Ross Trudeau author page

Wyna and Ross are bold. After watching UMA THURMAN in "Imposters," I'd be giving Lenny Cohen all the respect she deserves.

Cool that there are so many crossworthy females exhibiting this vowel-consonant-vowel pattern. I couldn't think of any others besides UTA HAGEN and ALI MACGRAW. (Is OLA HUDSON famous enough?)

Impressive to pack seven(!) long names into the grid — and to do it so cleanly. Not a surprise given the track records of these two constructing stars, but it's still admirable. They could have even cleaned up the minor ACR stuff by breaking up BEATDOWNS at the T, but I like that the trade-off injects more pizzazz.

Although the construction feat is technically masterful, I wanted an extra layer to bring it all together. I'm thankful that Ross spoke up, because I completely missed the word ladder aspect!

Could they have made that more noticeable? Incorporating WORD LADDER would have been intrusive — and kind of random — so probably not.

What else could they have done with the "female name vowel-consonant-vowel pattern" concept? Limiting to A_A worked well for Matt Gaffney and his daughter, ADA.

Or perhaps there's some delightful revealer to bring everything together, expressed in the vowel-consonant-vowel pattern? I couldn't think of one right away, but it'd have been fun to brainstorm to figure out a better a-ha moment.

Wait ... AHA!

★ This one climbs my ranks as one of the most memorable Sundays in years. I fondly remember my bafflement-flipping-to-delight moment when uncovering a column of Is that acted as the web for THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN. Today's column of Hs so perfectly representing a LADDER might be even more amazing!

(You can find other repeated-letter themes using our Finder, including a series of Is representing a jungle vine and another one depicting a fishing line.)

Look at all the levels that make this puzzle rise to the heavens:

Visual of the ladder. Such creative use of a capital letter. Wish I'd Thought of That.

So many entries that aptly climb the ladder. I would have come up with HOUSE PAINTER. Then having to come up with a matching entry of length (7,5) for symmetry? I'd have given up. CHIMNEY SWEEP is excellent.

Perfect revealer placement. The fact that the H of CLIMBS THE LADDER is in its exact center, so it could be placed dead center of the grid? That's enough to make you take up religion. (I never doubted you once, oh great Crucivera! But maybe you could spread your bolts of inspiration around to more than just Jessie and Ross?)

Threading themers through a central down makes for incredibly difficult gridwork, since the regions around intersections get highly constrained. There's a bit of I MET / SO A right off the bat, but in total, such care in filling. NICE JOB is quite an understatement.

A typical Sunday 140-worder will have about a dozen gluey bits, so finishing with about eight minor dings shows such resilience; never saying it's good enough.

Ross and I are both rock climbers, and this puzzle is a route I'd steer every one of my friends to try.

★ Jessie and Ross! With all due respect to my dear wife, who's turned to the Dark Side of word games (she's unapologetically obsessed with the Spelling Bee and Wordle), I bend the knee to today's royal couple of crosswords.

Fun Sunday puzzle to celebrate their big day, too. I enjoyed figuring out that the five roads led to Rome, and I appreciated the four ways they hid ROME: BICHROME, AERODROME, ETHAN FROME, IMPOSTER SYNDROME. I wouldn't have guessed there were so many different types of *ROME entries. The only other strong one I could find was PALINDROME, but not all solvers are selihphiles.

What made the puzzle stand out was its technical merits. I've had many people ask me about ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME puzzle ideas, but figuring out how to pull one off has always been the trouble. Note Jessie and Ross's use of diagonal symmetry, which allowed them to so elegantly intersect a road and a *ROME entry at their ends (we've highlighted the themers to illuminate the skeleton). It's a perfect way to execute the sense of finality carried by the ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME revealer.

Diagonal symmetry allows for some flashy touches, too. Given that some themers are shorties and/or not that colorful — BICHROME feels a bit black and white, for example — spicing up the grid is a great thing. Although you risk muddying up what is theme and what is not, the sparkle of HERO WORSHIPPER and RORSCHACH CARDS is well worth it. Diagonal symmetry plus the short themers in the upper left make this possible.

Certainly no IMPOSTER SYNDROME, Jessie and Ross are the REAL DEAL, the crossworld's residents of PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE. I can't wait to see what delights they bring us in the future.

★ Plenty of hacks have tried their hand at playing with repeated letters, but Parker and Ross made theirs shine. Quite the pair of CUTIE PATOOTIES!

The other themers, in case you didn't CCCCCCD (six-C D = succeed; I know, not only does this joke not fit the pluralization pattern, but it's terrible) in catching them:

4Ns IC SCIENTIST = FORENSIC SCIENTIST

TOM 8Os = TOMATOES

A 10Ds = ATTENDEES

The last one hit me the weakest since the lone A so badly wanted to be a long A, not a short A as in ATTENDEES. It was close enough that I could look the other way, though.

I wonder how many solvers will think that CUTIE PATT is a Gen alpha-speak term they're too out of touch to understand. Thankfully, the italicization of the clue forces you to notice that something odd is going on, but the others have so many repeated letters that they don't need such flagging. I grew to like how CUTIE PA(TOOTIES) forced me to think; to not grow complacent.

Such a great take-off on repeated letters. Integrating the partial syllables into words made them delightfully unpredictable.

I felt so naive, not realizing that I've been misspelling NAÏVETY all these years. I'm such an uberdork.

Er, überdork.

I've seen a ton of double-O rebuses across various publishers, including ones in the NYT riffing on James Bond and double-double Os. And a beautiful one with Os stacked atop each other to form 8s! OO representing UMLAUTs is a new one. I found it hard to connect the dots on the concept, since the UMLAUT dots are so much smaller than Os, but I appreciate the creativity.

Would a different clue for UMLAUT have helped? I had to read that three times to make sense of it, and the "both of which are represented in this puzzle" still didn't make sense. I think it's trying to emphasize that both dots of the UMLAUT are represented by the double Os?

Now I'm wondering, has anyone done a triple-O rebus, representing ellipses . . .

DOT DOT DOT

Neat that Ross covered four different vowels commonly UMLAUTed. Why don't American brands double up on their Os? I doubt Bose wants to be known as Böse, the German word for "Evil."

Wildly creative idea that didn't hit as strongly as I would have liked. Still, it's neat to see Thursday constructors swing for the fences, especially when it's as good a guy as Ross, the ÜBERMENSCH who's helped so many people advance their crossword careers.

ADDED NOTE: I failed miserably at understanding the UMLAUT clue. Languages are böse!

★ Innovative twist for a Thursday!

If you didn't get that, we've highlighted the four KEY words below. Rotate those four KEYs 90 degrees to make sense of each Down entry.

Amazing that Lucy and Ross found enough different ways to incorporate KEY, too. The old kids' joke asks, what three keys open no locks? Answer: donkey, monkey, turkey. If I only had a shot of WHISKEY for every time I heard that!

Solid finds in OKEY DOKE, HOCKEY, and JOCKEY to flesh it out. Others I could think: JOKEY Smurf, MIKEY Day, RICHARD LEAKEY, RICKEY Henderson, and a toadying LACKEY. Crikey!

MONKEY PAW instead of MONKEYS PAW made me hitch. That is, until I saw the creepy picture Peele's production company uses. W.W. Jacobs's story seems like a nursery rhyme compared to this!

I found it confusing that UNIONISTS and EMMA STONE stole the headlines, along with ROBOT KITS and CHEYENNES. I usually dig long bonuses, but these muddied the waters. An alternate layout where the KEY themers are the longest entries would be difficult, but not impossible, especially if you went up to the max of 78 words. Minor point, though.

I've had many editors give me the stink-eye for KOD, TKOD, even KOS, saying that they look so weird. I avoid them now because the editors are the gateKEYpers, but they still seem fine to me.

Innovative, POW!-worthy idea, with a great (WARNING, PUN ALERT!) spin.

It's a trap! Even better, it's five of them.

I enjoyed that Ross did something more than a standard rebus, making his vertical TRAP phrases fall down through a black square, continuing on. [Scores for placekickers] confused me, since there were only three squares. I was all set to write to Will Shortz, saying that the clue needed an "Abbr." tag, when I realized what was going on: EX(TRAP)OINTS! Fun stuff.

I did find the trick somewhat unsatisfying, since the TRAP DOORS "opened" onto a black square. Wouldn't a solid block stop you from falling, asked the chronic overthinker?

It would have been awesome if those five black squares had been drawn so that they had "holes" through their centers — maybe a hole emoji or a theatrical star portal — so you have a TRAP door above a hole through which you fell. I'm sure some clever artist could have made something sizzle.

Excellent gridwork. It's not hard to insure that there's a black square under each TRAP rebus; that's straightforward layout. Getting everything symmetrical — while making sure all your Down pieces fit — is another story. Although you can mix and match to some degree, it's an incredible gridding challenge.

Ross is one of the few folks I'd trust to take on something this daunting, and he came through with a clean, colorful grid with few compromises. TE(TRAP)ODS isn't as outstanding as FLYING (TRAP)EZE, PREDISPOSE can be disposed more than RAISE HAVOC, but overall, it's such a high-quality product.

I'd love to see the NYT highlight one of its distinguishing characteristics more — the print Sunday Magazine can feature all sorts of artistic elements that can't be duplicated (well) in an electronic solve. Some ingenious artwork in those five black squares underneath the TRAPs, and this would have plopped into POW! territory.

COUNTRY STAR is a perfectly punny way to describe celebs whose names are also countries. I enjoyed "Superstore," so AMERICA FERRERA was a gimme. (People might tell you that I both laughed and cried at "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants," and I will deny all such blasphemy.)

If you don't know JORDAN PEELE, where have you been? Ah, in lockdown? Right. Ahem. Hopefully, Jordan Poole of the Golden State Warriors gets more playing time because there's a crossword theme somewhere in there ...

INDIA ARIE, our crossword friend! ARIE has been used over 60 times in the Shortz era, because it's so, so, so constructor-friendly. Tip: if you want to get your kid in the NYT crossword one day, consider naming him/her/them ERA. Better yet, help me help you by picking a name like ESS and ENE, which would legitimize these subpar entries for constructorkind!

(Besides CUBA GOODING JR, we could have also accepted CHAD OCHOCINCO or PENNINGTON and GEORGIA O'KEEFFE. Sadly, CHYNA and CHADWICK BOSEMAN don't quite make the cut.)

Not the most memorable of themes, but Ross did well to employ a pretty mirror layout — something mesmerizing about that upside-down T pressing down from the top — and a ton of spicy bonuses to help elevate the solving experience. Delightful entries like DNA STRAND FUDGSICLE, PROTONS, NICE IDEA helped lift my solving experience … BRONZE MEDAL feels about right.

SORRY NO RETURNS … how did Jessie and Ross know about my tennis game? I thought I was halfway decent until ten years ago when a 6'6" friend with a wicked 100+ mph spin serve set me straight, in straight sets.

After that, I decided tennis was a racket.

ONE-WAY TRIPS worked as well, although it has a similar meaning to the tennis aces. (I should have written a witty comeback here, but that wouldn't go with today's theme.)

BAD INVESTMENTS never sit right with me, so these days index investing (supported by the SPIVA studies) is my jam. This themer also didn't land as squarely as the others since most BAD INVESTMENTS have returns that are less than the benchmark but aren't exactly zero. Even in bankruptcies, investors often scrape out pennies by negotiating haircuts on the—

(Jim Horne interrupted to suggest that I hit RETURN.)

Great bonuses, as I've come to expect from both Jessie and Ross. Adjacent long Downs are usually easy if they run through one themer, but two is a different story. LOCAL PRIDE / LORD IT OVER with no surrounding glue is an A+ result. Carefully placing SERVICE ACE so the friendly E and R could end those long Downs was smart.

Not as stellar in the opposite corner, with SULFA / LOCI a tough crossing. Still, IDIOT-PROOF / PERSIAN CAT is worth that price, given this is a mid-week puzzle. At least, it's worth it to those who got that square correct.

Not a standout of its genre, but a fun "different meanings" theme elevated by so many delights in the fill.

Crossword constructors jump at sets of three or four (sometimes five). Perfect sets make such great crossword themes, and ANNE, CHARLOTTE, EMILY are exactly that. Even a boor with my lowbrow tastes can appreciate that.

It's a shame that there's no wordplay reveal possible, as there might be for Jane Austen (maybe you could riff on "plain Jane" or AUS + TEN somehow). THE BRONTËS tells it like it is, unfortunately without any of the wit exhibited in "Pride and Prejudice."

If you tell my b-ball buddies I said that, I'll deny everything.

Exactly three sisters is a tight set. How to showcase them, though? CHARLOTTE is a tough name to integrate into a phrase. Besides CHARLOTTE'S WEB, there's CHARLOTTE HORNETS (I'm targeting Terry Rozier in our fantasy draft this year), the delicious CHARLOTTE RUSSE, and CHARLOTTE AMALIE.

EMILY is even harder, surprisingly, with mostly only people as options: EMILY DICKINSON, EMILY POST, EMILY BLUNT. EMILY'S LIST disguises things much better (EMILY is an acronym, not a name), although it was awfully tough to figure out for this apolitical person.

I can hear Ross's thought process: with two possessives, why not go consistent with a third? AUNTIE ANNE'S has a special place in my heart since on my honeymoon in Malaysia, my pregnant wife could tolerate zero smells. I fetched many AUNTIE ANNE'S pretzels from the malls for her, while I gorged on Panang curry (sitting far outside as I ate).

The consistency of three possessives theoretically might enhance the theme. However, it felt odd. The BRONTË sisters weren't known as Anne's Brontë, etc. So ... why? I'd have preferred random phrases with no consistency for consistency's sake.

Hey, I never said I was consistent!

I enjoyed so much of this solving experience, neat to see the BRONTËs get their due. Loved the bonuses of BETA APPS, ACUTE ACCENT, EARLY RISER, SENIORITIS; Ross as always doing such top-notch gridding. That wasn't enough to overcome no zing in the revealer along with some head-scratching, though.

★ In basketball, a HEAD FAKE is when you telegraph a move by jerking your eyes or chin one way, then take off in the other direction, blowing past your defender. A successful HEAD FAKE leaves the person off-balance, tripping on their own feet. That's known as "breaking your defender's ankles." Back when I was quicker, the highlight of my rec bball days was when I head-faked a friend so bad, his toe literally tore through his shoe as he fell onto his butt. It was glorious!

Not as glorious as the deception today, though. The clever wordplay on the themer clues threw me off balance, not seeing what Sophie and Ross were planning. I had to work hard enough to understand that [Batter's additions?] referred to someone batting their EYELASHES that when I got to HEAD FAKE, I was dumbfounded, trying to figure out how Sophie and Ross got past me, lifting off for the windmill dunk.

HEAD FAKE … refers to replacement body parts … on the HEAD? Dang, that's fantastic!

When someone skies over you and dunks on your head, it's called "getting posterized," as in that pic will end up as a poster on someone's wall. When that happens — as it frequently did to me — the best response is to shake the other person's hand and admire the feat of athleticism.

I did hitch a few times in the fill, akin to when a point guard almost travels by turning their hand over the ball (called "carrying"). I know WOAH mostly from old Tintin comics — Snowy the dog often said it — but younger generations have adopted this stylized spelling of "whoa."

PIECEWISE … it's been a long time since I've taken any math, but don't most mathematical functions change at different intervals? Yes, but the clue is (awkwardly) getting at step and sub-functions.

And I'm inured to a lot these days, so I got an off-kilter smile out of NIP crossing NON PC.

Neat to see SCALED referring to both fish and rock walls. Ross and I are both avid climbers, so the insidery nod made me smile.

Small nips — er, nits — aside, an excellent debut that so aptly faked me into a beautiful a-ha moment.

Fun idea, I CAN SHOW / YOU / THE WORLD pointing to entries that can literally show you a view of the world (Earth). PALE BLUE DOT is an awe-inspiring pic of the Earth from space, show how tiny we are in the grand scope of the universe.

POCKET ATLAS also shows (individual parts of) the world, although I wondered why a pocket atlas, not just a regular atlas? I imagine it's because ATLAS is too short to act as a feature entry — tossing in POCKET felt inelegant. Would ROAD ATLAS be any better … maybe?

I hitched on PLANETARIUM. It's been a while since I've been to a PLANETARIUM (been a while since I've been anywhere; sigh), but all my memories revolve around images of stars and space. If you loosen the definition of WORLD, it does work better.

Hey, all four themers start with P, that's cool! POPEMOBILE … can show you the world by driving all over the place on his tours? It is bulletproof, so you can go everywhere, I suppose—

Huh? The theme entry is not POPEMOBILE but GOOGLE EARTH, which is perfectly apt?

Also apt that I LOST was in the grid.

Part of me loves that there's so much bonus material in the grid, entries like SCAREDY CAT, DE NOVO, NO NAME. With a presentation like today's, though, I'd have preferred a less-is-more approach, allowing solvers to focus more on the themers.

It'd also have been great to avoid the awkward TWO TO. I get why it happened, with stacked SHOW/YOU/THE in the middle, and the revealer locked into PLANETARIUM and GOOGLE EARTH. Would WOT be any better, as in a Brit's "huh?" Maybe not, with ERENOW already in the grid. It might be possible to spread the three pieces, spacing them a row apart, but that's calling for a full grid redo.

Strong idea, playing on a (warning: ear worm ahead) catchy song. Some rough EDGES in implementation.

★ Delightful connection, E-READER giving solid rationale for playing on authors whose names are regular words plus an E. I'd have believed that there would be four authors exhibiting this trait — WOLFE and WILDE have been played upon in many a crossword — but to get four of them that could be worked into common phrases? I wouldn't have even attempted it. Fantastic finds!

This is a splendid example of why I admire "tightness" in a theme set. Dan Schoenholz did a similar concept years ago, but it included Gordie HOWE, Louis MALLE, Arthur ASHE. Zeroing in on authors makes today's theme so much more elegant and tying them all together with E-READER makes it even more memorable.

Amazing gridwork, as I'd expect from the dream team. Of course, Amanda and Ross give us the typical long downs that are colorful — SEA OTTERS and EXTROVERT — but they don't stop there. It's difficult to build in long Across bonuses because they often interfere with gridding around the themers, but look how smoothly Amanda and Ross slipped in LIFEBOAT, WHERE ELSE, YOGA POSES, US VS THEM.

Often, these long Acrosses can muddy up what is theme and what is not, but with the themers being so obvious today, it's not a problem.

I'd usually suggest breaking up YOGA POSES at the second O, or LIFEBOAT at the B, but when you're willing to put in the time and effort to iterate until perfection, it's an excellent decision to go big. There are few secrets to filling a wide-open corner like the NE. If you want it bad enough, there usually will be some combination of long entries that give you a favorable balance of color and cleanliness. Few constructors have the doggedness to keep going, though.

It'd have been great to get a 50-50 mix of male and female authors, as well as more diversity, but I couldn't think of any other authors besides Thomas PAINE and Graham GREENE that would fit the pattern. Curious if anyone else can uncover someone that might have worked toward this goal.

Standout puzzle — a clever theme and stellar execution.

★ At first, both Jim Horne and I were underwhelmed at first by this concept. Colors of the rainbow have been played upon so many times over the years, including the first puzzle of the Will Shortz era,. The title seemed to give away the game, and quickly uncovering EVER(GREEN) TREE didn't help.

Plus, EVER(GREEN) TREE made this yet another addition to the "turning themers" trope that Will has largely stopped taking. I did appreciate that GRAVITY'S RAINBOW made for a strong rationale for pulling the colors down, but it wasn't enough to overcome my "meh" moment.

And Ross / Lindsey didn't even bother to put the colors in ROY G BIV rainbow order! Starting from GREEN, trickling down to YELLOW and BLUE … what is this, a Dali painting? I mean, how hard would it be to start with RED …

Oh, wait. It does start with RED when you think about left to right order. Look, there's ORANGE next, YELLOW—

Wait. Are the ordered colors …

... in the shape OF A RAINBOW?

I hope paper solvers don't miss this extra layer, because it elevates this puzzle to a sky-high level. The shape isn't perfect (see the grid below), but it's close enough to still be jaw-dropping. Amazing visual for the solver in me, and this technician wouldn't have though it could be possible to lay things out so masterfully. It's rare for a puzzle to appeal to both parts of my personality so strongly.

I fear that there will be many who don't notice. It would have been great to include a revealer at the bottom, something like ARC that could explicitly point to what's going on.

Exceptional puzzle. This is exactly the kind of shot in the arm that the NYT Sunday crossword has been needing. Big idea, amazing execution, interesting grid entries and clues = a huge win.

★ I've seen plenty of FEE FI FO FUM puzzles, even one with a neat vine visual, so I was surprised by how much I enjoyed today's. What a creative way to hide those syllables — I would have thought it impossible to camouflage FUM at the end of a phrase. Not only does the phrase have to end with the letters F U M, but it has to exhibit the FUM (not "foom") sound too? Ain't gonna happen.

I'll admit, I was skeptical at the pronunciation of PARFUM. Given that my five years of high-school French resulted in approximately 2.3% mastery of the language, I thought I'd better look it up. Sure enough, it's absolutely perfect. It's so elegant when a themer has one and only one option.

Top-notch gridwork, as I'd expect from a gridmaster, such snazzy bonuses in ORGANIC FARM and MYTHBUSTERS, along with A PRIORI (don't worry, I don't know what it means either, but like you, I pretend I do), HOT BATH, ATHENA, PUEBLO.

Ross hasn't been submitting solo puzzles for a long time now, so I bet that

1. this one's been sitting in Will Shortz's queue, and
2. Ross would go back and redo the southwest corner to remove ONEA / change ADONAI to make that region more newb-friendly.

I don't mind them since they enable MYTHBUSTERS and HOT BATH, but I'm sure the perfectionist in Ross could now find an alternative fill that was almost as sparkly without any early-week prices to pay.

Jim Horne and I discussed whether GIANT as a revealer would have generated a bigger a-ha moment, but given the potential confusion around PARFUM's pronunciation, I like the Monday overtness.

I appreciate the new and clever way of executing an established theme.

★ So amusing to think about Mario going down the runway, trying to out-pose the Minions. I didn't fully appreciate the concept at first since it seemed like you could pick any costume and find dozens of toons that wore it. As I drilled down, though, how many toons wear denim overalls? I'm deep in the midst of cartoonland — for my kids, not me! — and I could only come up with Wreck-it Ralph and Bob the Builder.

(I admit, I have an affinity for Wreck-it Ralph. So misunderstood.)

The others were even tighter. I couldn't come up with anyone but Popeye and Donald Duck for the SAILOR SUIT. All I could think of was Buster Bluth, who will sadly never win WHO WORE IT BETTER, but who's a winner in my book.

Fun echo to the theme in [Runway model?] = AIRLINER.

Great bonuses in BLIND SPOT, WHITE SEA, STRESS OUT. It's amazing what a megastar GAL GADOT has become in such a short time — she blew me away in her 2017 "Wonder Woman" role. A shame that the reviews for the sequel have been so negative.

Also appreciated were the fun touches in the clues. LAT confused me for a long. time, until I realized that there was a period after long. As in longitude! And I know a lot of people who can blow a lot of hot air, but VENTS do that as well.

Neat concept, one that grew on me. It kept calling me back to take a second and a third look, which is one trait of a great puzzle.

If Ross ever decides to open up a restaurant, I'm there. Different ales, ice, a wide SHOT SELECTION, along with a banana SPLIT doused in beef stock? Considering my lunch consists of "whatever the kids didn't eat yesterday, dumped into a bowl," that's right up my alley.

I did wonder, is MOOED related to the theme somehow? Because of the banana SPLITs? Usually, I would applaud such a fun clue as [Participated in a stock exchange?] — cows are stock that MOO — but it's so close to STOCK OPTION. I generally don't care if words in clues duplicate those in the grid, but the gist of this clever clue is too similar to the theme concept.

As always, nice gridwork from Boss Ross. STAYS SANE is so important these days, EXPANSION teams are fun, SO SUE ME and ILL PASS are great conversational phrases. Not easy to achieve so much sparkle with five (mostly) long themers. Working in some STONER YAHOO mid-length stuff helps, too.

You could complain about BSIX as something never written like that in real life, and a couple of EPS (bygone initialism) ESME (not in school curricula nearly as often as "Catcher in the Rye") XER (partial-ish; requires a fill-in-the-blank clue), but I bet some editors would give some of those a pass.

And maybe OFF PUT off-put you (as did the description of my lunch bowl), but the Oxford dictionary seems to think it's not off-putting.

I love the idea behind this one, and if it had felt less of a mish-mash than Jeff's lunch — even if it had been tightened to three alcohol-related ones — I'd have given it some POW! consideration.

Tracy Gray and I made a puzzle like this years ago. It wasn't the first time I'd heard the idea, so I wasn't too surprised when Will Shortz said that he liked it, but some of the candy names weren't well-known enough. Given all that history, I had a strong inkling what SUGAR, SUGAR meant.

I was hoping for something different, something more novel. Perhaps a double OSE addition, playing on CABO to CABOOSE, PROP to PROPOSE? Alas, we chem nerds can't always get what we want.

I enjoyed some of the themers. MARS SMARTIES is a fun one, assuming you know what SMARTIES are. And NERDS RING POP does a nice job of changing RING into a different meaning.

Most of all, today, I appreciated the clean gridwork, such a pleasure to get in a Sunday debut. Granted, Ross was on board, so I shouldn't have been surprised, but creating a Sunday 140-word grid at your first go is like picking up a baseball bat for the first time and facing Randy Johnson. I did notice how many extra black squares they used — it's impossible to overlook 12 of them — but I'd much rather have a flood of cheater squares plus a smooth grid than a clunky solve.

Nice to get some bonuses in SCREENWRITERS and FANTASY SERIES, too. I'd love to get a couple more, but again, not at the price of a painful solving experience.

I want more creativity out of my Sunday solving experience, but I understand that's not the case for everyone — probably a majority of solvers, realistically. Most might simply want something that they can complete. Assuming they've heard of all these candy types, this puzzle might be right in their (warning: terrible pun ahead) sweet spot.

I can imagine that solvers with KIDNEY STONEs won't take THIS TOO SHALL PASS as a source of amusement. Maybe Gandalf's reaction is more like it. It's either a bold, cheeky choice to play on KIDNEY STONEs, or wildly head-shaking. Not quite sure which.

I enjoy these "What Connects These Disparate Things" concepts. Ross's last one was a winner, such a clever interpretation of LOOK MA NO HANDS, playing not only on different definitions of HANDS, but lack thereof.

Today's didn't work as well. KIDNEY STONEs don't always pass, sometimes requiring surgery. BRIEF MOMENT and PRO QUARTERBACK; why tack on the first words? It's something you have to do since it's hard to build a theme around short entries, but both felt artificial. BRIEF MOMENT will pass … won't a long moment pass, too? As will a century?

BIPARTISAN BILL was the clear winner. Well, clear after Jim Horne pointed out its brilliance. BILLs don't always pass, but BIPARTISAN ones almost always do. That's spot-on for the revealer.

Long across bonuses stuck out in an odd way today, leaving me wondering how an ANT COLONY shall pass ... through their tunnels? Sure, I should have read the clue specifying which were the themers, but I shouldn't have to do that. A great layout highlights the themers better than this.

I did enjoy so much of the bonuses Ross worked in. Even MILDEWY feels oddly fresh, not to mention LSD TAB, CRINKLES, MOON FISH, TV HOSTS.

Was overlapping PEDESTALS on BRIEF MOMENT worth it, though? Not if it produces ARYA / AYN crossing. Regular solvers are used to AYN, but it could be an annoying and even unfair trap for newer ones.

Not my favorite of Ross's puzzles, but I did like the train of thought.

WOMEN OF LETTERS is a great revealer, perfectly tying together ELLE MACPHERSON, SANDRA OH, SAMANTHA BEE, and KAY HAGAN. A long memory for crosswords hurt my initial impression since a fantastic C.C. Burnikel puzzle and a FOURTH OF JULY theme immediately made me wonder what L O B K stood for.

I'm curious — what it would be like, to be a person who doesn't feel it necessary to spend two hours Googling LOBK and all 24 permutations of those letters?

I'm also curious how many unenlightened boors didn't know KAY HAGAN. Shame on us! I mean, ewe! Aw, GGGG!

Love the inclusion of SHE/HER as fill. Along with MADAM President, AURORA/EOS, I liked the celebration. A shame that this didn't run on March 1^st.

Five themers bookended by two 14s usually means trouble. The five phrases can only get one row of spacing from each other, and that squishing-in constraint forces so many down answers to cross multiple themers. It all starts with the central 28-Down, which often creates an unfillable letter pattern. Thankfully, Jessie and Ross had some flexibility, and S?T?N has several fine options.

Bonus fill is then the next issue since long downs will have to run through three themers, having to fit inflexible letter patterns. Great results in GATORADE, SPY NOVEL, and TANGENTS.

Trying to choose great long fill while simultaneously avoiding gloopy short fill is a further challenge. It's near impossible to escape a layout like this without some ALEE SHA (and BRULEE ASSAM could be off-putting for newbs), but that's fairly minor.

Careful, meticulous work, with an outstanding result; excellent debut. I applaud Ross's efforts to help new constructors publish their voices. If I hadn't been tapped out on letter homophones, this could have been in the POW! running.

Spot-on representation of TWO PEAS IN A POD, two Ps crammed into a circle. I appreciated the zesty theme entries, too — STRIP POKER, WRAP PARTY, VIP PASSES, that's a great story right there! Even FLIP PHONES seem to be making a return.

I thought I'd be the only one who noticed the consistency of all the Across themers having PP split over two words, while all the Downs having PP within a single word. Not so! Jim Horne, who usually doesn't care about things like this, noted it as a mark of elegance. He also (correctly) predicted that I'd note it too.

However, today was one of the rare occurrences where he appreciated consistency more than I did. While I do like the tidiness of all the Acrosses working similarly, and the Downs too, there's no reason why they should. It'd be one thing if there was a reason for PP to split across Across entries, and another reason for Downs to work differently. As is, the consistency for consistency's sake didn't wow me as much as it did Jim.

I'd also have liked a less audacious grid layout. It's almost impossible to avoid compromises with a theme-dense, 72-word grid. The SE corner is telling. Anytime you have to resort to the common-letter-heavy ERESTU on an edge, it's not so great.

In the opposite corner, ROSTRA is an odd duck but reasonable. Less so: TO RENT? OHO crossing OH THAT? R AND R, never written like that outside crosswords? I understand the desire to make the puzzle feel heftier, but I'd prefer scaled-back gridwork. Maybe even run this on a Tuesday. Yes, it's rare to get a Tuesday rebus, but the circles make it an easy rebus — too easy for a mid-week puzzle.

Thankfully, Amanda and Ross did a great job selecting themers that snazzed up the joint, WHOPPER JR such a fun entry. Some sparkly bonuses, like MACH ONE, WEASELS, ALTER EGO (Ziggy Stardust was David Bowie? Blows my mind!), helped balance out some tougher entries like LYCEES and CREVE.

★ I had zero chance of winning at "Name That Theme" today. With mirror symmetry, if there are no long across slots in the top half of the puzzle, the themers usually are in the long down slots. So, how are ALL TOO TRUE, GHOST SHIP, IRENE ADLER related?

If you can answer that question, Tribond has a job for you!

Even though I failed to figure out the theme (and even failed to identify the themers), I loved it. It's not just "seemingly disparate things that have hands" theme. Ross took it one step further and found neat examples where the lack of hands is notable. Such great theme phrases, too, each of them colorful. GHOST SHIP, TOUGH CROWD, and WATER CLOCK …

I did hesitate on that last one. I vaguely knew what it meant, but something like DIGITAL CLOCK or DIGITAL WATCH would have made for a sharper a-ha. That sent me down the rabbit hole of searching for an alternate themer set, involving ABANDONED SHIP 13 to match LOOK MA NO HANDS 13, and maybe DIGITAL WATCHES split 7 / 7 and TOUGH CROWD 5 / 5, but that would require an unconventional —

Right, you don't care about my unconventional obsessiveness. TOUGH CROWD, indeed.

Curious choice to include the long bonuses of ALL TOO TRUE and IRENE ADLER. While they are both excellent entries, they muddy the waters of what is fill and what is not. Maybe shading the three theme answers would have helped?

Generally, though, it's better to find a layout that makes your themers pop. Scooching WATER CLOCK and TOUGH CROWD inward one column might have helped.

Even with my hesitations, it's still a winner of a concept with a solid, interesting grid to boot. Great to get some delightful wordplay clues, too, like both OINK and INK = things that come out of a pen.

I've learned a ton about Will Shortz's editorial preferences over the years; what entries he will and won't accept. One curiosity is that he tends to not only accept but relish in "drop trou" or "full moon" clues / answers. It's fun to imagine him subversively sneaking these in.

No subtlety today — KEEP YOUR PANTS ON, cartoon characters! I've seen lists of anti-pant-ites before, but it was amusing to get a reminder. Talk about subversive; generations of cartoonists secretly chanting nudist sayings. We declare no underwear, we like to feel the air!

I should have been a slogan writer.

Ever wonder why Yogi was made into a bear, not some other animal? YOGI BARE is more like it!

Or maybe a conspiracy theorist.

Beautiful grid to go along with the funny theme / revealer. I'm usually wary of adjacent parallel downs, since something like TV LICENSE / TRICK SHOT requires so many crossings to work through — especially when both of these long bonuses cross two themers! Amanda and Ross are such strong constructors that they pulled it off with both color and cleanliness.

There's no secret to producing outstanding grids, just a ton of gritty, iterative work.

If I hadn't ever noticed the prevalence of toons going ultra-commando, I'd have let out a mighty laugh at the revealer today. Even being familiar with it, I still chuckled. An amusing theme, along with such a masterfully-crafted grid, not your average bare! Er, bear. If it hadn't been for a bit of tougher OREAD and NEAP, I'd have no qualms about hooking a newb into crosswords with this one.

About a year ago, I had this brilliant idea. Brilliant, I say! What if I could find phrases that had exactly five vowels, in E I E I O order? Was that even possible?

The coding wasn't straightforward — a wild card search like *E*I*E*I*O* would turn up lots of false positives with extra vowels — but eventually I figured it out. I came up with a limited set, making for a tight theme, and most of them were great:

• BEST INTENTIONS
• CELINE DION
• LEIF ERICSON
• VERMICELLI BOWL
• VESTING PERIOD
• DERRINGER PISTOL
• BELIEF IN GOD
• PERIHELION
• THE TIME IS NOW

What a disappointment when I turned up Peter Collins' puzzle from 2010. A variant, too. Ah well, it happens. I moved on.

I wish I hadn't been so hasty. Even knowing about Pete's puzzle and my findings, I still enjoyed today's solve. It's a shame that REWRITES HISTORY includes the Y as a vowel, because the others have that incredibly impressive feature of there being only five vowels, E I E I and O. Even after having discovered all I did, it still boggles my mind that there is a set of phrases that works.

I had a miserable time down in the lower left corner. I know UVEA because I worked in ophthalmic pharmaceuticals, but that's a toughie. Crossing it with EVE clued as the rapper, and ARS seeming more like [Captains' cries] than AYS, and I had a BEVY of wrong guesses in there. I'm all for modern references, but in this case, the solving experience would have been so much smoother with a Biblical EVE reference.

Thankfully, there were some strong bonuses, BATH TOWELS clued to the old joke about getting wetter as they dry, WHEREFORES a curious word, WINS BIG. Helped to balance out some of the stuff that might make newer solvers feel unwelcome, like NIHIL and ROLLO.

Great theme, with an unfortunate ding for the Y in REWRITES HISTORY. I enjoyed the discoveries so much, it made me wish I had stuck with my construction efforts. A puzzle from a decade ago shouldn't disqualify a remake.

ADDED NOTE: A friend pointed out another one from the WSJ — with an apt byline!

I so badly wanted this one to be about Piet Mondrian. Those crisscrossing 90 degree turns scream out to form rectangular shapes. Ah well. I'll amuse myself by imagining a spider wearing a beret.

WEB OF LIES does (mostly) work since the dictionary defines WEB as "a complex system of interconnected elements." It's tough to get over the expectation that a web will look like a spider web, though.

Now I have the image of Spider-man wearing a beret in my head. Tee hee.

I found it interesting how many synonyms there are for "lie" in English. Kind of reminds me of how many synonyms for "snow" there are in Inuit. Social commentary, eh, Ross? I especially enjoyed the ones that could easily be disguised, like INVENTION as a new creation. It would have been great to limit the LIES to only words meeting this criterion, like SHAM, FABRICATION, COVER UP, STORY, etc. That would have produced a neater a-ha moment in the end.

It's an impressive WEB Ross wove, no doubt, so many intersections running all across and down the entire grid — in symmetrical form! I wouldn't have imagined that possible.

Given how many compromises such an audacious construction is bound to cause, though, I'd have preferred it to be dialed back. Even in the single category of awkward plurals, we get LOAMS, RYES, OMS, OWS, FTS … Not to mention all the other crossword stickiness required to hold the canvas in place.

WEB OF LIES is a great phrase to riff on. Impressive opening visual, but ultimately, the oddity of the rectangular webs and all the solving crunchiness felt like tough compromises.

SOCIAL CAPITAL is a great phrase to riff on. I'd never have thought there would be three [(social media verb) + (finance term)] phrases, but FOLLOWS THE MONEY, POSTS BOND, SHARES THE WEALTH all work. Neat that all three are presented in the same verb tense; a touch of elegance.

I did hitch on POSTS BOND, which I was sure had to be POSTS BAIL. Sometimes you have to make compromises to make a theme work. I'd have preferred sticking with the more natural-sounding POSTS BAIL, since even us finance types could look the other way, calling bail a form of capital.

Once in a blue moon, Crucivera, the God of Crosswords, is benevolent. I can only imagine other constructors finding these three themers and swearing at the horrible luck. Lengths 13, 9, 15, 15? Bah! It's a good thing that Amanda and Ross make their own luck, finding a way to interlock themers in a mirror symmetry arrangement. Neat save!

One of the tough aspects of using mirror symmetry can be eliminating "false themers." In this case, some solvers might ask, what do WIPER BLADES have to do with SOCIAL CAPITAL? It should be obvious which are themers today, but I can imagine some folks staring at WIPER BLADES, squinting in an attempt to make out blades that might be lurking in the windshield of black squares.

Another issue with mirror symmetry + intersecting themers is that the intersection regions can be rough to fill around. NOURI, MARTA, SUVA, EVEL are all in the wide spectrum of "fair," as are OCHOA, OKAPI, EAPOE and RHEA / GOA. So much within that gray zone can lead to a miasma of inelegance, though. The NOURI / MARTA cross, in particular, is problematic.

I'll take a strong concept where two of three themers hit home. Swap in POSTS BAIL and smooth out the crunchy spots, and it coulda been a contender.