Todd Gross author page

I enjoy tight theme sets, and Todd did a great job of identifying four "X OF THE (time period)" phrases. Better yet, he got them in increasing order, from MOMENT to DAY to MONTH to YEAR. Almost perfect!

It would have been perfect to swap out the MOMENT phrase for an HOUR one, but the only possibility I could find was MAN OF THE HOUR. That would work, if it weren't for the pesky crossword gods and their symmetry regulations (MAN OF THE HOUR, at only 12 letters, wouldn't balance PERSON OF THE YEAR). Curse ye, oh mocking black and white deities!

It would have been too similar to PERSON OF THE YEAR, anyway. And SPUR OF THE MOMENT is a snazzy phrase. So I like Todd's theme set a lot; likely the best one available.

(ORDERS OF THE DAY wasn't as familiar to me, but it's well supported by the Goog and Robert's Rules of Order.)

Rarely a lead-pipe cinch to work with four super-long themers. I appreciated the long fill bonuses in IN THEORY and NO HITTER — beautiful selections.

GUN USERS … is that a real phrase? I suppose so, but isn't it usually just "hunters" or the like? I don't imagine people go around saying BOW AND ARROW USERS or SLINGSHOT FIRERS.

And the short gluey bits, SEM ESS OLA IER AFTA IN YOU. I did like that most of them are gettable, especially the partial IN YOU. But there's way too much to consider this an elegant grid.

See that set of three black squares below the end of ORDERS OF THE DAY? For a theme set like this, I usually find that it's better to move those up two rows. That causes a huge cascade of changes, but it does avoid problems in the tricky NE corner Todd had to deal with (see: IER).

Overall, a strong theme set. Another round of revisions on the grid could have helped out, though.

★ I appreciate a Thursday theme worth working to uncover. At first, I thought maybe BEETHOVEN had TEN symphonies — note TEN in BEETHOVEN! — and someone forgot to circle those letters?

But what a great idea, the solver having to COUNT THE SQUARES of the entry to arrive at the number asked for in the clues. BEETHOVEN = nine letters = nine symphonies. I vaguely remember seeing something like this before, but it felt far enough in the recesses of my mind to not lessen my delight.

ARACHNID = eight letters = eight legs. MARK SPITZ = nine letters = nine gold medals. Very cool!

MISSOURI isn't as specific since you could pick any state and find some piece of numerical trivial to fit. But the number of other states a state borders is a common enough piece of info.

Strong gridwork, too, Todd coming a long way in the past few years. Some of his earlier puzzles were kind of rough and gluey, but not this one. I appreciated all the long bonuses, CROUPIER, ULULATES, SNEETCHES. AE HOUSMAN was only vaguely familiar, but looking him up jogged "A Shropshire Lad" quickly back into mind.

It's unusual to weave a couple of long downs in the center of the puzzle — much easier to break those up. So HAUGHTY and SUITORS were even more welcome in my eyes.

A theme with a twist, strong long bonuses, and just a bit of ALEE, LTCOL, UNIV? Easy POW! choice. Very well done, Todd!

Many people have approached me for feedback on SUDOKU / PUZZLE crossword concepts, but I can't remember something quite like this. Todd gives us a mini-SUDOKU, with the letters A E R T in the middle 4x4, each letter showing up exactly once in each row, column, and 2x2 region.

It's very easy to fill such a 4x4 with those letters to fit that SUDOKU property. But it's mighty hard to do so in a way that facilitates integration into a crossword. I can only imagine how many permutations Todd must have tried before landing on this 4x4 layout.

I think Todd did fairly well in the center, with mostly fine entries like CARET and RATES. Neat to get some bonuses: DIETARY, ITERATE and ANTEATERS. HERAT is tough, but it seems crossworthy(ish), given that its population is over 400K. Thank goodness the H in MARSH had no ambiguity.

My only real wince — and it was a big one — was at PSSST. One might argue it's arbitrary how to spell that sound. But I've seen it in print (not just in crosswords) as PSST so often that it feels right like that. PSSST opens the door for unfortunate entries such as AAAAH, OMMM, etc.

Where I thought Todd shined was in some of the big, open corners. Even that opening corner is tough, given that it's a 7x4 chunk of white space. To work around CENTRAL so smoothly (just LDS = Latter Day Saints), and even feature THE EMMYS = a great way to kick off the puzzle.

And that lower left! Working around two Zs can be tricky, so to feature HAIRCUTS with a fun [Tops off?] clue, and I HATE YOU is fantastic. Some may argue that Daniel INOUYE is esoteric. But educated people ought to at least be familiar with the highest-ranking Asian-American in the history of U.S. politics.

I would have liked some rationale as to why A E R T were used (not just because those were four letters that worked) — and some revealer to rationalize why a mini-Sudoku — but all in all, a creative idea with generally good execution.

Wow, what a cool pattern of black squares! For years, I had been dreaming of some way of incorporating fractals into a crossword puzzle — Todd did it! It doesn't exactly follow the strict definition of "fractal," but there's something so delightful about the giant square in the center, with smaller and smaller squares emanating outward. I usually don't care for black squares in the very corners of themelesses like this, but in this case they add to the impressive visual first impression.

Nice selection of long entries forming the grid skeleton, too. MAINSTREAM MEDIA, ENDOCRINE SYSTEM, ATTENTION GETTER, and especially ALIEN VS PREDATOR are all nice entries. I never saw the movie, but I've heard good things about it. I like it when franchises mash up.

Good to get a few long entries in addition, too. MR AMERICA and LOIS LANE were nice to see together, and TATER TOTs are my personal kryptonite. EYE CHART is also a good answer, and it's elevated by a great clue: [Where you might need to read the fine print].

The huge number of black squares does make construction easier, nibbling away at areas that need to be filled, but themelesses with interlocking grid-spanners tend to force a lot of compromises. I first noticed a few rough patches in areas near the intersections of two grid-spanning entries, which tend to be inflexible areas to fill. The usual suspects like BSS AIT CLI ENSE aren't that bad. When I hit [Things that lead to Rome?] though, I so desperately wanted it to be something besides the old-school ITERS. Sigh.

RUNAGATES … I struggled with the G, trying to judge whether [Wendi ___] might be DENT, DENS, or DENG. I guessed wrong, and finding RUNAGATES defined in the dictionary as "A fugitive or runaway" was mighty unsatisfying. I think I might actually like the odd feel of the word RUNAGATES, but not cluing DENG as in DENG Xiaoping left a sour taste in my mouth, like I had been set up to fail.

So, a memorable pattern of black squares, with some great long entries and an assortment of rough patches.

CRAWLER to WALKER to RUNNER to … FLYER? I'm hoping my final step in this evolutionary process comes soon!

I had to think about that last entry. Is there some sort of developmental progression that this describes? I don't think so, but in the end I decided I liked FLYER's curious leap into the air. I was expecting SPRINTER or something akin to the riddle of the Sphinx, but I like it when a Monday puzzle throws me for a loop.

I also liked the choice of themers. BLADE RUNNER and WEB CRAWLER are colorful.

A few nice touches in the long fill — TAXPAYER and ET CETERA make a strong pair. That arrangement of two consecutive long downs is so rough to execute on, though. It's not easy to find a colorful pair that doesn't require little gluey crossing bits like XCI and SROS.

And poor EERO Saarinen. He's an accomplished architect, clearly gridworthy because of his artistic contributions to industrial design, but he gets maligned because of crossword overuse. I personally struggle with using EERO in any of my grids — on one hand his presence is deserved, on the other, it draws criticism as "crosswordese." Tough call.

Todd points out DACCA as undesirable, and that might confuse some. It's a world capital, so it should be fair game, right? But DHAKA is the modern name, so DACCA does feel less than desirable.

Mondays are so difficult puzzles to construct, because a preponderance of gluey entries can potentially turn off beginning solvers. This puzzle felt just on the cusp in that regard (what with the abovementioned plus TINTER, YAH, etc.). Adding a set of black squares into the grid, cutting EMERALDS and ET CETERA into two words apiece, would have helped, but it would have cut out two nice long words. The constructor's eternal dilemma — if adding more colorful entries in the puzzle necessitates more gluey bits, how far should you push it?

A fun idea, making me think at the end. I like it when a Monday puzzle does that.

I wasn't familiar with the "How to Hug" joke Todd mentioned, and all the references I found were on "blonde jokes" pages. So I'll rephrase it:

Did you hear about the USA Today crossword that took a book out of the library called How to Hug, only to discover that it was volume seven of the encyclopedia?

Zing!

While the joke didn't land for me as a crossword theme — sense of humor is so subjective — I liked the touch Todd mentioned, lining up the four "encyclopedia volumes" in alphabetical order. Good choice of themers too, all colorful phrases.

I would have liked some other tricky element for this Thursday puzzle. Although Will mentioned a few weeks ago that he has a simple goal of making Thursdays harder than Wednesdays, he's run so many tricksy Thursdays that it's set somewhat of a precedent. High expectations, and totally unfair given how hard it is to come up with innovative gimmicks, but it is what it is. Sorry, Will!

Nice layout, with TIM BURTON a nice entry and METACOMET amazing. I had no idea who this was, but what an awesome name. Overall, a nice job on filling, with a lot of good longer stuff. JERUSALEM, MY SHARONA, and ORIGAMI with its great [Paperwork?] clue.

I did experience (what I felt like was) a lot of esoteric names. Generally I don't mind a pile-up of names if they're all relatively familiar. But with SELBY, ANYA and YMA, it would have been nice to clue ISLAM and SHINS around the religion and the bones senses, so as to not add to the concentration.

Finally, a bizarrely awesome clue on ODIE. Who knew he did the Sudoku? And Jim Davis (who went to school with my mother-in-law) — HAVE GARFIELD SOLVE THE NYT CROSSWORD ALREADY! Someone come up with a lasagna / I hate Mondays / napping theme already.

After finishing the puzzle, I was itching for BADA BING BADA BOOM to be in there, so I was glad to see Todd's notes (this is partially why I run constructors' notes above my own). Too bad, but I can understand Will's hesitation to use repeated words in this particular theme, which might act to cheapen the feat.

Speaking of the feat, I was curious how hard it would be to find other 4x4s. My first impression was that it should be pretty easy. BADA BING BADA BOOM, nope. I came up with ALLY ALLY OXEN FREE, CAN'T STOP WON'T STOP, DON'T MESS WITH BILL (awesome song), GOOD LUCK WITH THAT, ONLY TIME WILL TELL, TURN LEAD INTO GOLD, and a few others, but it's a oddly tough constraint, especially if you throw out any with repeated words. So to my pleasant surprise, it made for more tightness than I had first thought.

Nicely laid out grid. Interlocking two pairs of themers really opens up the rest of the grid, leaving plenty of space for snappy fill. Only 136 words makes for a very tough task, but Todd pulled it off quite smoothly. There are plenty of neutral words in there (ANABOLIC, NEGOTIATE eating up two precious long slots) but JOAN OF ARC, NOGOODNIK, WILDCARD, MAHARAJA do add a lot of spice. There's not that much glue required — what's SMEW with you? — less than we see in a typical Sunday. I did really appreciate the smoothness of the solve (especially given how hard that is to do with a 136-worder), although I would have been okay with a little more glue if I could have experienced more great entries in the vein of JOAN OF ARC. Trade-offs, as always.

It did seem odd to me to have a dupe of WITH ARMS WIDE OPEN and OPEN SHOTS. I wonder if that was an oversight or it was considered a necessary evil to enable the 136-word grid? To dupe a word like this in a single grid is a usually big crossword no-no.

A final thought. The title seemed perfect to me when I uncovered the first themer. Four four-letter words = four by four, yes! Then the mathematician in my head (the devil, of course) whispered into my ear about how inaccurate the title was, more appropriate to 4x4 matrices. Alternately, FOUR by FOUR should indicate a single four-letter word next to another single four-letter word, or four of them next to four more (for a total of eight). Luckily, the angel came out and smashed the devil on the head, appropriately with a 4x4.

And they say you'll never use math in real life.

Clever idea today. Word ladders, which connect a starting word to an ending word using intermediates where only letter has changed, have become a little overdone in crosswords, so these days it's important to have some new aspect. I really like Todd's idea here, calling it a WORD LOOP, and actually progressing from WORD to LOOP and back, forming a complete circle around the perimeter.

As with most perimeter puzzles, the fill suffers because of the high constraints. Each corner presents its own problem to the constructor, and even if he/she can get all the corners to fill decently, there's still the huge problem of getting everything to knit together. Typically puzzles can be filled from the center toward the edges, and usually each little edge area is not very constrained, so they're not that difficult to fill out. Trying to get four subsections to mesh together cleanly is a head-banging problem.

I do like how Todd's arranged his black squares to help ameliorate this issue. Notice how the grid is sort of cordoned off, forming a SW and a NE region, along with a barbell connecting the NW and SE? Very smart to do so, and it makes his middle region quite nice. Kudos for working in SVELTE and KEY WEST into a tough-to-fill area.

Due to the requirement of each perimeter answer being four letters, there are cheater squares in the NW and SE. That makes filling much easier. In the NW, Todd does a great job. Yes, there are a lot of RSTLNE letters, but I'm okay with that considering the cleanliness of the fill. The SE is a different story, with A DRIP and A TRIP crossing each other. Typically those are reasonable (if not pretty) answers, but crossing each other draws extra attention.

And the other corners, so carefully cordoned off as best as possible, also suffer. I love WE MADE IT! but not at the price of EBRO, OR ME, OBER all in that single corner. Same goes for NEWSWEEK and CARWAX, two great answers in the SW which bring the very heavy price of OGEE, ORNE, and AGRO all in one tiny space. It makes me wonder if Todd started in the middle and worked his way out, sort of painting himself into those corners.

All in all, an innovative puzzle, one I appreciated for its novelty, but also one so constrained that the trade-off felt a little shaky.

Man oh man, it took me forever to cotton to this very innovative theme. Five theme answers are quasi-literal interpretations of phrases where the first word ends in ENDING. For example, the first theme answer is VENDING MACHINES, written out as MACHINES V (machine with V-ending). Tough, huh?

The hardest part was finishing the middle, where I didn't expect there to be a fifth theme answer (MENDING WALL written as a WALL with a M-ending). Will has said in the past that he prefers to have the theme answers stand out in some way, usually by making them the longest answers in the puzzle (or at least the longest answers in the across direction). That would have helped me greatly here, as I found it very confusing to have a shorty smack dab in the middle. But perhaps a little changeroo is good every now and then to keep everyone on their toes.

Note the wide-open nature of the grid. At just 70 words, it could qualify as a themeless puzzle. But any time you work with themeless-level word counts plus four (or more) theme answers, there are bound to be trade-offs. Todd has some nice long fill in here: LOVE CHILD and MATTRESS with its fun clue are really nice, but overall, there were enough compromises to affect the quality of my solve. Seeing too much of AMATIVE, UNLOOSES, GROFE, ARACE, etc. took me out of the experience somewhat.

I do wish there had been more wordplay type of cluing to help keep the solve a little more playful, especially as I was banging my head against the (non-mending) wall, attempting to figure out what the heck was going on. Overall though, I applaud the decision to push the boundaries of construction.

Ah, oh great crossword puzzle, what would my life be without you? You've given me an obsessive hobby, an excuse to hang out with my wife when we first met, a community of supportive and uberinteresting people, and a creative diversion that takes my mind off of work.*

FUN idea today, superimposing the shape of the very first American crossword onto a now-standard grid. It even has the word FUN in the proper place (albeit hidden inside FUNGICIDE = a tiny bit icky IMO). And even though the word count is low enough to make it a themeless, David and Todd work in NEW YORK / SUNDAY WORLD, ARTHUR WYNNE, and MCMXIII. Neat to find a symmetrical set of themers.

With such a a wide-open grid and four locked-in themers, there are bound to be compromises. In terms of long fill, we get some goodness in the form of DALAI LAMA and GREENLAND, but also have the awkward SOLEMNER. These rarely used type of words aren't so harsh when they're shorter pieces of fill, but it's less than ideal when one of your long slots is taken up by something like this. As David mentioned, working with a themeless grid is hard enough, but when you take away flexibility by locking in four answers, it really ups the difficulty.

Neat concept. I would have liked a stronger tie-in to the original puzzle (besides just its shape) but I'm not sure what else there would be. Reproducing the entire puzzle would automatically saddle you with ugly stuff (construction was pretty primitive back then), and trying to extend the original answers into a 15x grid would likely have been impossible.

*For the sake of the big anniversary, I forgive the fact that you've cost me countless hours of sleep in marathon bouts of construction, you bugger.