Randolph Ross author page

I find constructing themeless puzzles easier to get started and harder to finish. For this one my seed entries were HOT TOPICS, which I got from watching an episode of "The View," and ARE WE ALONE, which I got after finishing Andy Weir's latest sci-fi novel The Hail Mary Project. Both were uncommon crossword fill and lent themselves to some nice clues.

All the rest of the puzzle was trying to fill a grid with lots of long entries, e.g., twelve 9-letter entries and a couple of answers with 10 letters. I especially get satisfaction when these longer answers are not often seen in crosswords. WAR EPIC and NICE CATCH are two I got pleasure filling in.

Finishing a themeless often involves making final choices that involve picking between compromises. The lower left section of the puzzle posed a "lesser of two evils" decision. RIFER is a meh entry IMO. I could have substituted NIFTY, a much better one. But that would have given me TREADER instead of E READER and YAPPERS instead of RAPPERS. Now I could clue TREADER as "One who keeps his head above water" and YAPPERS as "Talkative types", but I didn't like those "ER" entries next to each other as much as EREADER and RAPPERS, each of which lent themselves to better clues.

It is hard to know when you are done constructing a themeless, especially one with a low word count. I worked a long time trying to get rid of ELLER (a dated entry), but it would have come at too much of a cost relative to the longer words around it. So, I let it stand.

I've constructed many Friday and Saturday Times crossword and I still get a kick out of seeing a construction I've done filled with lots of chunky white spaces filled with a variety of seldom-seen entries. They often take more time than any themed puzzle to build. And then, when the sharp NY Times solvers finish it in a half hour or less, I sometimes feel like the chef who worked all day preparing a meal and having his dinner guests gobble it down. My pleasure is in the challenges of constructing more than arriving at the final product.

Have a safe rest of the summer to all my friends in the puzzle world.

This puzzle was inspired by a FaceTime conversation earlier this year with my son and grandsons, Henry and Oren, who I hardly have seen in person very much since this pandemic began. I had sent Henry a Rubik's Cube and Oren a Tickle Me Elmo. In the course of the call, I dropped the factoids about these toys I included in the puzzle. This led my son and me to talk about other toys and games that he played with as a kid, and we Googled some trivia about them.

It occurred to me that for this Christmas and Hanukkah, with so many grandparents and other friends and family not able to see the little children in their lives in person, that a crossword about toys might bring a smile. I typically employ wordplay themes in my Sunday puzzles, but for this December, I thought a puzzle about toys might be appropriate for a holiday so nostalgic and so focused on children.

So I dedicate this crossword to my grandchildren and everyone else who would like to be with kids this holiday time.

Happy and safe holidays to all.

I've been collecting anagrams since I was a little kid. When I taught math, I loved and was amazed that TWELVE PLUS ONE anagrammed into ELEVEN PLUS TWO. When I came across FORTY-FIVE anagramming into OVER FIFTY, I started looking for other math anagram pairs. I couldn't find or create any other math ones, but in my research and imagination, I came up with a set of not so well-known related pairs that I could fit into a sentence or two and could serve as a Sunday theme. My favorites in this puzzle are CONTAMINATED changing into NO ADMITTANCE, and A DREAM WITHIN A DREAM changing into WHAT AM I A MIND READER.

I loved talking to the late and missed Merl Reagle, who was my crossword constructing role model and an anagrammer extraordinaire. His fun with anagrams was infectious. When anyone met Merl for the first time, he would make up an anagram of your name. I was RANDY ROSS = SOS! RAN DRY!

I've done a few Anagram themed puzzles. "Travel Arrangements" (ALGERIA REGALIA, LIBYA BIALY, et al.) and "Name Change" (NUDIST HOFFMAN, WARDEN WYETH) "Rearranging the Furniture" (CHEST OF DRAWERS = CHEST OF REWARDS, OFFICE DESK = OFFICE KEDS et al.) I have found anagrams are a favorite among word puzzlers. So when I find a new one that's particularly apt, it makes me happy and goes in my collection.

I hope the solve went well for everyone. The crossing words were particularly important to figuring out the long theme entries. I also hope there were a lot of "aha" moments when the five pairs of anagrams were deduced.

As a solver I love themeless puzzles with wide-open spaces and lots of uncommon entries. There's something about filling in areas of intersecting longish words and phrases, and there's an aesthetic appeal of using relatively few black squares in symmetric fields of white. I go all the way back to classic constructor Jack Luzatto for my inspiration for constructing wide-open grids. As a themeless constructor, I strive for wide-open spaces with some interesting fill and a minimum of junk. A 62-word puzzle, such as this one, presents a particular challenge to balance fresh entries, fresh clues, not too many names, and few overused words.

The design of this puzzle has four chunky sections connected in the middle with a slightly less dense section. Since all four corners fed into the center, that middle area was harder to fill with good entries than it might look. I am pleased that each of the five sections had some fresh entries. SUCK DRY and SIT SHIVA anchored the top left corner; HASHEESH, DRAMEDY, KEESHAN, ITS A DATE, RED SEA, VEINY were pretty good too. CHRISSIE was probably going to be the way into that area, and INHERED and ADE were not great, but worth it to finish that corner — the best part of the puzzle, in my opinion.

In the upper right, TAN LINES and PHONE SEX were fresh. I didn't love ACTA, SELENE so much. In the bottom left ALEVEL, OPIOIDS, OPEN TAP, NO SEATS, HAVE ONE and RAILED AT were better than average — there was no junk in that area. The bottom right featured FREE LOVE, HAT PINS, ATE A TON, WILD PIG, TO DO LIST, but at the cost of PELAGE, HEL, and the overused ASSESSES. The center produce THE SMURFS crossing REMAX — pretty good since they were the last entries created.

The clueing of this Saturday puzzle, which is supposed to be harder than the rest of the week, is a collaborative effort between editor and constructor. I'm happy that many of my clues made it, but I'm not surprised, nor offended, that a number of the clues were changed. I have found that good crossword editors, with their knowledge of clues that work and don't work, usually improve the puzzle. That doesn't mean I agree with all the changes, but I defer to Will's prowess as a clue maker and someone who knows better than anyone what the NY Times solver likes in their puzzles.

In many ways, creating a themeless looks like the most difficult puzzle to make — I don't think it is. For me, coming up with a creative, novel theme poses the biggest challenge and the most satisfying outcome. IMO, the art of puzzle-making is tougher than the craft.

This is a milestone puzzle for me — my 50th Sunday NY Times crossword. I thought I'd reflect on this avocation that has given me so much pleasure and has allowed me to meet so many smart and creative people that I may not have met otherwise. Crossword constructing has been a super icebreaker when I meet people for the first time, and having cruciverbalist on my resume has helped me at job interviews more than once. I'm not surprised anymore that in spite of a 50-year career in education doing important things for children for families, people want to talk more about how crosswords are made than how children learn or how we can fix our schools.

I love both the art and craft of puzzle construction. My creative juices flow when thinking of a theme that is hopefully clever, usually punny, and internally consistent. Today's puzzle, for example, of course came from my experience as an educator. Finding appropriate adjectives linked to letter grades is a common task for those of us who have been graders of student work. Using those adjectives in phrases makes for potentially fun wordplay resulting in a set of "Report Card" theme entries.

The craft of fitting those long entries into a grid is my favorite part of constructing. Working within the parameters of symmetry, under 140 words, and fresh entries are like solving a puzzle of another kind. That part of crossword construction has changed over the years with the advances of technology and the liberalization of what is an acceptable entry. My first Sunday Times puzzles about thirty years ago had to be done on graph paper, with hardcover dictionaries and a ton of trial and error. I still get joy out of finishing a tough corner or coming up with a new entry to solve a seemingly impossible crossing. It's hard to explain how when you're stuck and you put a puzzle construction down for a while, how often the solution occurs to you after some sleep or for no apparent reason at all.

The most challenging part of puzzling for me is coming up with good, original clues. I am in awe of my editors and fellow constructors who have that knack and play with words so effortlessly. I especially have admired fellow cruciverbalists like Bob Klahn, Merl Reagle, Rich Silvestri, Mike Shenk , Will Shortz, and so many others who create so much original wordplay for solvers to enjoy. I try to be as eclectic as possible with my word choices. Crosswords appeal across demographic groups. I believe creating and clueing them with one group in mind, whether they are older folks like me or younger solvers who have quite different vocabularies and interests, makes some unhappy but minimizes some opportunities to learn from each other's generational knowledge base.

What fun it is to have this crossword puzzle hobby. I hope everyone enjoys today's puzzle... and to those who like to critique — go to it! But remember, crossword puzzles are entertainment, not to be taken that seriously, just a diversion from the real problems we all face living in a sometimes unfair and irrational world.

As with many puzzles that start as Sunday ideas, this one ran out of gas when I couldn't come up with enough pairings on the theme title "Joint Session" for a 21x21 puzzle. I settled on four good pairings and placed them in a weekday grid. Then another phenomenon, not so unusual for me, I tried to create as open a grid as I could, thus only 68 entries. So this puzzle has a theme that is probably on the easy side for a Thursday, but gridwise is more like a Friday or Saturday themeless with fewer than 72 words. The result is an amalgam — an open not-too-tricky themed Thursday.

I have been guilty of being one of those constructors who enjoys the challenge of creating grids with "chunky" white sections just because it gives me personal pleasure to interlock long entries. Often this results in some not so great short entries, and I might not get as clean a puzzle as some solvers might like. I believe when constructing crosswords, the solver's pleasure should be paramount, but I confess to being a little selfish about not taking simpler routes to finish themed puzzle constructions by having more of my grids use the allowable maximum of 78 entries.

I also challenged myself by having stacked the longer theme entries. This too creates puzzle construction challenges that are probably otherwise avoidable, but I like the challenge of lining up not so easy to find crossing entries that are restricted by a series of crossing adjacent pairs of letters created by the theme entries. Answers like GAL GADOT, ALAN HALE, REORG, LEADFOOT, SIDEBURNS, and COSTCO are not found often in themed puzzles, but I think they are interesting enough to make up for a less elegant partial like A FUSS or the crosswordese Jewish month of TISHRI.

Anyway, as with many of the puzzles I have constructed over the years, I have learned you can't please everyone every time. But I continue to try my best to please some of the solvers most of the time and continue to enjoy puzzle construction as a hobby that challenges me and indulges my love of wordplay, symmetry and the idiosyncrasies of the English language.

The theme entries started with JASMINE AND JEANS. I noted this would make a 15-letter entry with a cute clue (BLUE JAYS) that could be paralleled with BLACK EYES, HONEY BEES, HIGH SEAS, and GREEN PEAS. Coming up with 4 15-letter entries and a 9-letter entry for the middle was a lot for a daily puzzle, but I didn't want to give any of them up and I thought the challenge to craft a 72 word grid that could hold them all would be something I wanted to try. To make it even harder for myself I kept the parts of each pairing in alphabetical order.

Designing the theme entries this way probably caused me to have a few more abbreviations than I would have liked, which may displease some solvers. I think the trade-off for an abundance of long theme entries was worth it in this puzzle. I know sometimes it's not, and a constructor should knock out the weakest theme entry for the sake of the rest of the grid; but I managed to get a real tight theme and the personal constructing pleasure of crafting an interlock that held so many long answers.

RESAND was also an entry I didn't particularly like - it's not a word most, if any, solvers would use or hear. I spent a long time trying to get rid of it. However, when I thought of the clue "Smooth over" I thought that would compensate for the not so great "re" word. RSVPED and NBATEAM, with their consecutive consonants both got me out of trouble in the grid. I also came up with the original UN VOTE to help me complete the fill.

This was a fun crossword constructing exercise for me. I hope it's also an "aha moment" for solvers when the theme answers are discovered.

This is my 49^th Sunday Times puzzle, and for the first time, I can say I had a glut of possible theme entries. Here are some of the other possibilities that didn't make the cut:

DEPARTED ACTOR, DEPRESSED DRY CLEANER, DEBUNKED CAMP COUNSELOR, DETESTED EXAMINER, DEBRIEFED LAWYER, DECOMPOSED SONGWRITER, DEFROCKED DRESSMAKER, DEPOSED MODEL, DISCHARGED SHOPPER, DISCOUNTED CENSUS TAKER, DISSOLVED PUZZLER, DISBARRED BALLERINA, DISCONCERTED MUSICIAN, DISINTERESTED BANKER.

I'm sure there are many more. I was inspired by a slightly related joke category: "Old___ never die, they just … e,g, "Old cashiers never die, they just check out."

I chose the seven in this puzzle because they each had adjectives that had to do with being fired or quitting. They also were dis- or de- adjectives (alternating) that have meanings unrelated to the profession, creating good wordplay. Of course, the parameter of matching word lengths for symmetry also went into the choices. Since these theme entries were on the long side I was restricted to seven; usually, I like eight or nine theme entries. The good news was that with seven theme entries I was able to have a lower word count: 134. This resulted in lots of longer fill entries involving some less common words and phrases.

A few particular entries helped me complete this grid. MCDLTS, with all its consonants, was a big help in that section... thank you McDonald's. RARE GEM, which has never appeared in a Times puzzle before, just came to me and helped complete a difficult area. This also was true of BRIGANTINE and CASEY KASEM, two unusual long entries that made the chunky bottom left corner fillable. BTW, BRIGANTINE is probably the etymological root of the term BRIG for a ship's prison. DIED ON also was an invented entry that helped me out of a difficult spot. I figured it was OK because I have had more than a few batteries die on me. Glad Will agreed.

This theme was inspired by the famous NY Post headline: "Headless Body Found in Topless Bar." I found four long entries for which I could create word rebuses. Both Headless body and Topless Bar were ineligible because of their unmatchable word lengths, so I substituted TOPLESS SWIMSUIT and HEADLESS CHICKEN - two offbeat entries that I wasn't sure would pass muster, but I'm glad they did. The latter was at least better than HEADLESS TURKEY — a "fowl" idea for a puzzle appearing on Thanksgiving.

When doing the fill here, as I like to do with many of my 15 x 15 themed puzzles, I try to include a lot of 7 or 8-letter entries. They lend themselves to better clues, IMO. So in this one my favorite entries are ITS A LIE ("Fake news!",) ONE UNIT (Blood drive donation,) LAKEBED (Superior floor,) DISARMED (Took the heat off?,) and PODESTA (first time this was clued in relation to the Clinton campaign's hacked campaign manager — it has always been clued as an Italian mayor).

Some of the other 7's and 8's were infrequently used in crosswords, as well — RAPPELS, YACHTER, and PASS AWAY. As a constructor, you have to balance the benefits of including a lot of 7+ entries with the inevitable crossing of 3 and 4-letter words, some of which are overused or not easy to clue in a fresh way. I think this puzzle has a little of that issue, but I think worth the payoff for some of the better clues of the longer fill.

This one started with IT'S A ZOO crossing NOTHING BURGER, two entries I heard on the same day I started this puzzle. The former was a response to the NYC subways on a particularly bad day and the latter was uttered on cable news at least five times that day, probably by defense lawyers for you know who.

I liked CONTORTIONIST because I had the clue (one who is bent out of shape) in mind for a while. I also really like the clue for CENTRIPETAL (a force of nature). It seems that many themeless puzzles these days don't favor long words instead of phrases or idioms; some think they're not as interesting. I think it's all about the clues — if they're clever, then the solver will enjoy the entry.

MIDSENTENCE occurred to me because I have the bad habit of interrupting others that way. My daughter has recently made a point of that to me. I was surprised to learn that this is the first time that word was in a Times crossword.

I'm pleased that this puzzle is mostly junk-free in a pretty diagram. After all the puzzles I've constructed over the years, I still get a kick out of a good-looking grid with a low word count. The aesthetics of an attractive array of black and white squares is not appreciated by all solvers, but it's a big part of why I like to solve and create themeless puzzles so much.

The idea for this puzzle was inspired when Donald Trump made the unfounded charges that he was being wiretapped by President Obama at Trump Tower. It got me to thinking what government agencies might go undercover to listen in on our conversations. Four came to mind: FBI, DEA, NSA, and CIA. Since each of these three-letter agencies hide themselves I thought I could hide them in a crossword and "wiretap" the puzzle solver.

Of course, with NY Times solvers being as smart as they are, they would figure who was spying on them as soon as the theme clicked in. I provided a "helper" by including the entry WIRETAP in the lower right of the puzzle (this clearly made the puzzle easier to solve — I wonder if most solvers want that kind of help or not).

Rebus puzzles with multiple unique rebuses are more challenging to solve than ones with the same rebus throughout. It's nice when you can connect them with a theme, especially one that is also related to how they appear "undercover" in the grid.

The entry ILL LIVE, which is making its debut in the NY Times, came to mind when my grandson banged his knee and went into full histrionics. I said to him "Don't worry, you'll live."

Have a great summer.

I like punny themes... the more groans the better. Constructors, like Merl Reagle, Rich Silvestri and Cathy Allis, who are among my favorites, have done great work in this genre, especially when they created puzzles with outrageous or clever puns around a particular topic.

"Misquoting Scriptures" tries to do that. It probably started with IN THE BIG INNING, something I probably heard or read related to how the Bible could be connected to baseball. It's a beautiful pun in that it is quite euphonious and funny to think that the Bible would have anything to say about baseball.

Some solvers don't like puns and some who do are strict constructionists about the pun being an exact or very, very close sound-alike, such as GARDEN OF ETON and A MARK UPON CANE are in this puzzle. But, like Merl and Cathy, I'm a little more forgiving about how close in sound a pun needs to be if the entry fits the theme and the clue and solution generate a smile or groan. FORBIDDEN FLUTE and ASSAULT OF THE EARTH are two examples of less rigorous euphony, yet still fit the theme in a funny way.

I'm sure my constructor colleagues who also like these kinds of themes will agree that it sometimes hard to find a balanced set of punny theme entries for a Sunday puzzle, all of which are so tight with their puns that the substitutions are all homophones. That is something to strive for, but should not, in my opinion, be determinative of whether a pun-based theme should fly or not. For this puzzle I was happy that all the theme entries fit the clueing template "The Bible on..." and none were too far astray that the original word being manipulated was not easily identifiable with the original quote.

I was also pleased that I was able to construct this one with a fairly low word count and a lot of theme squares. With some guidance from Will and some reworking, I think we minimized the unappealing and crosswordese entries.

Now I'm thinking about "Misquoting Shakespeare" e.g. TWO BS OR NOT TWO BS — What the Bard thought about when spelling Caribbean?

Hope you enjoy the puzzle.

The theme started with IN VESTMENTS. Seemed like a breakup that could lead to some interesting wordplay. I thought there would be plenty like PRIVATE IN VESTMENTS where the IN word could be split and form some fun phrases. Oddly enough, it took a lot of work to find these seven — words like INCREASE, INVOICE, INSPECTOR, INSECT didn't have pairings that made a phrase that could be clued easily.

This is the kind of wordplay theme I like as a solver. It's on the traditional side (no rebus, no circles, no meta). I call it sort of an Alice in Wonderland look at the language. I find these kind of themes hard to come up with but very satisfying when I do. Merl Reagle does this the best.

I'm also pleased I got this one down to a 132 worder. I am motivated to go for low word counts because it force me to include longer fill entries that solvers don't see as much. I also find it forces me to come up with entries that I've never used before (e.g. TEEN IDOL, JENNERS, LOOPY, AB POSITIVE, etc.)

I hope no one is offended by BRAIN INJURY in the puzzle ... my feeling has always been if it's in the language and I could read it in the NY Times then it's OK for a puzzle. There have been lots of NFL articles about brain injuries. I once got a letter from a solver ticked off that I use CRAZY as an entry because it he said it made light of mental illness (this puzzle has LOOPY). I guess I'm also not a strong believer in the "breakfast test"... crossword puzzles should not be taken that sensitively IMO ( I once did a whole puzzle about unappetizing foods, e.g FRIED LICE, BEES AND CARROTS, et al). Like Merl says..."twisted but fair."

Thanks to Will for publishing this one. The best editors, like him, always make my puzzles better.

Happy solving!

The idea for this puzzle came from one of my favorite clues that I originally used in a themeless puzzle — "Subway line" (answer EAT FRESH.) I also had a similar clue waiting to be used in a puzzle — "Finish line" (answer THAT'S ALL FOLKS.) So I decided to try to find more of these and weave them into a Sunday crossword. What resulted were the ten theme entries you see in "What's My Line?" Sometimes clues are a good source for theme ideas I find. For example I once did a puzzle on diets, because there were so many clever ways to clue that word, e.g. middle management (diet for a white collar exec?), lessen plan (diet for a teacher), etc.

It's always a challenge to fill the puzzle smoothly when you have more than 8 theme entries (I usually like to have 9 or more in my Sunday puzzles because I think the theme entries are the most fun for solvers to fill in and the most fun for me to construct and clue). In this puzzle the toughest part was have two pair of theme entries side by side in the upper right and lower left.

Some particularly tough areas to fill in were in the upper left corner… I chose to add a cheater black box in the corner rather than present the solver with some crosswordese. I had to come up with THROW TO (a new entry I believe) in order to finish that corner. In the lower left I had some back and forth with Will about the entry FARFEL. I remember FARFEL as a famous ventriloquist's (Jimmy Nelson) dog who appeared in a memorable commercial for Nestles Chocolate. (It's also a pasta found in Jewish chicken soup.) Will wanted me to consider another entry but any I could think of would have changed 94A STOLE to STELE, a much inferior fill in my opinion. These are the decisions constructors have to make all the time and editors have to rule on. My favorite fills were DOOZIES, SCHEDULE A, PRMEN, FARFEL, RIPPEDOFF, CHUNNEL, OHWELL, and INTHERE. These are not seen too often in puzzles. I also enjoyed cluing ITGO by referencing Travolta's made-up "Adele Dazeem" (sorry it didn't make it past the editor's desk).

This is my 101st published NY Times crossword, most of which were edited by Will. Much appreciation to him for editing my work and making my puzzles better.