Rafael Musa author page

Today on Next Level Constructor, we hope to string you along. Bavette, bigoli, capellini, fedelini, linguine, pici, stringozzi … although they all have unique characteristics, they're ultimately variations on a spaghetti theme. That's not to say they're unworthy in any shape or form — but they are all long and thin. Not a surprise that when cooking contests do focus on pasta, they put the spotlight on the accoutrements rather than the spaghetti itself.

Similarly, 70-word themelesses are variations on a theme. Er, on a themeless. Most of the sauce is usually concentrated in the four corners. Sometimes, a central entry or two shines in a most appetizing way, or may even feature something wildly unexpected. Who would have ever considered pairing stinky cheese and ahi tuna, for example, yet that taste combination is bound to be memorable. If not delicious — at least, not in the traditional sense.

PORTAPOTTIES lends itself so well to clever cluing, and [Heads outside?] hits the mark. Tamped-down memories of my kids having emergency Honey Bucket stops makes it difficult for me to enjoy it, though. Talk about stinky cheese.

NO PAIN, NO GAIN does make for an appropriate pairing — especially given my kids' mac-n-cheese-driven constipation.

There's not as much fresh material as I would like in a themeless — one of the few debuts was BELIEBERS, from the 2010s — but sometimes innovation is all about novel flavor combinations. I did appreciate the OYSTER touches, especially the sharp use of ARM RESTS as places to literally rub elbows, and the shout-out to my beloved Motorola Razr flip phone of yesteryear.

★ WHO DOES THAT? Definitely Rafa and Kim, packing their grid with oodles of colorful, joyful fill. ENGAGEMENT PARTY is the star of the show, not only for its inherent vivacity, but for that beautiful clue. What a sparkling way to misdirect, using "new rock band" to point away from a diamond ring.

I'm not sure which corner I love the most. The SW and NE are front-runners — not a surprise, since the other two corners are much bigger and tougher to jam-pack with pizzazz. PRO GAMER / TELEPORT / SAD TO SAY speaks to my dork side, while EGO BOOST / NO WONDER / the GREAT ONE plus SENSEI makes me bow with respect.

Given that ON CAMERA and IN AREA aren't fantastic, I'd lean toward the lower left as the star of the show. This former trombonist has some baggage with being forced to play way too much SOUSA during parades, though …

It's great to see PAD and TAMPON in a NYT crossword. I'm sure there will be some haters out there who turn up their noses, but it's refreshing to see some of the fusty taboos broken.

So much to love, so little to nit-pick. My favorite Friday themelesses are those that leave me with a high, and this elated me.

★ I haven't been this delighted by a revealer in quite a while. I was underwhelmed as I solved, given that this "stretched letters" theme type has been done and done and done again, but BIG SHOES TO FILL was such a perfect revealer. HEEL, BOOT, CLOG, FLAT are all literally big shoes — and the solver is filling them in!

Such a smooth solve, too. It's difficult to hold my short attention span these days, so if I don't cruise through a grid in 15 minutes or so, I get bored and do something else. Ooh, something shiny! Hey, it's a squirrel!

Stupid social media and YouTube.

Each pair of themers was solid, and the fill around them was buttery. There was even some spice with PROP BETS, RED DWARF, and the awesome sign-off toward the end: IT'S BEEN REAL. Not once through my solve was I tempted to look at my phone and see what else there was to do.

I did wonder, was having singular shoe and shoe and shoe and shoe weird? Yes. Were four types of singular shoe enough to make it feel thematically dense enough? No. However, as with almost all Sunday 21x21 140-word grids, there will be trade-offs. I bet Rebecca and Rafael could have packed in pairs of singular shoes or added another one or even two types of shoe — check out Jeremy's grid, for example — but that might have sacrificed solving flow. I'd much rather accept lesser density for overall quality.

Well-established theme categories are tough to excel in, but this revealer and the silky execution helped LIFT this one.

★ I love color in the Sunday Magazine, and these six colors at the start of Pride Month are picture-perfect. We've seen some pride flag puzzles before, but solvers have always had to imagine the colors. The impact is much stronger when it's all out there in technicolor.

YELLOW LAB and DARKROOM are a perfect example of the theme pairings. How is a DARKROOM a YELLOW LAB? It's a type of lab that's highlighted in yellow!

PEACOATS confused me at first, since "pea" elicits "green." That's overthinking it, though, as a PEACOAT is definitely not green. In fact, it's navy-colored, doubly emphasizing that it's a BLUE JACKET — highlighted in blue!

I like that Rafael stuck with VIOLET rather than using the much easier PURPLE (purple prose, purple heart, etc.), since that's the official final color of the Pride flag. There are so few VIOLET phrases, though. VIOLET RAY is a thing, but it's from days of yore. Still, using BRADBURY as a famous RAY highlighted in VIOLET was excellent.

ON AND OFF are states that are highlighted in red, so that works. It's unfortunate that some RED STATES have less than positive attitudes about Pride, though. I might have preferred something like RED ALERTS and WARNINGS.

JUICE is STEROIDS slang, as in "that pro athlete is juicing." The pairing works, although the connection is less direct than the others.

The print Sunday Magazine has a huge advantage over many digital crossword platforms. Although this is a simple example of how color can be used, it's effective.

Paired literalisms, a solid phrase describing a word spread out within another solid phrase. Some neat finds, especially FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES cluing MATES, which is contained within MOUNTAIN STATES.

GET BACK IN SHAPE is so apt for a New Year's Day puzzle. RECTANGULAR PRISM … it's definitely a shape, but it's more a dictionary definition than a colorful entry. Give this math nerd a KLEIN BOTTLE or HYPERCUBE any day! Still, given the constraints of the theme, it's incredible to find the word RECLAIM spread out within any shape, period.

Seven themers are tough to grid around. Eight is not for the faint of heart. Strong craftsmanship, threading several quality bonuses like ESTROGEN, POUR IT ON, and POSES NUDE, through three themers. It's so much easier to squeeze a full glass of juice out of a long Down that goes through only two themers: COLLABORATE is a nod to the rare triple-constructor occurrence, and ITS NO BIGGIE is my favorite entry in the entire grid.

I'll probably hear from astronomers lobbying for ENCELADUS as the best entry, but this sixth-largest moon of Saturn demonstrates the difficulty of working through three themers.

As much as I admire the overall quality of the themer pair discoveries, it wasn't enough to hold my attention over an entire 21x21. Jumping from the bottom half to the top four times chopped up my solve as well.

I would have adored this puzzle if it had used only the first phrases (the ones with embedded circles) in the grid, with the second halves as clues. Several of the ones the guys mentioned are awesome; super creative! And given that the X IN Y pattern is so broad, there surely have to be even more.

★ WIN THE LOTTERY is so appropriate today because I got everything I enjoy out of a Friday themeless and a whole lot more. This amazing themeless debut reminded me of how I feel when I see the bylines of Robyn Weintraub, Yacob Yonas, and Nam Jin Yoon. Heady territory, indeed!

First and foremost, so many grid entries lifted and entertained in the style of a great coach giving a team a pep talk. HANG ON A SECOND, NO NOT THAT! PLAY IT COOL ... WAIT RIGHT THERE! IT CAN'T HURT to get FAST TRACKED.

And … WE'RE DONE!

Except that we're not at all done. Those chatty, colloquial entries would have been POW!-worthy on their own, but there's also WINE CAVE and some ADULATORY CONCERTOS. And I hope you're not too buzzed to forget DRUNK DIALS, with its delightful clue. The repetition in [Buzzes when buzzed?] made no sense … until it made all the wordplay-sense in the world.

NO LIE, there's yet more? I drew a circled C next to any great clues, and after my page was filled with a sea of them, I floated down the river of countless joys. Best of all were the ones that innocently lifted a common word. [Posture that might be hard to maintain]? Oh for F's sake, every yoga posture is hard to maintain! Ah, this uses the "position" meaning, as in FAÇADE. I posture that this is brilliant.

A couple of minuscule dings, like NGO isn't the most familiar of acronyms, and BARE HEADED was a bit bald, but those are me scouring with a magnifying lens, so I don't sound like a stupid fanboy.

Screw it, I have to do it. Fanboy SQUEE!