Seth Bisen-Hersh author page
1 puzzle by Seth Bisen-Hersh
with Jeff Chen comments
| B | O | B | M | O | R | N | A | W | A | R | D | |||
| E | P | I | T | A | B | O | O | B | A | S | I | E | ||
| L | E | G | A | R | I | S | E | O | R | S | O | N | ||
| T | R | I | B | U | T | E | A | L | B | U | M | |||
| S | A | F | A | R | I | A | T | E | A | S | E | |||
| B | U | N | S | E | N | B | U | R | N | E | R | |||
| L | A | C | K | S | T | R | I | E | S | T | A | O | ||
| E | L | L | A | P | I | N | G | S | F | O | L | D | ||
| C | I | A | G | E | N | I | E | T | E | N | S | E | ||
| H | A | M | B | U | R | G | E | R | B | U | N | |||
| E | S | P | R | I | T | O | R | C | H | I | D | |||
| I | T | H | A | D | T | O | B | E | Y | O | U | |||
| P | R | A | D | A | P | R | I | M | A | A | T | E | ||
| S | O | L | A | R | T | A | K | E | N | T | A | T | ||
| T | E | L | L | S | S | T | I | R | T | S | O |
I stared at the revealer for an embarrassingly long time, wondering why the theme entries had not one but two sets of BUs. Sure, B U are homophones for BE and YOU, but you be damned if there's no rationale to explain … wait … 2 explain! IT HAD 2 B U is a clever reinterpretation of IT HAD TO BE YOU.
There's a fine line between stupid and clever: Jeff the former, Seth the latter.Seth used a layout that features many more 6-letter slots than usual. Check out the sheer quantity of colorful mid-length material like BOOMER, ESPRIT, ORCHID, SAFARI, TAURUS, TURBAN. Getting WARMER to a snazzy solve!
I would have loved at least a pair of long bonuses, though. Moving the blocks above BABKA to the right would have opened up an eight-letter slot, for example. That might have resulted in lesser fill in the SAFARI and BIG IF slots, but a pair of 8+ letter bonuses offers so much pizzazz.
You could even experiment with removing the black square between NOEL and NIGER to weave in a 10-letter bonus. It would have to go through three themers, but the letter combinations are friendly.
Hilarious ATE clue … now that my daughter has moved past the phase of telling the "seven ate nine" joke 789 times an hour.
I enjoy when a Monday theme offers up something more than usual. Hopefully, newb solvers will jump to the 2 BU conclusion more quickly than I did.