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I'm a big fan of "what connects these disparate things?" themes. It's a lot of fun to get to the end of an early-week puzzle and still have no idea what's going on. PASSABLE gave me a good a-ha click — PASS the HAT, PASS the TORCH, PASS the TIME, PASS the BUCK.

I also like Gary's consistency. You could use other passable things, like PASS MUSTER or PASS A NOTE, but sticking strictly to a PASS THE ___ pattern adds some tightness.

It's unusual to have mid-length slots (6-7 letters) add much to the quality of a solve, but there were a lot of strong ones today: PRONTO, PISCES, AGHAST, HOBBIT, EVOLVE, STOOGE. Outstanding stuff.

Speaking of AGHAST, though, let's address the issue that overrode the solving experience for me.

Will and I had a dialogue over BEANER; an offensive term slung at people from Mexico. I wondered if it might be a West Coast / East Coast thing, so I alerted Will about this. He thought about it but decided that since there is a valid dictionary definition, people would have to just ignore the secondary meaning.

I generally think Will does a great job in editing the NYT puzzle — hard to argue with results, with solvership exploding into the hundreds of thousands under his helm. This is one of the less than 5% of things that I strongly disagree with, though. Yes, BEANER is in the dictionary as a baseball term. But a pitch at someone's head is usually called a "bean ball," not a BEANER.

And I Googled BEANER to see what came up first — a page full of definitions as the racist term.

I respect Will's viewpoint that people will see what they want to see in any entry. For example, I personally take offense to CHINK in puzzles, and a couple of readers have bluntly told me "I'm being too sensitive" (and worse). My response is that it's easy to say that if you haven't been told to "go home, you dirty f*cking chink" (and much worse). But I do understand this one, since a CHINK in one's armor is a very common saying. So I shrug it off.

BEANER on the other hand, feels so, so, so very wrong, considering that the alternate definition isn't much in real usage these days.

Puzzles ought to be enjoyable, a smile-inducing diversion from the daily struggles of life. Even if BEANER punches just a small number of solvers, that makes it worth changing — especially since the fix is super easy. ABEL to AHEM and ANI to ALI is just one of the many ways to revise.

An ugly blot on an otherwise pleasant puzzle.

ADDED NOTE: A spokesperson from the NYT issued this statement: "Tuesday's Crossword puzzle included an entry that was offensive and hurtful. It is simply not acceptable in The New York Times Crossword and we apologize for including it."

– puzzle by Gary Cee

Look at all those shaded squares! They're so orderly — made me eager to find out what was going on. Neat concept, with different types of forks literally forking into two directions. A salad fork forking into a GREEN or a GREEK salad — perfect!

All this forking talk reminds me of "The Good Place" and the brilliant Megan Amram! If you haven't seen it, holy shirt, why not?

I'm not one for proper table settings, but it was interesting to learn that there are such things as a dessert fork, a fish fork, a cocktail fork, a fruit fork.

(Heck, the concept of a salad fork is forking foreign to me too.)

At first, I thought that classifying a shark as a fish was complete bullshirt. Apparently not! Not a mammal; not even close.

With these diagonal-entry puzzles, I usually expect the worst — they're so hard to fill cleanly. They're even harder when you have connected themers, which mean that there are serious constraints within close proximity.

Pleasantly surprised to get not that much crossword glue. Jacob is such a pro. Not a fan of EEE or BENE, but to escape with just those and ETHNO is incredibly strong work, considering the five pairs of themers. There must have been dozens of iterations.

I don't always feel on Jacob's wavelength, what with his higher-class notions sometimes going over this Three-Stooges-lover's head — forks are made for poking, not for eating! But I always appreciate seeing his byline.

– puzzle by Jacob Stulberg

★ I love blasphemous rule-breaking in the crossworld! I especially love it when there's a grid separated in two, with something nifty secretly connecting the halves. Tim built a literal WALL today, using three themers with sort of a WALL rebus. STONE(WALL) JACKSON, such a colorful entry!

I did wonder about DESKTOP (WALL)PAPER. I usually call it just WALLPAPER. But some research showed that it's indeed a legit term, so that's just my ignorance.

Hey, themeless-grade quality fill! Such a treat to get BANK TELLER, SPELUNKING, SOFT SPOKEN, SOAP OPERAS, along with good use of mid-length slots: LE CARRE, ICE NINE (I'm a huge Vonnegut fan), AMALGAM, RASSLE.

Even the pedestrian SINGERS got elevated via a great clue. [Choir composition] surely had to be referring to some type of music the choir director was arranging? Great misdirection.

And that PEN clue! I had to read "boardom" a few times before finally smiling, realizing that it's a play on "boredom," meaning "a place for boars." Great punny groanery.

Huge visual impact with an in-your-face grid telling solvers to $^*#$! YOUR %@#$!!! CROSSWORD RULES! Along with a great idea to connect the halves and excellent gridsmanship, it's an easy POW! pick.

– puzzle by Timothy Polin

I love getting WARM FUZZIES from a themeless puzzle. That's a fantastic entry, and those beautiful Zs — worked in so smoothly with ZEBRAS and CZAR — a feel-good sensation, indeed.

A couple of other standout features, too: I MEAN, REALLY! and MAY I CUT IN. The latter was especially strong, given such a clever clue. I thought [Line at a dance] had to be line-dance related, or maybe hinting at a conga line.

I also liked that Neil did something more audacious than sticking with a standard 72-word themeless layout. Generally, those tend to have four corners chock full of good stuff, but they can often feel separated from each other. Not today! From BIKINI WAX to MAITRE DS to ARE WE DONE to SEX COMEDY to MAY I CUT IN … note how many long answers run into other long answers, giving the puzzle a wide-open feeling.

My wife, Jill, once expressed an ick factor about BIKINI WAX. That surprised me, but after thinking about what a BIKINI WAX must be like to go through, perhaps it's questionable as to whether it passes the breakfast test.

SEX COMEDY intersecting it gave the puzzle a bit of a raunchy start. Not my thing these days, but I can see the appeal for a different demographic.

A couple of explanations:

• ROTFL = rolling on the floor laughing.
• TWIHARD = a "Twilight" diehard. The term makes me crack up. Hard to believe that people like this crap!

AMYL is a tough dab of crossword glue to swallow, and TPK looks so bizarre (we don't have turnpikes out here in the Pacific Northwest), but thankfully SFC was easier to take (sergeant first class). Prices to pay to have such good solving flow.

Not entirely on my wavelength, but I appreciated how Neil opened up his grid flow and tried to do something different.

– puzzle by Neil Padrick Wilson

Such an eye-catching grid pattern! Is it a starship? Ions floating around (those big black pluses and minuses)? Whatever it was, it fit well with my sense of Andrew as an artistic creator.

Constructors using a huge swath with the center typically try to separate it off from the corners, making for easier construction. Not today! Andrew left himself so many outside connections to make. It's so challenging since there's no breathing a sigh of relief once you figure out a central section — it easily might not connect up with one of the corners, and then you have to iterate.

I loved SIMONE BILES featured front and center. But I CAN SEE THAT if you're not an Olympics fan or a gymnastics fan, the entry won't do much for you. Your loss, because she's the epitome of badassery! What I wouldn't give to be half as strong as her.

A trio of squarely Saturday-ish entries; I think some are more satisfying than others:

1. SYNFUELS. I hadn't heard the term before, but I liked piecing it together. Portmanteau of synthetic fuels? Sure!
2. XERISCAPING. A gray zone for me, considering the R crossing in ROES. I debated XERISCAPING vs. XEDISCAPING, but of course, DOES don't have antlers. (Okay, I had to look that up.) I'm glad to have learned the term XERISCAPING now, especially considering global environmental issues, but I wouldn't say the term delighted me in my solve.
3. SIROCCO. I had looked this up a few months ago as I was creating a puzzle with a tough pattern to fill, something like S?R??CO. I read the definition and dismissed it as a possibility — seemed too esoteric. Thinking about it more, it is an interesting term, like a haboob or something. Again though, not sure it's going to delight solvers in the way GARLIC BREAD might.

It's tough to stitch together an audacious grid like this without some ANON ESTE NES SSE kind of stuff. That said, I appreciate it when constructors make an effort to shoot for the starships. Er, stars.

– puzzle by Andrew Zhou

A "revealer" entry is often necessary to create an a-ha moment for solvers, but sometimes these still don't clear up the theme for everyone. I bet some won't understand why DEAR JOHN LETTERS ties everything together, so I've highlighted the special letters below.

Get it? HOLLYWOOD ENDING refers to the end of the word HOLLYWOOD? EYE OPENER points to the beginning letter of EYE? It's an oldie but a goodie, a theme type that's played upon in many crosswords and other puzzle types as well.

I enjoyed how C.C. didn't rely solely on beginnings and endings, throwing a CENTER in there, as well as a SECOND and a THIRD. Even an EPISODE I!

Wait a second …

(that sort of works for A, the second letter of WAIT!)

My first reaction to the theme: why was DEAR JOHN chosen? Why not BUSINESS letters, or VARSITY letters, or the SCARLET letter? There's nothing wrong with DEAR JOHN LETTERS as a phrase, but since this is a time-tested theme type, it would have been nice if there had been some additional layer. For example, if SCARLET LETTER had been used, it would have been so cool to arrange the seven special letters in the shape of an A!

Then again, it would need to be pluralized into SCARLET LETTERS, which makes no sense. So upon further consideration, DEAR JOHN is probably the best choice for this sort of LETTERS theme. Take that, overthinking Jeff!

Solid gridwork, as to be expected from a pro like C.C. I enjoyed the bonuses of CUP O JOE, BLACK COD (one of my favorite dishes at my local sushi place), MOLESKINE, SCEPTERS, BALLPARK, NOBLEMEN. Not a ton of bonuses, but enough.

The only place I disagreed with C.C.'s gridwork — the southwest. It's neat to work in an X into IXNAY for some rare letter color, but I didn't think it was worth the price of AMICA, especially crossing ASANA. Even non-yogis probably ought to have heard of ASANA before, but two words like this crossing felt like inflexible legs cranked into the lotus position.

Hilarious clue alert! I had the middle three letters solved for [It's in your jeans]: _ENI_. Ahem. Of course, it was DENIM. Of course.

(I'd make a comment about a GENIE in one's jeans, but I doubt anyone wants to hear that.)

– puzzle by Zhouqin Burnikel

Did you miss what's going on today? We highlighted the theme answers below just in case.

Still confused? Andrew turns the volume up to 11 (well, actually to 10), with 2x5 vowel progressions. Tough to squeeze so much material into one grid.

You'd think that ten short themers would be much easier to fill around, compared to five grid-spanning ones. Wrong! Two reasons why:

1. Any time you force a black square into the grid, you take away flexibility. Five black squares (one separating each pair of themers) requires means a ton of constraints.
2. Short theme answers mean that your fill contains a bunch of long entries — something in a 78-word grid has to be long. It's not easy to weave things like BOTTOM UP and JIMMY DEAN through three themers apiece.

I liked a lot of what Andrew did. Given the high degree of gridwork difficulty, it was great that he worked in CURED HAM, BETA TESTS, TEEN BEAT as bonuses.

No surprise though, that there were necessary trade-offs. The ELSTON / EL ROPO crossing feels like a killer to newer solvers. Along with RUGER, THOTH, NIE (German for "never"), it's not a smooth enough product for an introductory Monday experience.

Overall, the short theme answers didn't stand out enough, and there were too many compromises. Still, I appreciate the effort to take a tried-and-true theme type to another level.

– puzzle by Andrew Kingsley

You ever read "Olivia"? It's a cute picture book series about a high-energy piglet who gets into all sorts of trouble. In one scene, she goes to a museum with her mom and spots a Jackson Pollock. I don't get it, she thinks. She then proceeds to splatter paint on the walls of her bedroom. It's art!

I'm with Olivia, especially when it comes to ABSTRACT ART. (Not so much when it comes to paint on bedroom walls.) Isn't it just a bunch of RED SQUAREs, BLACK BOXes, GOLD RINGs … selling for millions of dollars?

I'm apparently in the wrong business.

I liked that Freddie packed in a whole bunch of colorful shapes, making the grid feel like it was an actual piece of ABSTRACT ART. Some compromises — the outdated TREO forced by the overlap of GOLD RING and ABSTRACT ART for example — but I think they're reasonable prices to pay to achieve the desired effect.

Loved the clue for EGGS: a [Baker's dozen?] would make a lot of cake! More amusement in the clue for EROS, who literally takes a bow (and arrow).

I might have put this one up for a POW! if I appreciated art a little more. Now, if we only had a real art aficionado here at XWI …

– puzzle by Freddie Cheng

★ I appreciated the excellent craftsmanship today. Jim and I did one with no vowels except I way back in 2014, but Trenton took it a step further — not only are there no A, E, O, U, Y, but every single entry contains an I!

(The difference is that an entry like PSST wouldn't fly for today's puzzle.)

Having gone through the construction challenge, I can sympathize with how tough it is. Your word list gets cut down tremendously, to the point where you'd think you'd have to make serious compromises — perhaps use a ton of crossword glue, some oddball long entries guaranteed to cause head-scratching, or maybe even go up to 80 words.

Super impressive that Trenton made it all happen so smoothly. If INDS is your worst entry, man oh man is that a tremendous success.

I don't mind at all that he was liberal with his use of cheater squares (like the two black squares under BRING IT). There are a lot (12 in total), but I'm fine with that in the service of smooth gridwork.

I hesitated on PRII, but I think I love that one. One Prius, two Prii? Sure, why not!

I've seen enough gimmicks like this that it didn't have much impact on me. But many of my friends have joyfully related their experience with similar trick puzzles, some going as far as to cite them as some of their favorites. I can certainly understand that perspective — the first time I saw something like this I was wowed.

Trenton earns himself another POW! in recognition of his stellar gridsmanship today.

– puzzle by Trenton Charlson

I read the revealing clue [Sacred text …] and filled in KORAN at first. The theme had to be KO RAN, as in "phrases with KO removed." A KO punch!

Ah, no.

TORAH?

TOR … ah!

That's a fun concept to build a puzzle around. It's no piece of cake to add three letters onto a word to form a new, valid word, so I enjoyed the CAP -> CAPTOR, RAP -> RAPTOR, REAL -> REALTOR, CAN -> CANTOR finds.

Derek and Jeff did a nice job picking out a solid set of base phrases that transformed into amusingly kooky +TOR ones. I imagined the CANTOR OF CORN starting off services with "A priest and a rabbi walk into a bar …"

Super solid gridwork, just an OSAY partial as the only crossword glue. Along with AW COME ON, TIME BOMBS, ON BUTTONS, LARYNX, etc. as bonuses, it felt meaty.

Expanding to a 16x15 can often cause trouble in gridwork, especially in the top and bottom edge of a puzzle, so kudos for the time and care they put in.

Why go to 16x15, you might ask? Since the themers are all inconvenient lengths — 13s and 12s — a 16x15 grid opens up many more possibilities in grid layout. It'd be possible to execute this theme set with a 15x15 grid, but the themers would have been crunched together in the middle of the puzzle, undoubtedly resulting in more crossword glue. I like the decision here.

I had to work hard to finish my solve, and the payoff didn't feel quite worth all that effort — it's ultimately a standard "add-letters" theme — but the execution is strong.

– puzzle by Jeff Slutzky and Derek Bowman

I love working with Jim. He's thoughtful, brilliant, talented in so many arenas (check out his Hamilton cover band!), and best of all, funny. While we were working on this puzzle, I was endlessly amused by one of his clue suggestions for ARCHIMEDES: [One of his inventions really screwed things up].

His more risqué version: [The guy who invented screwing].

This particular themeless was borne out of a curiosity: what new 10-letter entries from our XWord Info Word List would make for great themeless seeds? (When it comes to themelesses, 8-10 letter entries are the easiest to build around, and there's a larger quantity of 10-letter entries compared to 8s and 9s.)

For several weeks, we culled out a sub-list, adding only entries that

1. were strong in their own right, and
2. had the potential for a clever clue (i.e., didn't require a straightforward definition).

I thought we'd be able to incorporate at least three seeds into this standard-ish sort of themeless grid, but only MARS LANDER and MBA STUDENT (go UW Huskies, class of 2002!) made it in. As we flowed the fill from right to left, it became apparent that we'd get more colorful / cleaner fill if we didn't fix anything further in place. So we didn't push it.

Hopefully, more seed entries from our list will show up soon! Jim and I are always working on something fun.

– puzzle by Jim Horne and Jeff Chen

One reason I like to experiment with every known grid type is that it helps me understand niche challenges in crossword construction. Having worked with today's themeless grid style once or twice or three times, I have a pretty good feel about where difficulties can pop up.

It's incredibly tough to work with any 62-word themeless grid, but this particular one isn't quite as bad as others. The huge number of cheater squares — the two above BREECHES and the one above JER, for example — nibbles away a ton. It's maybe a factor of 10 (!) times harder to fill if you took out all those cheaters.

Still, a 62-word grid is a 62-word grid, bound to require some trade-offs. Like Sam, I found that the middle of this particular style is incredibly challenging. Even if you can find something that works, it often doesn't flow into one of the four corners very flexibly, requiring dozens of painful reboots.

Sam made his job even more challenging today by having four long entries all intersect in the center. And great ones they are! DRAMA COACHES, the MIRACLE ON ICE? Sam PUT ON A CLINIC! I'M SPEECHLESS at how strong those are. I don't mind EERO and ARIE at all to hold that juicy center together.

Flowing out to the corners gets so difficult at this point, what with those four long answers fixed into place (and the other entrance to a corner fixed as well). Take the NE, for example — you have MR starting 18-A, which doesn't have a lot of possibilities. Combine that with CLINIC set in stone, and you're bound to end up with some JER BENETS oddity.

And the opposite corner, HIND LEGS MS PACMAN are fantastic! I'm not sure they're worth LICTORS (and ELMIRA), though. It's a tough call. Any time you use an entry unused since the Maleskan era, it's a risky decision.

Overall though, I really enjoyed the solving experience. It's not often that constructors take on a 62-word challenge, and even rarer that the final product comes out with so many snazzy answers.

– puzzle by Sam Trabucco

Andy takes us out to a Sunday date at the ice cream parlor! We're going to gorge on a (parade) FLOAT, a (single) MALT, a (traffic) CONE, and finish it off with a (whole) HOG!

What, you've never had bacon ice cream before?

(You can skip it. Foul combination.)

Nice selection of objects whose second words are ice cream shop buys, but that wouldn't ever be found inside said shop.

I also appreciated the cluing angle. It could have easily been a dull listing of these parlor items, i.e., all clued as [Odd ice cream parlor buy?]. So I liked how each was clued related to someone who would use that item. Back when I was a bachelor, I had many a SINGLE MALT all on my own — both the whiskey variety as well as the creamy shake. Even a whiskey shake now and then!

My metabolism used to be so much faster.

Solid gridwork, too. Andy dropped down to 138 words, allowing him to work in a good amount of greatness: HARD ROCK HOTEL, DEA AGENTS, BOATLIFT, CIS WOMEN, WHOLE HOG (yes, I was just joking about it being part of the theme). A lot of color.

I did pause at a bit of DTS EID NTSB SSA — a concentration of odd shorties that felt a bit spicy in aggregate — but overall, it was less than we usually see in an NYT Sunday.

Today's solve was like a scoop of vanilla (easy theme) filled with colorful sprinkles (nice bonuses), and just a tiny dash of pepper (oh, ETO) that easily blended in.

– puzzle by Andy Kravis

BLECH! ICK! UGH! EWW = DISGUSTING! Takes a brave soul to plant those not-so-subtle messages in the minds of one's solvers.

Will gave me feedback recently that he's seen a lot of "hidden words" themes recently, so he's becoming pickier about what he accepts in this genre now.

So how does one get a yes on a "hidden words" puzzle? To stand out, you need great finds — long words, words with rare letters, etc. — within fantastic phrases. BLECH within DOUBLE CHEN (that's me and my identical twin brother) qualifies.

SAY A FEW WORDS also works well. EEW is only three letters, but the consecutive Ws makes the find more notable. Great phrase, too.

JUGHEAD didn't wow me as much. It's the only one that doesn't span two words, and UGH can be found in so many other words. Although, you sometimes have to say, good enough. Or tough luck!

(Doug Henning is giving Craig the stink-eye.)

A great bonus in BLIND DATES. I'm sure that evokes many images and funny stories for lots of solvers. We'll just skim over those where the other person turned out to be married. Or a deadly farter. Ahem.

I would have loved a stronger revealer than DISGUSTING. It works, but it didn't give much of a "hey, that's awesome!" moment. I spent an hour brainstorming and came up with ROTTEN TO THE CORE … which just happens to be the magic 15 letters in length. Missed opportunity!

Another round of grid editing would have done wonders, especially since this is a Monday puzzle. I would have sent it back for the crossing of ORFEO / ULEE alone. Toss in ORTO ESTA SETA ESS, and we're no longer in elegant, newb-friendly territory.

I'd have been perfectly happy without JUGHEAD, which would have made the construction a ton easier.

But overall, an entertaining concept with sounds that are amusing to say. Nice debut.

– puzzle by Craig Stowe

I miss Sam. He used to live not that far away from Jim and me, but he moved about five years ago after getting married. Doing his puzzles always reminds me of how hilarious and interesting he is. Always makes me smile.

Speaking of smiling, how can you not like people buying you drinks? We see ON ME as a piece of crossword fill all the time, and I always think it sounds like a partial. (ITS) ON ME, right? Or DRINKS ON ME! I wonder if being a crossword constructor, using ON ME, subconsciously gave Sam the idea for the theme. Amusing to get the insider's nod.

Long bonuses in the fill are a big reason why "good" crosswords stand out from the "bad." (Think about that crappy crossword in your local paper that's probably generated by a computer.) The puzzle would have given me joy because of WIZARD HAT alone.

I liked LOCUTION, too. Not an everyday word, but one that's gettable from the more common "elocution." The word nerd in me approves.

IT COUPLE and ANY LUCK were nice, too. But they weren't worth the price of ATOY, NCC, UPIN. It would have been a different story if the rest of the puzzle had been perfectly clean, but NETH NGO ORO RAHS SOO ...

I would have preferred using black squares to split ANY LUCK at the L, and SNIDEST at the D. This would have created more 3-letter words, verging on a choppy solve, but it would have allowed for both more smoothness and color. ORIENTAL doesn't do much for me — perfectly fine as the Monopoly property, but I've had enough of being called Oriental — so something as strong as WIZARD HAT or NOODGES could have been made possible in the NE by adding the black squares.

Solid theme, but I could have used a bit more refinement in the gridwork.

– puzzle by Samuel A. Donaldson

"___, we can't do without lactose products for our Japanese theater production!"*rimshot* (see below for answer)

I enjoyed these. We've seen a ton of homophone puzzles, but there's something hilarious about taking a phrase, homophonizing both words, and then cluing it in a way that hints at both the base phrase and the resulting one.

But wait! Do these jeans make me look like I've put on BUTT WEIGHT?

*snicker*

You guys and that crazy EWE GUISE. I groaned hard at that one, but I think that's the sign of a successful pun.

All of them worked for me. Impressive that Bruce found five solid examples of common conversational phrases where both words have a sound-alike.

Solid gridwork, too. It's tough to get a lot out of 3x7 corners, but Bruce has worked so hard to develop his abilities in this arena, and it shows. So much goodness: LAB TECH, TOOLBAR, CHATEAU, HOT SEAT, HOW TRUE, EYE ROLL, THAT'S IT!

I had to laugh at SCREAMO. It's not something I would ever listen to, but it's amusingly self-descriptive.

It's hard to make a homophone theme stand out, but I gave this one some POW! consideration, especially considering the excellent craftsmanship.

*NOH WHEY

– puzzle by Bruce Haight

★ Loved this one. Loved, loved, loved. As Ross points out, the palindromes in the middle — SOLOS, SOS, REVIVER, etc. — make a perfect transition zone into the mirror world. I've seen many mirror puzzles, including one that stands out with its amazing craftsmanship, but today's has such a fantastic story behind it. Alice going through THE LOOKING GLASS is spot on.

So well executed today. It would have been much easier to stick to a higher word count, but that wouldn't have allowed for so much goodness. JAMPACKS is right! SPLIT RUN, COMO ESTA, AVENGERS, LOL CAT, HAEY LLEH! Er, HELL YEAH!

The right side is easier to construct than you might think because you can create a separate file containing the middle palindrome linkages, and work on it as if it were your left side. Then, you flip the grid along a vertical axis.

Right, you've stopped listening. Anyhoo, unmasking the technical tricks doesn't make the result any less impressive.

A couple of missed opportunities in ELEANORS ESCORTEE. That might argue for putting a black square at the P of JAM PACKS and the U of DISGUSTS, to see if you could get those two corners smoother while keeping up the snazziness. But since the rest of the puzzle has so little by way of crossword glue (just EER) or oddball words, I'm fine with Ross's decision.

I was so confused by KUEHT, especially since it was one of the first backward answers I uncovered. THEUK = THE UK, such a nice piece of fill, resulting in a delightful mini a-ha.

This one will stick in my mind as strongly as Jason's. Maybe even more so.

P.S. Ross told me that he's gotten dozens of requests for help from budding constructors with diverse backgrounds! It's great to see Ross take this initiative. Let Jim or me know if we can help as well (email us through the home page).

– puzzle by Ross Trudeau

Such pretty curves in the middle of the puzzle! It's not often that a themeless's black square pattern tickles my aesthetic sense so strongly. Reminded me of another graceful one.

Solid triplet to anchor the middle:

• LEAD BALLOON is a hilarious term. I'm curious who first came up with the metaphor. Or perhaps it was a spectacular failure of a real test … even funnier!
• BLOOD VESSEL is a great phrase, although I didn't understand the clue at first. [Needle point?] gets to the fact that it's where blood is drawn from a needle? I suppose this works. Sort of. But it seems like it ought to have four or five question marks at the end of the clue to show what a stretch it is.
• SUNSET STRIP was a relief to uncover. After reading the [… of a ‘50s-‘60s TV series] clue, I thought we'd be in for some sort of esoteric Patty Duke or Dobie Gillis reference. Thankfully, SUNSET STRIP feels like it cuts across generations, making for a larger number of solvers who could appreciate it.

Not a ton of long slots, so it was important for Andrew to make use of all of them. I thought TETRAHEDRA and ESCAPE ROOM were standouts, although I wonder if these play too much to a niche audience. TETRAHEDRA is a great word, but when you clue it to D&D (a d4 means a four-sided die), it might turn off some solvers.

PAPER TOSS was the only long entry I didn't care for. It does make sense — you're trying to toss a paper ball into a trash can. But who says "let's play some paper toss!"?

Andrew's a pro, doing a great job of balancing snazziness and smoothness. Today, there was just a bit of EDO in terms of crossword glue, with not much wastage. As I'd expect from Andrew, a strong result on the whole.

– puzzle by Andrew J. Ries

These guys are so innovative with their grid designs. This one draws from all sorts of themeless styles: usual triple-stacks in the NW / SE, a stair-stacked triplet in the center, stairsteps of black squares, and the difficult "turning the corner" — three long answers intersecting three other long answers — in the SW / NE. Something for everyone!

I couldn't decide whether I liked the black square just below OUT. I'm all for liberal usage of cheater squares — those stairsteps of black squares on the sides of the grid contain three apiece, and I don't mind them at all — but there's something too angular about this one. It makes "turning the corner" much easier, but I wasn't keen on the visual effect.

Strong work in the diagonal from SW to NE. (MICHELLE OBAMA wrote a book called "Becoming", in case you're living in a cave.) And that clue for PERSONAL SPACE! [Mine field] has nothing to do with land mines — think of the possessive sense. It's brilliant, as is so much of these guys' clever cluing. CASE SENSITIVE makes for a great bow on that triplet.

MESOPOTAMIA running through it all? Yes, please!

But that's not all. Considering that POT BELLIED STOVE and YEAR OF THE MONKEY constrain things mightily, I wouldn't expect much from the SW and NE corners. Certainly not the quantity or quality of MENSWEAR CIRCUS ACT, and ALONE TIME KAVA KAVA. Beautiful work.

So many constraints will have a side effect somewhere though, and that was the NW / SE. It surprised me at first, thinking that these regions had relative freedom. But once you fix HALLOWEEN II and POTBELLIED STOVE into place, it's so tough to squeeze more out of the NW. TAKE THIS? ON A LEASH. They work. Not as colorful as CIRCUS ACT, though.

Along with PRIVY TO HEADED TO PAY TO — so many prepositions — I couldn't quite see this as a POW! contender.

Still, I admire the innovation in grid design. And such a beautiful result in the SW to NE diagonal.

– puzzle by Erik Agard and Paolo Pasco

I'm going to go to a local museum just so I can ask the docent HOWS IT HANGING. Tee hee!

Similarly, I'm not much of a baseball fan, but I'm going to work on my swing, so I can innocently say ANYBODY HOME to the ump as I jog past home plate.

Morbidly amusing to think about a CDC worker pointing to an Ebola victim, asking (in a Steven Wright deadpan), WHATS EATING HIM?

WHOS CRYING NOW, on the other hand, is not funny. It's abhorrent. There are two little kids in my house, Richard! TWO LITTLE KIDS CRYING AT BEDTIME, THAT'S WHO'S CRYING!

(There may be some personal bias in that last paragraph.)

I wasn't as keen on IS THAT A FACT, as it seems a bit too close to something you'd actually ask a copy editor. But overall, there was a lot of humor in these themers.

A decent grid, especially considering 1) it's a debut and 2) it's a Sunday 136-word puzzle. Those two shouldn't generally go together, as the sub-140 grid isn't for the faint of heart. I liked some of the bonus fill, like FARMHOUSE, AIRBRUSH, IT'S A DEAL.

LITTERBOX and WET WILLY with their graphic clues, not as much. I appreciate the humor in the [… latest poop] clue, but being a cat owner, reminders of dingleberries aren't welcome. And did we need to get the over-descriptive "moistened finger" in the WET WILLY clue?

Speaking of cringing, that GARY / GLI cross. Yikes! It'd have been passable if GARY had been easier. But CARY and MARY both seemed reasonable (CLI or MLI instead of GLI, why not?), so it felt like a guess. With quite a bit of AMF ANOS EADS ECOL SSR etc., I don't think the 136-word effort was successful. Could have been a much cleaner and colorful grid by going up to 140 words. Shifting and adding black squares to break up ORIENTATE would be one area I'd have targeted.

Grid issues aside, I appreciated the humor in this theme.

– puzzle by Richard Crowe

★ Perfect theme for MLK Day: three important CIVIL RIGHTS figures disguised at the ends of phrases. Such uplifting phrases, too! Fit for a KING fits King. Rosa PARKS is something of a NATIONAL treasure. And I have to imagine Sojourner told THE WHOLE TRUTH. Inspiring stuff.

I did wonder if Sojourner TRUTH was out of place, her life a century before those of KING and PARKS. Also, the civil rights movement is most often identified with the 1960s... but I like the idea of expanding it to any effort throughout history that worked toward equal rights for all.

Could Malcolm X have been a more apt third theme person? Maybe with SOLVE FOR X or GENERATION X? But referring to Malcolm X by "X" is odd. It's not his last name (is it?). So I like Sean's choices.

There were quite a few grid problems, including a glut of tough proper nouns that might trip up beginning solvers, and some gluey bits that felt inelegant. But the beautiful theme let me look past all of the dings and just appreciate the three folks honored in the puzzle. Digging into the technical weeds seems against the spirit of today's celebration, anyway.

– puzzle by Sean Biggins

Jeb asked me to come on board after Will gave him "I like the concept but not the grid" feedback. My first impression: I thought it was fun to have the snakes snaking around the puzzle, but I wasn't so sure about WATCH YOUR STEP. I so badly wanted something more … snaky.

Then it hit me! Indiana Jones's IT HAD TO BE SNAKES! Counting … 15 letters = perfect!

Only, not perfect, since that's not the exact quote. Shows what I know.

The first set of revisions were painful. Eventually, I came up with a grid skeleton that seemed to work well enough. Some testing showed it was likely doable. Fast forward eleventy-thousand hours, and we got something that at least was clean. Good enough!

Except, not good enough for Will. He pointed out that it was smooth, but there was little to no juice in the bonuses. We had to use a bunch of dry stuff for the long slots, and where was the fun in that? Excellent points.

Back to the drawing board.

I noodled around with some different snake shapes, including one where a single snake started from the middle, but that led nowhere, quick.

Thankfully, Jeb came up with the idea of intersecting ALL of the snakes to the middle! That curiously made things easier, as all the theme material took up less net real estate in the grid. I worked up some possible skeletons, focusing on squeezing as much pizzazz out of the long slots as possible, and voila! It still took time, but only maybe eleventy-hundred hours this time.

(But this huge Indy fan still wants the revealer to be IT HAD TO BE SNAKES. Accuracy, schmaccuracy.)

– puzzle by John E. Bennett and Jeff Chen

I have to admit; I didn't entirely get this theme. After thinking about it for a while, I emailed Jim. Here's what he said (and what he meant).

ME: Did you understand what's going on today?

JIM: FLYING BUTTRESS -> FLYING BUTTER. (What, you couldn't figure that out?)

ME: But the GENDER NEUTRAL revealer?

JIM: Cutting off the ESS. (Again, isn't this obvious?)

ME: But but but, if you cut off the ESS, wouldn't it be FLYING BUTTR?

JIM: There's the "female-sounding" hint in the clue. (Stop being so picky!)

ME: Taking the ESS sound off makes it sound more like FLYING BUTT than BUTTER. (Tee hee.)

JIM: Yeah, I'm more lax about these things than you. (Just enjoy the frickin' puzzle, you hoser!)

Even if the theme didn't resonate with you, there's a lot to enjoy in the fill. TAX RETURN and STRONGMAN take up the long down slots, and there even more goodies: CAR RACE, ATE CROW, CATNAPS, MEEMAW, even KREWE (Mardi Gras term for "crew").

There was a price to be paid, though, in ENS, NNE, SSS, SYN. These are minor offenders—I wouldn't even bother pointing them out for an average constructor, but Amanda and Karl have the technical skills to smooth some of them out.

I'd have focused on that west region. With a couple of hours work, SSS and SYN could have been history. Not entirely sure what would solve the problem, but shifting around the black squares at the ends of BELIEF and NEW would have been a good start.

Overall, I liked the theme idea — BLOWUP MATTER as TNT is hilarious. (I'm a huge Wile E. Coyote fan, what can I say?) But I would have preferred not having the GENDER NEUTRAL revealer, in favor of adding a fourth themer.

I probably could have figured out what was going on. (Probably not.)

ADDED NOTE: I had been thinking along the lines of LIONESS -> LION and STEWARDESS -> STEWARD: simple ESS drops. Astute reader Seth Cohen points out that the theme makes more sense, if you think of it in terms of how WAIT(RESS) changes to become WAIT(ER).

– puzzle by Amanda Chung and Karl Ni

OO! OO! I know what this theme is!

Sorry, I couldn't help myself.

GOO GOO EYES is a hilarious term. At first, I wasn't sure if it described the theme well enough, though. Doesn't OO look more like "surprise" more than "puppy-dog adoration"? And why two pairs of eyes in each themer?

But sometimes you have to just go with it. Sure, why not.

I liked Stu's themer choices, all strong phrases in their own right. Especially nice to get the extra-long TOO RICH FOR MY BLOOD. It's not every day that you see a 17-letter phrase in a weekday crossword.

In that vein, it would have been nice to get more of them — perhaps CUTTING ROOM FLOOR (16), HOOCHIE COOCHIE MAN (17), SHOOTS FOR THE MOON (16), etc.? Maybe go even bigger with CHATTANOOGA CHOO CHOO 19 — with three pairs of goo goo eyes!

That speaks to a lack of tightness issue. In my quick search, I turned up hundreds of words / phrases with double-double-Os. It would have been nice to narrow the options down somehow, with an extra layer of cleverness. One example might be to use DOUBLE O SEVEN as a revealer, and pick phrases with OOs … related to spies!

But overall, a solid rebus offering. I liked that Stu even had a few good crossing OOs, like BASSOON and OO LA LA! All too easy to rely on shorties like OONA and DROOP to make things work.

Also impressive that there was relatively little crossword glue, given the high theme density (I like the as-published grid much better than Stu's original). I'd have preferred one fewer themer in exchange for less AREAR IFI OCTO IDEE, but I can understand why others might like the fifth themer, at the price of a little inelegance in execution.

– puzzle by Stu Ockman

Fairly standard 72-word layout from C.C. today. I loved that wombo-combo of ICE SCRAPER / SENATE RACE / LETS PARTY in the SE — that's the way to make the most out of your triple-stacks!

Not as hot on the prices to pay of PARA, NO PAR, NEC, though. Minor offenders, all, but when working with a 72-word grid — the max allowable for a themeless — there's very little room for inelegance. The bar has been raised so high for 72-worders.

I'd be interested to see what C.C. could have done without the black square separating EMMA and SCAR. Both the SW and NE corners already have some crossword glue — RYNE / ADP, and ATTA — which I would have been more forgiving of, if there had been more quality and quantity in the long slots. Give me another ADOPT A PET or LEAD STORY and I'd happily look the other way at the tough crossing on CALPHALON / ADP and CALPHALON / RYNE.

Some great clues helped snazz up my solve:

• Did [Ring in a coffee shop] make you think of a coffee ring, too? Brilliant misdirect.
• [Stern competitor, once] disguises the capital S of Howard Stern.
• The plural "arms" is a bit of a stretch, with an ESCORT being an [Arms provider?]. But that's the kind of stretch I'm fine with. Funny wordplay. (And Jim's favorite clue of the puzzle!)

Some great marquee entries in EAGLE SCOUT, RAN TRACK (or RANT RACK, where you store all your kvetches?), MALAPROP, ME AGAIN. But also some inelegance that's hard to accept in a 72-word themeless these days.

– puzzle by Zhouqin Burnikel

Pretty grid — love those interlocking arms. They do violate one gridding rule of thumb, that placing a black square anywhere in the grid should not separate one region from the rest of the puzzle. But both RAMS HOME and MONSTER MASH connect subsections through that choke point, so I don't mind so much. It'd have been great to get a more open solving flow, but sometimes an aesthetic impact is worth it.

Grant brings up good points — the question of "what is good fill" is always on constructors' minds. I used to prize entries like IT'S A ME, MARIO, but these days, I shy away from them. Yes, they're fantastic for Mario Bros. lovers (me included!). But they're potentially duds — even liabilities — for solvers of a different generation.

I'm much more a fan of GENIE OF THE LAMP and BUNDT CAKE. One could argue that certain people might never have read "Aladdin," or seen a mouth-watering BUNDT CAKE. I think they're more relatable to a greater percentage of the solving population than IT'S A ME, MARIO, though.

Tough decisions. Do you target the broadest audience possible, at the expense of some snazzy grid entries? Or do you go niche and make a puzzle that sticks in the mind of a smaller segment of people, while potentially pissing off others?

Overall, solid gridwork that's made easier with the grid sectioning (being able to focus on one locale at a time makes a constructor's life much easier). WORLD BEATERS and DEMOCRATICALLY didn't do much for me, but there was also only a bit of BE IT, AHL, ON UP, etc.

Given that Grant started off with IT'S A ME MARIO, I'd almost have preferred him trying to work in more of his style of marquee entries, even if it meant using more crossword glue. Go big or go home!

– puzzle by Grant Thackray

Ha! The poor MAGICIAN had his tricks confiscated. DIS-ILLUSIONED, shall we say? DIS-PATCHING a TAILOR would certainly be a cause for retirement. And how could a CATTLEMAN work if he had been DE-RANGED?

Lots of groans, but the good kind.

Not all of them worked as well for me. A DIS-TRUSTED BANKER might be jumping for joy, if he/she were working for one of the small banks. No Citi or Morgan Stanley to compete with anymore? Yeah!

And a DIS-TRESSED HAIRDRESSER … aren't there bald stylists out there? I imagine the clue is talking about the person's clients. But dis-tressing people is a hairdresser's job, isn't it?

(Feels like there's a different crossword idea in there!)

The glut of ADAY ARMET ICS IGOT ISE NAHA SITA STD STE SCHED and on and on … I'm mystified why Will keeps on allowing constructors to go below 140 words. It's maybe 10x harder to execute well on a 134-word puzzle, and for what? I'd understand if it made a ton of long bonuses like BASS FIDDLE and CASEY KASEM possible. But PRECEDED, RESTAGED, OVEREXPOSE aren't super snazzy. Along with the flood of crossword glue … why?

I'd have had a smoother, more enjoyable solving experience if Randy had deployed more black squares to better separate his themers. Seven long themers are tough enough to build around — why not stick with 140 words and make a stellar grid?

Overall though, a fun notion for a theme. It might have played better as a weekday puzzle, i.e. [The cattleman was forced to retire because he was …], but I can respect Randy's longer presentation.

– puzzle by Randolph Ross