Trenton Charlson author page

Neat change of pace to get an audacious construction featuring eight interlocking grid spanners around the perimeter. Reminds me of the awe I experienced when I first encountered some of Joe Krozel's record-setting puzzles. Funny to see the rhyming CULTURE VULTURES echoed by the rhyming YOU'RE ONLY LONELY.

Are ALABAMA SLAMMERS more popular at bars or at themeless crossword construction sessions? Not only does the entry have so many easy-to-work-with letters, but note that precious vowel-consonant alternation. "Checkerboarding" various regions — vowels on the black squares and consonants on the white, or vice versa — can make for an easier meshing of entries.

This type of grid is so rigidly constrained that it's nearly impossible to land on eight sizzling grid spanners, with few short, gluey bits. ELECTRICAL POWER and BEETHOVENS THIRD crackle with high notes! Whether you like the latter or YOU'RE ONLY LONELY more is a matter of taste, but I loved learning the bit of trivia, that BEETHOVEN'S THIRD was initially dedicated to Napoleon.

It's hard enough to get all your crossings through a stack clean. Doing that four times simultaneously? To escape with NMI PTL PCT ESS CST isn't bad. Well worth the price of colorful entries like BEFORE YOU KNOW IT and especially SO CLOSE YET SO FAR.

Such a tittle-ating theme!

I write in ALLCAPS, so it took me a beat or three to figure out how DOT DOT DOT worked. It's neat that there are any words, period, that contain the *iji* string of letters. (You can search for these by entering *IJI* into our Finder.)

A shame that there aren't any phrases where the three letters break across words of a phrase, though. Will Shortz is usually a stickler about this, saying for instance that the DOLLAR part of FIJI DOLLAR doesn't do any thematic work.

BEIJING violates another of Will's tenets, that themes typically ought to be built around multi-word phrases, which tend to be more colorful than single-worders.

I wondered — are there any entries that contain sequences like JII or JJJ? Entering *[IJ][IJ][IJ]* into our Finder, unfortunately, shows mostly boring alternatives that involve III.

I triple sigh.

It's always useful to weave in bonuses to enhance the solving experience, and when some solvers may miss the theme completely, this verges on essential. It's a tough task, though, when your central entry forces four big corners, heavy with 7-letter entries.

Thankfully, Trenton is a master at 7s! Zingers like DON JUAN, O CANADA, TEMP JOB will hardly leave people IN AGONY. One of the keys is to use black squares to make those corners 7x3 instead of 7x4. Another is to make sure that only one themer is running through each corner, so you have a ton of flexibility. After that, it's a matter of time-consuming optimization.

I didn't find this to be the most capital of ideas since none of the findings were wowzers. I did enjoy connecting the DOT DOT DOTs, though. Such an interesting trigram of letters to build around.

Whenever I see Trenton's byline, I know to put on my X-ray Spex PDQ, because he loves working with rare letters. That mindset got me unstuck several times today. [Beautiful and rare] is generic enough to be many things. Thinking about what possible answer contain a JQXZ, EXOTIC popped right to mind. Especially because Trenton's used it before!

Anything with six letters that involves "alchemist" has to be ELIXIR. TEXTBOOK EXAMPLE of Trenton's work.

I enjoy rare letters when they're working in smoothly; no shoehorn or ramrod needed. FALL EQUINOX intersecting AQUA and OXEN is silky. XXX and XOXO are hot!

(XO) repeated ad infinitum is not. What's next, seeding a themeless with XOXOXOXOXOXOXOX? (For the love of Crucivera, please don't do that.)

My most memorable moment was uncovering YOO HOO nearby YO HO HO. Such a delightful juxtaposition, and I loved the surprise of seeing something different out of a Charlson themeless.

I also loved three examples of clues that generated an a-ha not by wordplay, but by giving enough of a nudge to flip me from WTF? to FTW! Did Trenton really expect me to know Russian saints? Some toon with a brother named Castor? Fruit-related book characters?

Ah! CYRIL, as in CYRILLIC. OLIVE OYL punnily is Castor Oyl's sister. And of course, Huckleberry FINN. Great trifecta.

Not the smoothest of products, with tough foreign vocab ECOLES and our old crossword muse ERATO reminding us that entries with common letters and perfect consonant-vowel alternation are so valuable to constructors. However, enough great entries and well-integrated rare letters to make for an overall enjoyable solve.

★ Sometimes, a single sizzling entry in a themeless is all it takes to rev me up.

When I first started cracking into Fridays, SAY THE MAGIC WORD made me so happy that any crossword glue couldn't slime my smile. Today, YE OF LITTLE FAITH accomplished the same thing.

But IS NOTHING SACRED, that phrase doubling the impact? Whoa!

Along with the LOCH NESS MONSTER and the fun trivia about the "surgeon's photograph," Trenton could have poured gallons of AGS-ENT-ESE-ESS over me, and I still wouldn't have been on the LAMS.

(Only the most annoyingly compulsive crossword people will remember how many times AGREE TO DISAGREE has been part of a triple-stack. Let's agree to agree that I am one of the aforementioned. What, did you really think I wouldn't mention that? Oh ye of little faith.)

I never understood why they named it BOGGLE. There are so many ways to hint at mixed-up letters, much to the chagrin of this bafflingly bad cryptic crossword solver. With so many possible ways to more accurately describe a game that has so many possible ways to link different letters, it boggles my mind how …

Ah. Never mind.

BEWILDER and BEFUDDLE are excellent descriptions of my solving experience. A pinch of BEMUSEment, too. Why are we looking for synonyms for BOGGLE? And does BEMUSE not mean to amusingly confuse? (Still boggled on that, and no.)

Bonus points for using almost every letter in the central 4x4 in the search (upper-left E and upper-right A/S only ones not needed to spell out BEWILDER, BEFUDDLE, BEMUSE). Penalties assigned for a ton of compromises in short fill, plus oddities like SNAFUED. Such a meta word.

I have no idea how to score this puzzle. BOGGLEd is right! I applaud the originality, though.

I enjoy seeing Trenton's byline because it's nearly a guarantee that I'll feel smug as I solve — my knowledge of Trenton's love for rare letters speeds me through.

Today was no different than usual. Six-letter author? Has to be SUN TZU. Jazz musician? Stan GETZ, easy. I was stuck on ???PLANKTON, but then I asked myself, WWTD? Didn't take long to run through JQXZ, and ZOOPLANKTON it was.

Double smugness when I recalled the XERI- start from another of Trenton's puzzles!

Sometimes I think Trenton has become too much of a predictable one-note constructor, but I loved the extra element he included today. Did you notice the XYZ stairstep in the center left? I'm a sucker for mini-themes, and this one reminded me of a delightful P/Q puzzle and a recent IGHT one.

YELLOW PAGES is a dull entry, given that it's a relic of the past, but that clue, repurposing Book of Numbers, is brilliant.

It takes a lot of confidence to give your puzzle a title like "Snoozefest." Years ago, Will Shortz asked Ellen Leuschner and me what we thought about naming one of ours This Puzzle Sucks. While I thought that was hilarious, we didn't relish the idea of thousands of solvers biased against the puzzle — even if only subconsciously — from the start.

This one smashed the record for Zs, clocking in at 40; appropriate for FORTY WINKS. Not a surprise that the previous record-holder also used FUZZY WUZZY and RAZZLE DAZZLE. I used to love the former, until Barbara Lin alerted me to its troubled legacy.

Rare letters add spice to a puzzle, but where's the beef? As much as I love cinnamon or cardamom or cumin, eating them by the spoonful doesn't hold much appeal.

That said, it is an impressive feat to jam in so many Zs. The technician in me looked long and hard at various sections, admiring how Trenton worked in some of them. It'd be such an interesting challenge to dive into the optimization of color and cleanliness, while adhering to exactly 40 Zs.

Fun trick, FILL IN THE BLANK meaning "insert the word FILL into the blank to make sense of the clue." LandFILL, FILLmore and more, and IFILL, for one. The last two are genius, the clues playing so perfectly on the phrases "more and more" and "I, for one," that I didn't care about how odd they looked as [___more and more] and [I___, for one].

(Gwen Ifill was an NPR NEWSCASTER.)

I wish the themers had been more colorful, though. It's tough to be excited about uncovering DISPOSAL AREA, PRESIDENTS, and NEWSCASTER. The first feels more like a dictionary entry than a desirable crossword entry, and editors frown upon one-word themers since they tend to be less snazzy than multi-worders.

What could have helped? Perhaps GARBAGE DUMP for the first? The second is tougher … COMMANDERS IN CHIEF is a great phrase, but it's too long, at 17 letters. HEADS OF STATE? That doesn't work with this mirror symmetry layout since it's twelve letters, an even number. Hmm ... US PRESIDENTS would have been more interesting than just PRESIDENTS.

As for Ifill, NEWS ANCHOR feels stronger, especially since NEWSCASTER undersells the fact that Ifill reached the top ranks of her business.

I enjoyed so much of Trenton's fill, POGO STICKS the big winner, especially with its play on "bouncers." No telltale question mark needed, either! TOUR DATES is a solid phrase, too.

However, the spacing of the themers gave me a let-down, since it felt like the theme was compacted into two regions, leaving broad swaths (rows 1-3, 6-9, and 13-15) devoid of theme. I see why Trenton did it — each theme answer forces 1-2 black squares on either side of it, which creates inflexibilities. It's possible to space things out using unorthodox black square shapes, though. And zingier themers might have even allowed for a regular-symmetry layout.

Innovative idea, but the execution didn't wow me.

Distinctive triple-stacks from Trenton. Not because of a total lack of rare letters (JQXZ) — blasphemy from a Charlson production! What stood out was his debuts of several marquee entries. I've read a few tales of ANANSI THE SPIDER, but I was glad to get the gimme partial AN OUT so I could be sure I spelled the name correctly. And [Hosts] is such a quintessentially Saturday clue. A single word, pointing to what will probably be HAS A PARTY or something, but no. That's HOSTS, as in the COMMUNION host WAFERS in Catholic masses. Brilliant misdirect, but incredibly difficult.

I also enjoyed the bottom stack, although it wasn't quite as distinctive. We've seen SILENT TREATMENT many times before in crosswords, because of all those friendly RSTLNE letters, and PRIVATE ENTRANCE is tough to clue in a clever way. "One's" phrases tend to sound too formal to my ear, but FEAST ONES EYES ON is excellent.

I also appreciated how many long entries Trenton wove through the stacks. I enjoy clues such as [Birthplace of Lewis Carroll]. How the hell am I supposed to know such minutia? Or why? But as I pieced the letters together, of course I would know it, from the CHESHIRE cat. Similarly, I don't know where Kangaroo Island is, but it gave me enough of a nudge to think about what capitals I know in or around Australia. ADELAIDE is pretty much it!

Clues like [Plays a critical role?] delight me with their misdirects — that's plays the role of a critic, not a critical role in a mission. I didn't notice how many of these there were at first, because I struggled so mightily to break into the triple stacks, but a harder post-solve look impressed me with how many clever clues there are. Punniness like [Total package?] = CEREAL (Total is a brand of cereal) helped keep up my spirits as I fought to gain toeholds whever I could.

Triple stacks on a Saturday can be daunting, and this one made me break a sweat. Trenton did a nice job setting me up for eventual victory, though, and he did so well to sprinkle so many great clues around as refreshment stations as I ran this solving marathon.

Been a while since the last "letters outside the grid" puzzle. Today's reminded me of a BURY THE HATCHET one; similar notion of digging deep (sorry) to achieve one's goals.

One aspect I enjoy about "outside the grid" puzzles is their ability to include theme entries longer than 15 letters. At 17 letters, IF YOU CATCH MY DRIFT feels fresh and spicy. My only tidbit of recollection about WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT is that he went on to become Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, but now I'll remember him for his full name in today's puzzle.

Solid choices for themers. PARTING GIFT is so evocative. EYES LEFT and SEMI SOFT are more neutral than SCISSOR LIFT, but they work.

All in all, a nice variety of -FT ending words, although it'd have been great to get a -UFT ender to round out the set. A search for *UFT in our Finder turned up the STAY PUFT Marshmallow Man. That would have been a great throwback, although its U may have made gridwork tricky.

I'm a huge fan of mirror symmetry, and even more so when we get neat visuals like Trenton's torch in the center. Doesn't have anything to do with the theme, but man, is it pretty.

Crossword radar activated … thinking of flame-related ideas …

I should explain ORDER's clue — it's bigger than a family, in that it's one step up in the levels of taxonomy. Fun clue.

Also UNALASKA. What an Unamerican thing to do, including anti-Alaska sentiments … oh. It's a city in Alaska. Ahem. I knew that.

The NYT crossword has had a long history of "letters outside grid" puzzles. An early one impressed me most with its perfect single square popping out, and MAN OVERBOARD is high in my list of perfect rationales for breaking outside the box. This one was too much like Tim's BURY THE HATCHET for my long memory, but I enjoyed the novelty of the gridwork.

It's a shame that this one was printed with shading instead of circles plus shading. The 2x3 rectangles are such perfect LEGO bricks! Perhaps Will Shortz realized that all of us parents would cringe, having stepped on roughly eight thousand of them last year. It's no surprise that LEGO is a four-letter word.

Such a neat visual, those bricks placed symmetrically around the perimeter. Great range of BUILDINGs, too. I wouldn't have guessed that there would be so many six-letter options available.

Will Shortz is shying away from fixed-in-place picture answers, due to the grid glue that they can require. Trenton is so strong with his gridwork, though, that I barely noticed any dabs. I paused on UDO, and EAT ON felt like a partial, but I'd expect way more than that with six sets of constrained chunks, plus a central revealer. Having to grid around six sub-regions and then stitch them all together is a maddening task, often leading to infinite restarts.

Such fantastic bonuses, too. I wouldn't expect to see nearly as much SLAM DUNK, COMMODES (places "to go," ha), BIBLICAL UNIONIST, even LET ME IN and DARK RYE. Most constructors would be happy to get a grid to work, period.

Amusing ADAM clue, too, being that he literally did raise Cain. And I enjoy learning, when it doesn't affect my ability to finish a crossword victoriously — picking up the trivia that ELTON John's middle name is Hercules was fun.

Maybe if my kids didn't fight so much over L-word blocks, or place them strategically where I'm guaranteed to impale myself, this would have been POW! material. Impressive visual, absurdly strong execution.

Ah, Trenton. 1-Across's clue has John Coltrane in it? Given his obsession with rare letters, it had to either start or end with JAZZ. Five additional letters … what would let him incorporate another JQXZ? "My Favorite Things" … JAZZ WALTZ, bam! I enjoy feeling smug.

Yet even after considering Trenton's heavy tendencies, I put in LYCHEES for [Plumlike fruits]. D'oh! You'd think that after a dozen times going through the rare letter smorgasbord, I'd learn. Of could it had to be LOQUATS.

Wait. And yet another J in JOJOBA? (I know this from labels on my wife's various lotion bottles.) Okay, that's impressive. A solver would be out of luck if they hadn't heard of JOJOBA, ANUBIS, or JUNOESQUE, but that corner was right in the middle of my odd little Venn diagram.

Trying to outguess Trenton hurt me again when I reached _CUP. I doubted a J CUP was a thing, yet I still plunked it in. Hey, at least I didn't put in Z CUP.

It's tough for a known constructor to impress me if their patterns become repetitive, yet I still considered this one for the POW! It's not easy to jam in so many rare letters, and to do so with such color and cleanliness — awesome JOE SCHMO, JACK SQUAT, ODE TO JOY, with only OBI to SCUD things down — is masterful craftsmanship. If you have to have a schtick, this is a decent one to have.

Ah, Trenton and your love for rare letters, I got you figured out! Copies, in a way? Say no more, it has to be XEROXES! Heat-resistant glass? PYREX!

D'oh! Or should I say, DEEP SIGH(LEX).

I've become a little jaded with Trenton's obsession with rare letters, but I enjoyed today's puzzle. I do appreciate those JQXZs, when they're worked in with buttery smoothness. NAZARENE, ORAL EXAM, MEZZO … some might argue that MEZZO is iffy, but anything that reminds me of Parks and Rec is a plus in my book.

I did hesitate at JASON FOX. I used to be a devout Sunday comics reader, and I own several compilations of various strips. Heck, I even gave my niece a "Foxtrot" book a few years ago! Recalling Jason Fox didn't come easy, though. The entry is two recognizable names, so it feels fair, but the "huh factor" isn't worth the J and the X.

I finished in the top right corner, and I did appreciate that once I put in Mitch HEDBERG, I knew [Some Eastern dignitaries] would have to be RAJAHS. What would a grid like this be, without a single rare letter in that corner, after all? Having the insider knowledge about Trenton did make me feel smart, even smug, and who doesn't like a little smugness with their morning coffee?

The cluing was dynamite. [Flow down a mountain] did a great job of misdirecting toward the verb sense of "flow." The innocent [Spoils] made me instinctively put in an S at the end, not realizing that it could be BOOTY. And although I've seen some "decrease" = "de-crease" clues before, I still appreciated it in the STEAMS clue.

I can imagine solvers who aren't as attuned to the preferences of longtime constructors loving this one, marveling at all those Js, Xs, and Zs.

I was so confused, looking at [Bee, e.g.] for one themer clue, and seeing BEER BARREL elsewhere in the grid. Surely there was some cross-referencing going on?

No, wait! DEE is in the grid … as is EMME! EMME = M = [M, e.g.] = one of the LITTLE WOMEN?

Easy as ABC, my patootie.

I've seen some plays on crossword cluing conventions before — two that come to mind are 1.)[See X-Across] = phrases secretly pointing at words like SEE(PING), where X-Across is PING, and 2.) [With "The" …] = phrases starting with THE, like (THE)LMA AND LOUISE — but I don't remember exactly this one.

Kay, e.g. = K, e.g. = Keg = BEER BARREL. There's something amusingly insidery about this notion, crossword people not blinking an eye at words like ESS, WYE, and even AITCH. I'm not sure regular folks would find it as amusing. But what do they know, A? Er, eh?

I appreciate that Trenton used colorful phrases, never digging into the well of dictionary-sounding definitions. For instance, he could have used [Em, e.g.] with the entry ONE OF THE LITTLE WOMEN, but no one wants to see drab definitions in their crossword grid. El, e.g. = [SOFA SUPPORT]? El no!

I enjoyed the themeless-esque feel of the solve, Trenton's vast experience in that genre shining through. With five themers, including an awkward central 13, he could have called it good with maybe a pair of long downs. Such a bonus to get ANTIDOTE, SORCERER, COMPADRE, GAL PAL.

I did hitch on the LEN / TANEY crossing — should we be expected to know how to spell every Chief Justice's name? I do think this is fair, though, since what else might look more correct? LON / TANOY perhaps, but that's a far second. LIN could work, but TANIY seems ridiculous.

Novel twist on the "plays on crossword conventions" theme type. It didn't generate a strong a-ha moment, but I enjoyed the oddball multi-step process it required, transforming a spelled out letter to a single letter, then adding on E and G.

Excellent gridwork, and I'm so glad Trenton didn't go hog wild on rare Scrabble letters today, as is his usual wont. So many IN YOUR FACE feature entries, KEEBLER ELF, PAWN PROMOTION, IT'S A SECRET / CHEAPSKATE, BOOM TOWNS, and the UNION JACK as a [British flyer].

I'm still trying to cram in ROYAL AIR FORCE.

Similarly, some solvers will shrug off the dissonance between SASSIER and [Flipper], figuring it must be right but not stopping to think why. It's genius, flipper not like a dolphin's flipper, but as in "more flip." I know, it's groanworthy, but in a delightfully punny way.

I've only watched some of "How I Met Your Mother," so BARNEY STINSON didn't do much for me. And as much as I admired the craftsmanship, the tone of the puzzle left me unsettled. From what I know of BARNEY STINSON, he's a smarmy bar frequenter, so getting GOES ON A BENDER, OPIUM DEN, IN YOUR FACE, FIXATED ON made me lean toward the PANIC BAR.

Solid "stair stack" construction with high technical marks, but a bit too testosterone-laden for my taste.

I was curious; how many longer words or phrases display alphabetical order besides CHINTZ? A quick Python program told me that there are many six-letter ones — ABBOTT, ACCENT, BIJOUX, BIOPSY, CHOOSY, to name a few — but surprisingly few 7-letter options. There's even an 8-letter one, although it is a bit wonky. Can you guess them? Answers at the end!

This is a tough constraint — normal words that are part of a phrase, that can also be anagrammed into an alphabetically ordered different word — so it's not surprise that Trenton had to use all shorties. None of the themers made me laugh, but I did appreciate the LEGO cluing around SQUARE CHIN (INCH). Creative way to clue it.

What helped hold my attention through the solve was a slew of delightful clues, Trenton's themeless expertise shining through. ICON as where a phone might be "tapped" = brilliant! HISSED playing on "blew off steam." MENSA as a group that should "know better." NIX often spoken as "ixnay" in Pig Latin.

A perfect example of how time spent on clever cluing can help engage solvers, in a big way. Every Sunday should shine this much in its clues.

Along with the goodies Trenton mentioned, he managed to keep my attention throughout most of the solve. I also appreciated how careful he was to balance color and cleanliness, sometimes opting for an interesting single-worder like CHARADE instead of a more flashy two-worder, so he could keep the surrounding region smooth.

7 letters: AAACELL, BILLOWY, DEGLOSS.

8 letters: AAACELLS. I know, it's cheap. But it works.

Such a Charlsonesque way to kick off a puzzle, a Z in the first square. [Hyperbolic figure] had me fooled for a while, thinking about paraboloids, then liars, but whenever I get stuck in one of Trenton's puzzles, I asked the one question sure to gain me traction: where could the JQXZ go? A-ha! A JILLION is a hyperbolic (exaggerated) figure.

Drat.

I bet Trenton is on Wikipedia as we speak, trying to make JOOM OUT a real thing so he can use it in this next themeless. Better yet, JOOM QUT.

I enjoy rare letters when they're worked in smoothly, for my benefit. I wasn't sure that was the case with XIANGQI. When a Chinese guy who's played a fair amount of Chinese chess raises his eyebrows at XIANGQI …

Well, there is the fact that I was kicked out of Chinese school as a kid.

Given that I'm much more a soldier than a general in a real-life game of Chinese chess, maybe XIANGQI is okay. Still, I imagine some solvers will grumble that this entry is more fun for Trenton than for them, and I would sympathize.

ZEROPHYTE — er, XEROPHYTE — fell somewhere in between. I'd heard the word before, and I admire the kooky spelling. It doesn't provide nearly the delight of ZILLION / ZOOM OUT, though. It's a risk you take when you employ a word that not everyone will know right off the bat. (Xero- means "dry," derived from Greek.)

I also had trouble with the REM / METIER crossing. Both are fair entries, but man oh man is it devilish to clue REM not as REM sleep or the band but [Ad ___]. Saturday puzzles should be hard, but that clue makes the crossing downright painful.

Still, I enjoyed so much of Trenton's choices of marquee entries, TOM SWIFTY, SWEET TALK, FAST TRACK, ODD DUCK. I'd love to see what he could do if he simply tried to maximize his colorful long entries, rare letters be damned.

It's no surprise that Trenton holds many spots in our list of Scrabbliest scores. Knowing all about his love for JQXZs has made his puzzles some of my quickest solves. For example, a three-letter word for [Zilch]? Has to be ZIP! Bwa ha ha!

Rats.

That didn't work, but once I broke into the NE corner, [Faith that …] crossing [Israeli port]? That cross had to be a J. I couldn't tell you the first thing about JAINISM or JAFFA, but I recognize them from crosswords. And if I know Trenton, it's-a-gonna-be a J! Thank goodness ZAFFA, XAFFA, and QAINISM aren't real words.

[Square], starting with a P? Let's see, what word could fit in a JQXZ ... maybe even two? PIAZZA, bam! Using the same logic for [Hairless creature …], it had to be FUZZY WUZZY. Moving down, [It always goes to hell] — fantastic clue, by the way — has to end in STYX, to get another JQXZ.

Boo yah! Or should I say, booj zah!

I wasn't hot on ZZZ or LEO X, neither of those elegant ways of working in extra JQXZs, but I enjoyed the concentration of Scrabble high-pointers in that region.

The rest of the puzzle oddly PLAYed IT SAFE for a Charlson outing. I was able to plunk in JUS because I kept thinking "where is Trenton going to land his next JQXZ?" — my success allowing me to DO A JIG. Curious that he didn't wedge in one or two or eight more. I like that he outfoxed me.

Two clues I should explain:

1. OOZE = [Give a powerful impression of]? Think "that frickin' crossword blogger oozed ridiculousness."
2. [Study for the bar?] is a delightful clue for OENOLOGY — if you know that OENOLOGY is the study of winemaking. Get it, wine bars? This clue might have landed better for an entry like WINEMAKING.

I enjoy Trenton's puzzles in part because I have insider knowledge that allows me to speed through his puzzles. That makes me feel smart — more accurately for Trenton, an extremely quick-witted Jeff-whiz. Sometimes I want more of a challenge though, and it'd be great to see more variety. Outfox me more, Trenton!

Ah, Trenton, I got your number! As soon as I saw his byline, I started thinking, where will the Qs be? The Zs? The Xs? [Expression of one at sea …] IT HAS TO START WITH QUIZZICAL! Summertime cocktail … FROZEN DAIQUIRI!

I felt so smug, my knowledge of Trenton's body of work coming in handy yet again. I enjoy when a puzzle pumps up my smugness. (Neither my kids nor my wife enjoy it nearly as much.)

There's not much else besides the long feature across answers, but RISK FREE, FOR SHAME and APPLIQUE are all assets. In total, there's enough color to pass my bar — DEN OF INIQUITY nears that level all on its own — although I wouldn't call it outstanding.

Man oh man, was I sure there was an error in the grid. PARLAYS is misspelled! So what if [Negotiation talks] doesn't seem accurate for PARLAYS? There's some crazy Saturday wordplay kink … ah, I got it. PARLAYS are bets involving the prior bet, in the vein of "double or nothing." In this case, you either double the A to get two total As, or you put in an E if the odds are nothing. The E is odd!

Math is hard. So is English.

So is seeing a weird word like PARLEYS that maybe I should have recognized.

The only grid blip: ROTI crossing MOA. I'd cry foul if this were a Monday puzzle. Even a Wed. Okay, maybe a Thursday, too.

But what happens on a Saturday stays on a Saturday!

As much as I usually enjoy rare letters — and Trenton integrates them as well as anyone — I'm becoming a bit too smug for my britches when it comes to doing the Charlson. I'd love to see him innovate and push his oeuvre a bit.

★ I love it when artists combine two disparate concepts into something unique. I've participated in so many FINAL FOUR pools, created so many single-letter puzzles for crosswords, yet I've never thought of combining them. W X Y Z as the FINAL FOUR of the alphabet — and as final parts of the four themers — is so fun.

Glittery gridwork, too. For those who might not love the theme as much as me, how about some colorful OPEN MRI / TOPOLOGY and GROANER / GRANDEUR in those big corners? Lovely stuff.

Some may argue that TOPOLOGY could be tough for early-week solvers, but educated solvers should at least have heard of a topo(graphic) map, so it's inferable. And if you've never heard the term before, go check out Martin Gardner's work. His Scientific American columns fascinated me as a kid, and my shelves are chock full of his books.

HOODOO … okay, that might be tough, and I'd be more sympathetic to complainers. I'd lend even more an ear to those kvetching about the CANTOR / ORC crossing.

(The inner nerd in me says HA HA HA ALL THAT TIME I SPENT PLAYING D&D PAID OFF! Not surprisingly, I always had low Charisma scores in my character sheets. Even less surprisingly, I didn't care.)

My dad wasn't around a lot when I was a kid. When it was (rarely) just the two of us, he'd sometimes ask if I wanted to go bowling. I liked being around him, so it didn't matter what we did. Turns out, I love to bowl! Something so satisfying about smashing down all those pins.

In my case, one pin at a time, for an average score of 46.

When I got older, I got much better. I once bowled a 300! It took me four games, scoring 75 each, but I did it.

I've seen a lot of bowling themes in crosswords, but nothing quite like this. I enjoyed the variety of a slash mark representing a SPARE in the across direction, while being a straight-up slash mark in AC/DC, and an X acting normally in EXEC but as a STRIKE in STRIKE THE RIGHT BALANCE.

Along with so many awesome bonuses — RIVER SEINE, DELI COUNTER, ROLE PLAY, SPELUNK, ORTHODOX JEW, SPACE PROBE — Trenton was well on his way toward yet another POW! He's so skilled at filling themelesses, and that served him so well today with all those extras.

Then, I rolled a gutter ball in the SW. Clunk!

I did eventually get the right letters in the right boxes, figuring that XXX IN THE STRAW was a mightily inappropriate song for kids. Come on, ice cream trucks! You can't play a song whose lyrics involve a hay delivery guy showing up, but the older farmer can't pay, so instead, he bats his eyelashes and unbuttons one of his overall straps …

Huh?

XXX stands for "turkey" in bowling slang?

I knew that.

★ It's rare that I do a week's worth of puzzles and one jumps out at me as an instant POW! winner. Today's fit that bill. Impressive from a constructor's standpoint, and a delightfully challenging and entertaining solving experience.

Those gigantic SW and NE were especially mind-blowing. Regions of 7x7(ish) scream I CANNOT BE FILLED WITH BOTH SNAZZINESS AND SMOOTHNESS! I've tried it and failed. I've come up with a relatively smooth product, and also a relatively snazzy one, but never both at the same time. I even went as far as to send in a 58-worder to Will Shortz, who kindly said it was a strong construction but lacked color.

Let's call a spade a spade: it would have sucked to solve. I'm glad Will rejected it.

I like how Trenton balanced ease of construction vs. solving flow. The center isn't perfect — it does sort of cut up the puzzle into four quadrants — but it's workable. I never felt like I was completely cut off, stuck like a duck.

It did help that my knowledge of Trenton's love for rare letters breezed me through that NE. Superhero ... let's see, who has a rare letter … AQUAMAN! That led to AQUINAS and I was off to the races.

Fantastic long entries, too. HILARITY ENSUES? Dang it, I wish I had debuted that one! PARKING GARAGES isn't colorful in itself, but it has so much potential for a clever clue. Get it, you get tickets in PARKING GARAGES? Not speeding tickets, but entry tickets?

That one could have used some clevering up.

So much to love in this one. First-class use of the mid-length fill slots — WITS END, LAB MICE, MAKE PAR, I MANAGE, ALTO SAX, BEELINE, CLIP ART, SASHIMI. That's great for a normal themeless featuring 7-letter entries, and it's phenomenal for a construction this daunting.

Beautiful work all around. Both the constructor and the solver in me give Trenton a standing O.

I wondered where all the rare letters (JQXZ) were — could it be that Trenton decided to do stray from his usual leanings?

Nah. Fun diagonal of Qs and a J in the center of the puzzle. Tucking them under a line of black squares is a great way to incorporate rare letters since so many Qs and Js come at beginnings of words. It reminded me of another puzzle utilizing this concept — I loved that one's impenetrable line of Qs, whereas today's lone J stuck out a bit.

Great entries coming off those rare letters. QUIDDITCH always makes me laugh, thinking about college kids riding around on brooms. ANTIQUARK is beautiful, as is COME QUICK! Certainly no QUAGMIRES of crossword glue, either, smoothly filled throughout.

I like that Trenton snuck in another rare letter, a Z, near QB SNEAK. Working it into the fantastic BYZANTINE EMPIRE is magnificent.

I wasn't a fan of the sectioned feel of the solve, though. The middle swath fell quickly, given my smugness, knowing Trenton's construction preferences. But after that, I got stuck in both the NW and SE, without any rare letters to help me get toeholds. Given that I had trouble recalling the exact spellings of IGER, OREM, and HORUS, the west region came together only shakily.

It'd have been much better to have more connectivity in the grid. The NW corner is so closed off, tied to the rest of the puzzle by just three answers (TAKE NO PRISONERS, ANTIQUARK, COME QUICK). Even if the bottom exit point had been jiggered to be more like the top one, that would have done wonders.

Easier said than done, though. Sectioning is so constructor-friendly, making it possible to divide and conquer. I doubt the middle swath, chock full of rare letters, would have been doable with a more open grid.

As with most every Charlson themeless; so solid, so meaty. I enjoy knowing about Trenton's proclivity toward rare letters — these relatively easy Saturday solves make me feel smurt.

Trenton loves himself some rare letters. His last one was jam-packed with JQXZs, and this one's in the same mold. Knowing his tendencies, JV SQUADS and AZIMUTH came easily.

[Candy sold ...] — stop, that's all I need! It has to be PIXY STIX, because Trenton wanted Xs! Bwa ha ha, I'm a genius!

That insider knowledge makes me feel smug. Jeff likes to feel smug.

I did wonder how many solvers would recognize AZIMUTH. What, you're a Saturday solver and you don't know AZIMUTH? It's obvious! It's that angle … at which the height … star parallax … I DON'T NEED TO EXPLAIN MYSELF, SO THERE.

Fine, it's a tough term even for us engineering geeks. Even for those of us who did an astronomy internship at NASA's Ames Center. Ahem.

It's a shame that SNELL'S law couldn't have been invoked. Along with AZIMUTH, that would have been quite the pairing for us smugineers.

Editors prize multi-word themeless entries for their color, but today brings us many examples of how one-worders can shine. SPHINXES are mysterious. STINKERS is no stinker. And RAPUNZEL with a hair-raising escape, that's hilarious!

A 70-word themeless has to be both jazzy and pristine for me to perk up. The abundance of rare letters helped, but a couple of clues felt off. Does anyone call a vice-president a VICE? And isn't it paper-thin, not TISSUE-thin?

Along with a couple of words that might get the weirdometer clicking — SNELLS, SHIRRS, SAPID, SPILLAGE, singular ALGA — there were more trade-offs than I like. I can imagine solvers asking themselves, "What the snell?"

Solid Saturday workout, though — nearly mind-breaking as I tried to pull ITASCA, ANIMAS, GAMETE from memory. Sometimes it's arbitrary as to whether a puzzle runs on a Friday or a Saturday, but this one was a Saturday through and through.

★ So many rare letters worked in so smoothly! J Q X Z are the crossworld's Big Four, and to have one each of J Q X plus six (!) Zs is fantastic. It doesn't come anywhere close to the record number of Zs — scads of themed and themelesses with more — but Trenton worked them in so beautifully, his grid showing none of the signs of strain that most puzzles on that list exhibit.

Such a wondrous north section, with a string of connected ZQZZZ. That could be a new name brand for a sleep product — ZQZZZQUIL, anyone?

As if that wasn't enough, the clues stood out; so entertaining:

• Doughnut played upon as [Dough nut?] for MISER.
• How charming, CAST A SPELL clue playing on "charming." I always wondered if Prince Charming was secretly a wizard.
• Will knows that Jim's a concert pianist, so I wonder if the clue for PIANOS was a shout-out to him. Their players are often benched indeed — on a piano bench!
• And my favorite, [It comes from Mars]. ETS? Cosmic rays? Men? Nope, the candy bar TWIX. That's MARS, the candy company, not the planet. Beautiful misdirect.

ALL THAT JAZZ and hardly any wastage in his 16 long slots? (Maybe LAST TO LEAVE is a bit dull, but what else?) Sometimes I have to mull over which puzzle strikes me best during any particular week. This was not one of those weeks. Such a tremendous pleasure to do a themeless as enjoyable as this one.

★ I heard a lot of complaints about Trenton's last trick puzzle. HOW COULD YOU POSSIBLY GIVE THIS PIECE OF @#$@! YOUR POW!, YOU UTTER MORON?

Anytime I hear feedback like this, my pat answer: I like what I like, and I'm happy to explain why at length. You don't agree? Write your own blog.

(Seriously, you should. Blogger.com and other similar services make it easy.)

I wonder if this one will engender a similar love/hate split. Or if it had run on a Friday, as a seemingly regular themeless, it would have been lauded as a good grid with a fantastic bonus?

So many great entries. SMTWTFS / FIREWALL / PROTOZOAN to kick it off. LITMUS TESTS. TEXAS BBQ. ST PAULI GIRL. NUTELLA. NFL TEAM. ZEALOTS. Yes, there's some potential left untapped, STOP LOSS, TAUTENED, RESENTS, CLOUDED not doing much in their long slots. With so much strong material though, it qualifies as a good themeless in my book.

To pull all this off with just some ignorable STDS … and what else? Maybe TBSPS is a bit ungainly, but it's seen in recipes all the time.

Such fantastic craftsmanship. Some constructors say that using so many cheater squares — the pyramids at the top and bottom — is a dirty rotten cheat. I do not. I value color and cleanliness so highly that as long as there's not a ridiculous number of cheaters, they rarely bother me.

I enjoyed the solve. I liked the revealer, even though the a-ha moment wasn't that strong, since I was positive something fishy was going on.

Most importantly, I loved going back and admiring the uncompromising craftsmanship Trenton so carefully employed.

I hesitated before giving it the POW!, since it would have been better suited as a themeless with a big bonus, instead of running on a Thursday, where it won't meet some people's tricksy-Thursday expectations. But it was too good, too fun, too admirable not to give the POW!

Trenton is one of the few constructors I'd trust with a themeless grid featuring a lot of 7-letter answers. One of his previous ones was a standout, demonstrating his ability to carefully pick colorful answers for those mid-length slots, which are all too easy to fill with neutral material.

Some standouts today in that 7-letter territory: ALI BABA, CODE RED, DOG BITE, IN A HAZE, KUNG PAO, LOST ART, MOON PIE, PARADOX, RADIO DJ, SAFARIS … okay, I'm basically listing out all of his 7-letter entries!

Well, not quite all. TRIMSPA is outdated.

AREOLAE isn't great in the singular AREOLA, much less the plural AREOLAS. Er, AREOLAE. Especially when you already have AORTAE in the grid.

ACCRUAL won't win many awards, except for in the finance community, perhaps.

But overall, most themelesses featuring 7-letter entries have way under 50% of these mid-length slots filled with color. To have about 85% of your slots packed with snazz is fantastic work.

That percentage is high enough that I seriously considered this as a POW! contender. If Trenton's earlier puzzle hadn't came to mind immediately — and there had been one less of AREOLAE / AORTAE and ETTORE — perhaps I would have given this one the nod.

The NATO / PHONETIC ALPHABET has been tapped for many a crossword over the years. Of all the types of themes I get pinged with, it's in the top five. (The most common is homophone-based themes.) I liked Trenton's take today, combining NATO and homophones to result in something I haven't exactly seen before. BOSTON TANGO PARTY (from Boston Tea Party -> Boston T Party) brought up fun images of people doing the sultry dance while yapping in Beantown accents.

The others didn't make me laugh much, but there were good efforts in the cluing. Amusing to think of THE PRINCESS AND THE PAPA as a king bringing his daughter to work one day. What exactly that means, I don't know — what do kings really do as work, anyway? But an amusing-ish thought.

My first impression of the gridwork was that there wasn't much crossword glue. Excellent! And all too rare for a Sunday 140-word puzzle. Trenton took great care; much appreciated.

My second impression: there wasn't enough bonus fill to entertain solvers who didn't connect to the theme. I liked what Trenton mentioned (although OOH LA LA isn't that interesting anymore), but what else? DOORPOST isn't going to do much for anyone (except maybe carpenters). Less than a half a dozen great bonuses to see a solver through a 21x ...

Third impression: maybe the puzzle didn't need any more bonuses in the fill, because there was a torrent of fantastic wordplay in the clues. I ticked off about 10 clues that were wickedly clever or genuinely novel. My top three:

• SISYPHUS fighting an uphill battle, indeed!
• Blue jeans OUTLAWED in North Korea? No wonder they're struggling, economically! (Just kidding Kim Jong-un! North Korea is the greatest and most wonderous of superpowers much better than the devil Americans wearing deplorable blue jeans! Please don't kill me!)
• The boot-shaped ITALY as a source of boots. How's that for art imitating life?

It all made me think about my own constructions. I tend to spend the majority of my time brainstorming themes and building grids. But seeing the impact of such cluing greatness today reminds me that I ought to dedicate more of my time to coming up with clever clues.