end in T. That didn't do much for me, since lots and lots of words end in T, making the feat not so impressive.

But I did enjoy the themer findings, the concept itself a delighT.

Like Peter mentioned, a theme done many times. Definitely important to add something extra. It is fortuitous that all five of these roles were Oscar-nominated … but that wasn't enough for me to distinguish it from all the rest of the instances Peter cited. It's unrelated to the theme, so even though it does create extra tightness in the theme set, it didn't feel relevant.

If only OSCARS ARE FOR THE BIRDS were a phrase in usage ...

I did enjoy the bonuses Peter added. TRIAMINIC, MASERATIS, BOND PAPER, even LABRADOR with its beautiful "chocolate-coated" clue. Even ARM CURL, TOM KITE, EXURBIA = fun for me to uncover.

Speaking of that "chocolate-coated" LABRADOR, awesome tie-in with the ENAMEL clue. Different kind of "canine" (tooth) coating!

A third fantastic clue in BAMBI, the symbol of gentle innocence. The movie is surprisingly heartbreaking (Try explaining what happens to BAMBI's MOM to your three-year old, though.)

My wife stopped doing Peter's Fireball puzzles, because they tend to contain so many esoteric proper names, sometimes making her feel like the grids were unsolvable. I wouldn't go that far — I still enjoy them, although I do encounter some grids I just can't finish.

I think educated solvers ought to know MASERATIS, but TRIAMINIC might be a toughie. ABIDJAN, too. And ELOI … huh. I felt like all crossings were ultimately solvable, but it did give the puzzle an esoteric feel.

Along with ERN, ALENE, ONE A, AGIN, it wasn't my favorite of Peter's grid executions.

(People say RIDIC now? Is that a thing? Sigh. That's just ridic.)

As a constructor, I can understand the allure of the interlock — so fortuitous when that happens! — but I think a much smoother grid might have been possible with a more traditional 10 / 11 / 15 / 11 / 10 (all-across) layout.

I was so curious to uncover the person quoted! I'm usually not that obsessed with getting 1-A, happy to leave it blank if I can't get it right away. But today, I was determined to get it. Curious moment when I filled in the last letter … AJ JACOBS sounded so (kind of) familiar.

I stopped solving at that point to go look him up — ah, he wrote "The Year of Living Biblically," which I enjoyed. A quest to live according to the Bible's rules, for a full year? Hilarious!

A fun quote about him being STILL A FIVE LETTER / WORD STARTING WITH / LOS AND ENDING WITH ER. (Were you also confused that JACOBS has six letters? No? Uh, me neither.) Witty quip.

Quote puzzles are tough to make shine, as the entire punch of the puzzle is packed into that one line. This one was okay for me, but it did feel odd that Peter depended on a notepad to make the full quote work. It felt choppy, having to start at the notepad and then jump to the rest of the puzzle. And as neat as it was to break into 16 / 16 /16, the breaks don't come at natural break points (odd to put a break between LETTER and WORD, for example).

I appreciate Peter's attempt to give us more in the bonus fill, leaving his four corners wide open. Some BAY AREA / CAPITAL W, DATABASE, SCOUT CAR helped elevate my solve.

So much of it was more neutral though, like ATOLLS, ERECTS, ASANAS, ODESSA, INSPECT, etc. And MENACER and ABSCESS aren't very pleasant. I would have preferred a more conservative, traditional grid layout, breaking up the top into three across words per row instead of two, and focusing harder on working in more long downs for bonuses.

Novel approach, appropriate to AJ JACOBS. The quote and execution thereof didn't quite work for me, but I liked seeing something different.

★ Love this concept, two-word phrases that sound like ALLITERATION but don't start with the same letter. I've looked at the phrase PHOTO FINISH so many times in my life, but I've never realized that those two words are alliterative! Same with CAESAR SALAD. Very cool finds.

GENTLEMAN JOHNNY wasn't as much an everyday phrase, but it's such a great nickname.

KELLYANNE CONWAY didn't do it as much for me. Nice to have someone current and topical, but oof, does she bring up some ickiness for me. More importantly, I can imagine some solvers wondering how on earth Kelly, Anne, and Conway could be a triplet of alliteration. Felt like there might have been better options for a fourth themer.

I'm usually not that impressed by themer interlock, but I like what Peter did today. Something so elegant about the themers running through that ALLITERATION backbone. It does give away the game very quickly, as most solvers will read the ALLITERATION clue shortly after starting. But that was okay with me since even after reading it, I didn't understand the concept until solving two or three themers.

I enjoyed the theme so much that I gave this the POW! ... even though I think the grid is not right for a Monday. Not at all novice friendly. As a mechanical engineer, the first time I ever ran across MHO was through crosswords. DCV is pretty ugly (Peter and I have very different perspectives on random Roman numerals, though). The HEEP / LOGE crossing might prevent some newer solvers from a clean finish. And I can imagine novices bringing up the "you have to know weird esoteric stuff in order to do crosswords" argument with ANAPEST and TETCHY.

The theme is meaty enough, with hardish themers that felt more mid-weekish too. A real shame it was run on a Monday, where it might scare off newer solvers.

Not sure what the right answer is. It could have been Monday-ified by breaking up ANAPEST / STEERED into two words apiece, or losing some of the great bonuses, like IVORY TOWER and AB NEGATIVE. But I enjoyed those last two a lot.

Overall though, the idea was memorable, and that's hard to come by. POW!

Rhyming phrases today — at least that's what I first thought. There's another layer to the theme, which is great since rhyming puzzles have been done to death. Neat that the first four letters of each themer match the last four … and in the case of OODLES OF NOODLES, the first SIX match the last. Interesting finds.

Mirror (left-right) symmetry can be a lifesaver. Imagine you find some great phrases forming a tight, consistent theme … but their lengths don't pair up. It's such a frustrating experience. Mirror symmetry won't always save you, but it can work wonders if you have unmatched themers with odd-numbered lengths. Today's 15 / 11 / 11 / 11 pattern of themer lengths makes for a great mirror symmetry layout.

With early-week puzzles, I sometimes hardly pause to think about the theme as I fill in the grid. I liked that today's concept forced me to spell EVEL KNIEVEL correctly — hopefully no more spelling it as KNEIVEL from now on!

But even with two little kids, ABBY CADABBY didn't come easy. In fact, it came wrong, as ABBY CASABBY, giving me the first error I've had in a Monday puzzle in ages. Doesn't [Regard] sort of fit both DEEM and SEEM? SEEM, sort of as in "appear to be," which sort of SEEMs like "regard"?

Okay, there were a lot of "sort of" qualifiers in there, so it's probably on me instead of on the puzzle. Still, I wonder if others will make this frustrating mistake.

A couple of AMO and TOK dabs of crossword glue, but as always, Peter produces a quality grid. AIR TRAVEL and EVEN PAR make for some nice bonuses, too. I've never been to SHEBOYGAN, but it's so much fun to say (okay, I'm easily amused).

I did wonder about SLABBING--so odd in verb usage. It does have dictionary support, but … hmm.

I like puzzles featuring interesting letter patterns. I wish this one had less of a rhyme-y feel to it, but still, OODLES OF NOODLES is a great phrase. Marketing genius right there!

★ "Hidden word" themes used to mostly be done with just a single word — perhaps TOT hidden across SIGNIFICANT OTHER, AUTO TUNE, etc. — but that tends to get repetitive for solvers. Today, Peter took an apt revealer, INNER CHILD, and used it with four different synonyms of CHILD, providing both variety as well as some good a-ha moments. At first, I wasn't sure what was inside CAMINO REAL, for example … but quickly came to see MINOR inside. I've highlighted them below.

Such nice finds. It's often very easy to work with short hidden words, so there's not much of a wow factor. But INFANT across CAPTAIN FANTASTIC is, well, fantastic. And although TYKE isn't as long as INFANT, what a great discovery of TYKE across QWERTY KEYBOARD. Beautiful base phrase.

Speaking of base phrases, I wasn't sure what CAPTAIN FANTASTIC was. Even though it didn't make much at the box office, I think it's fair game, as 1.) it garnered Viggo Mortensen some important nominations and 2.) even if you don't know the title, it's made up of two regular, inferable words.

Such high theme density — 10 15 16 15 10 — would usually mean some dabs of crossword glue and/or no bonuses in the fill. But Peter spends his black squares wisely, separating themers wherever possible, and filling the tough sections with great care.

For example, most constructors would need some crossword glue in the area between CAMINO REAL and PRIVATE ENTRANCE. Beautiful work in there, not just silky-smooth, but with RAISINET and ONE SEC thrown in as bonuses.

Speaking of bonuses, this Trekkie loves the crossing of SEXTANT and STARSHIP. (Trivia: there was a real-life Jean Picard ... who was an astronomer!)

Hardly anything to nitpick in the grid. ANC could be hard for some, but educated solvers ought to know the African National Congress.

What better way to celebrate Peter's 100^th NYT crossword with a POW! A nearly perfect Monday puzzle — interesting theme, silky-smooth fill, and some strong bonus entries — from one of the best in the business. If you like hard crosswords, consider subscribing to Peter's Fireball Crosswords for a delightfully tough challenge every week.