Rebecca Goldstein author page

Day six of "Gotta JET" (Jeff's expressions of thanks)! I love it when a constructor features a zingy phrase, and it's especially notable when it's related to that person. Rebecca is most definitely a scientist, so I'M NOT A SCIENTIST (but …) gave me a kick.

It also gave me the perfect opportunity to say dammit, Jim Horne, I'm not a blogger! Oh, wait. Maybe I am. Huge thanks to Jim, who's pushed me to develop my voice over the past decade. I've been a writer for 15 years now, and I credit Jim for his gentle but firm nudges to step outside my comfort zone.

More importantly, I appreciate his friendship over the years, especially important throughout those dark pandemic years. Our weekly calls to discuss the latest batch of puzzles was such a highlight, an event I could depend upon for regular connection, insight, and laughs.

Never mind that it was always Jim bursting into cackles at my idiocy!

Now in my 50s, making new friends is rarer than ever. This XWord Info journey has been full of ups and some big downs, but it's all been worth it, largely because it's allowed me to take part in a grand partnership journey with a great guy.

★ 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.

TUMBLEWEEDs rolling through the puzzle, the letters W E E D progressing in such an orderly fashion. Note that the first W starts in the lower right corner (through SPEEDWALKING), and then rotates counterclockwise with each successive themer.

Great themer choices. SPEEDWALKING is so ironic, providing humorous contrast against the TUMBLEWEEDs slowly blowing across the puzzle. TANGLED WEB evokes such imagery, bringing up the Sir Walter Scott poem. And again, it almost hints at a TUMBLEWEED.

I paused at WOULD WE EVER, wondering if it felt arbitrary? It works well for this theme, but I'm not sure we would ever love seeing it as a feature entry in a themeless.

Will Shortz doesn't take a lot of these types of "shapes puzzles," because they often require significant compromises in fill. Stacking ED atop EW, and then adding in three more permutations can get tricky. Luckily, there's enough flexibility in the W E E D letter placements that this particular challenge isn't so bad. Rebecca filled it well, keeping short fill super clean, and even incorporating mid-lengthers like EXPEDIA, OEDIPAL, and TAG TEAM.

The first time I tried to piece together SUHWEET, I was exclaiming anything but "sweet!" I like its slanginess more these days, though I wonder if some solvers will struggle with the SAHL crossing, given that there's no "correct" spelling of SUH-WEET.

Neat imagery, getting across the shapes and motions of TUMBLEWEEDs. I typically enjoy elegance in orderly progressions, but this is one case where more randomness of the W placement might have been cool, better expressing the unpredictable patterns of TUMBLEWEEDs blown at different speeds by varying winds.

Classic Jeff overthinking, too many ideas tumbling around in my head.

This concept is PRETTY AS A PICTURE. If you don't fully understand it, may I pretty up said picture? Perfect example: PRETTY, AS (in) A PICTURE, is one of Jim Horne's (many) areas of expertise, as he has a lot of Photoshop experience. I used to attempt cropping, lightening, etc. until Jim gently offered to take it over. If "uglify, as a photo" were a phrase, I'd have it in my constructor bio.

SMOOTH, AS SILK was such a smooth example of this theme. I haven't ironed anything in decades, mostly because my wardrobe consists of sweatpants and 20-year old T-shirts, but I can imagine people (wasting their time) ironing SILK clothes.

CLEAR, AS CRYSTAL got me off on the wrong foot, because "clear as crystal" didn't register as an in-the-language phrase. "Crystal clear," sure, but "clear as crystal" didn't feel clear.

GREEN AS GRASS caused me to hitch as well, but Jim recognized it immediately. Apparently the grass is greener in Canada.

The one real sticking point: SMART, AS A WHIP. Not imagery I want evoked.

Great gridwork. Although it's over the 140-word limit, that's because the grid is oversized. Proportionally, a 22x21 grid should allow for an adjusted maximum of 147 words. Rebecca did everything right, featuring a bolus of great bonuses — CHIA OBAMA, TEMPT FATE, PARTY POOPER, HIGH TOPS, GO GETTER — while keeping short glue to only minor NACL ONS PST. There's no secret to attaining this level of achievement; simply a fierce dedication to iteration and continual improvement. LABOR OF LOVE, indeed.

While the theme didn't wow me, I appreciated the novelty of it. The excellent gridwork helped keep me going, too, with virtually every long slot used to its fullest potential.

Third time's a charm!

Crosswords have featured repeated words in a multitude of ways, over many decades. Some have been basic, featuring repeated word titles or double doubles, while others have taken more creative liberties, employing words that have different meanings as different parts of speech, or rebus-like implementations, or even wilder thinking that blew my mind.

These days, not every repeated words theme has to be groundbreaking, although without some extra level, they can feel awfully repetitive (sorry, I had to). Rebecca and Rachel did well today to present triplets that fit a consistent pattern, where the first two instances are separated by a hyphen, and the last is a stand-alone word: TUT-TUT TUT, CHOW-CHOW CHOW, ZOOM-ZOOM ZOOM, and CAN-CAN CAN.

I appreciated that even though I knew what was going on after the first themer, I still had to think about some of the clues. How could the plural "glutes" refer to the singular CAN-CAN CAN? Ah, that's CAN, as the slang for "butt," made up of two glutes.

Will Shortz generally doesn't like initialisms that aren't known by virtually everyone, since if you don't know them, they're a string of random letters. For instance, CMAS and CSA might be obvious to Western farmers, but Country Music Awards and Community-supported Agriculture might never come to others. Thankfully, the crossings were all unambiguous, and now you know what they stand for!

(Until you forget them, roughly by the end of this sentence.)

A couple of zingy bonus entries for those who got tired of the theme: AT NO POINT, LIZ LEMON, and UPPER HAND sounds like a classic 30 Rock scene.

It's hard for me to get excited about repeated words, but I admired the creative thought behind that X-X X pattern.

Test-solving this one, I forgot to add in the circles to the draft file, giving me the impression the puzzle was simply ROCK PAPER SCISSORS in random locations. Clearly, I've been hit in the head with ROCK too many times and should be PAPERed up.

CUT!

Neat graphical depiction of the three winning actions, PA PER cut by SCISSORS, SCIS SORS broken by ROCK, and RO/CK covered by PAPER. I've seen many ROSHAMBO puzzles over the years, but this one stands out with that cool visual explanation.

The weakest pictogram was PAPER covering ROCK, since usually I describe this action with one hand wrapping over a fist. It works okay, but perhaps a slight wrap-around would have helped. Even something subtle, like adding another P at the first S of PEGASUS, would have hinted more at that wrap-around coverage.

I loved the way Rebecca kicked off this puzzle, clue-echoing 1- and 2-Down. What a difference punctuation makes! Changing the placement of the end quote creates a significant shift in meaning. Clever way to use the same hint in two vastly different senses — that's good thinking, indeed!

Fantastic clue for USED CD, too. I don't have a way to play CDs anymore, but I'd gladly buy something to hear a USED CD "secondhand."

I nearly failed at the north, with the ASAHI / NACRE / CHOI crossings. I was convinced it had to be CHOY / DRYER at first — thank goodness for the triple-check in SCIS SORS!

Standout ROSHAMBO puzzle, fun every couple of years to see one that builds on previous ones. I'm curious to see what next-level thinking we'll get in the next one.

Where … are … my … DRAGONS?!

Hold your centaurs, one is at 50-Across.

Fun theme for those of us into cryptozoology — as well as cryptology! Long hidden words can be eye-opening, and TROLL in LINT ROLLER and PRIDE MONTH are great five-letter finds.

There have been so many hidden words themes over the years, that Will Shortz has upped his threshold for acceptance. He sometimes balks at phrases where a word "doesn't do any work," i.e., SHAKES and HEELS have no monstrous overlap in their respective phrases.

PISTACHIO GREEN would more fit the criterion, but NO GREAT SHAKES is such a slap-bang expression that its color more than makes up for the deficiency.

It's odd to have NO GREAT SHAKES in the grid because it has anything but that. Some constructors argue with me that given five longish themers, it's a miracle to simply escape with something workable. No, no, no!

As with today's grid, generating a product with excellent bonuses is almost always possible. It'd have been fine to stop at TAILGATES and MADE A FIST, but Rebecca made a victorious fist by adding DINING SET and STEPS ON IT with only STDS to pay. The time and effort you clearly put in here are greatly appreciated, Rebecca!

CREATE A MONSTER is one of those phrases that constructors drool over, such potential for wordplay. Today's theme phrases don't "create" a monster as much "find" ones — this blog host boos a little — but it does work.

Rebuses typically generate two "a-ha" clicks, when the solver 1.) figures out the compressed string of letters, and 2.) why they're compressed. In a recent rebus, for example, figuring out COO in KEEP A (COO)L HEAD was satisfying, and PIGEON COOP gave solid rationale for the squeeze.

INTER(NAL C)LOCK ... no a-ha click, because I had no idea what NALC might mean. Did I have it wrong somehow, misspelling an undercover NARC?

My bafflement increased as I pieced together AMERI(CAN L)IT. CANL? I (CAN L)ie by saying that I knew what was going on.

Beautiful firework explosion of a-has when I got to SALT SHAKER. That's a fantastic rationale to justify anagramming NACL.

Why the rebusization into single squares, though? (This is the point where Jim Horne had his usual cackling "oh, Jeff" moment.) I liked today's approach much better than the typical MIXED means to anagram letters theme, but it would have been world-class if there had been some extra element that gave the typical second rebus click, too — a word indicating crushed or box or something.

CRYSTAL could have been interesting.

Better yet, a line drawing of a salt crystal in each of the rebus squares!

(Yes, I would have complained that whatever crystalline representation they used wasn't 100% accurate.)

My ridiculous issue aside, this is a memorable rebus, which is tremendous praise considering how many hundreds of rebuses we've had over the years.