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Matt! I love this guy. We've only worked on a few puzzles together, but I've enjoyed his sense of humor and his work ethic. Always striving to improve fill, even if the improvements are just incremental.

Really fun to brainstorm better examples of friends, Romans, and countrymen. Took a lot of research to turn up good options for "Romans" and "countrymen" especially, and we debated mightily the pros and cons of PRAETORIAN GUARD vs. VESTAL VIRGINS. We ended up proposing a set with each.

Then Matt and I went back and forth on grid design, taking roughly 30 variations/revisions to finish. It's not easy to work with 14-letter entries as the first and last themers — they mess up grid spacing — so this can make it very tough to weave in long bonus fill.

But it's important to me to incorporate as many strong extras as possible, as these fun entries can help to keep solvers' attention. So we kept on trying different themer placements and black square layouts, always testing to make sure the entire grid could be filled smoothly. Hopefully, the final product has a little something for everyone, things like ST PETER for joke fans, WENT YARD for baseball fans, OPEN BARS for--

(running off to the OPEN BAR)

– puzzle by Matthew Sewell and Jeff Chen

★ Fantastic debut. Check that — fantastic puzzle, period. I quickly realized something backwardy was going on halfway through, and I enjoy a good backwards puzzle. But I got a little annoyed that random words were reversed. YOU HAVE TO BE CONSISTENT, YOU STUPID CONSTRUCTORS, MYSELF INCLUDED!

Boy, did that slight(-to-gigantic) irritation flip to delight in a big way when the a-ha hit. Alex runs an orderly ship, the first several across entries going left to right as usual. But as soon as you hit BACK TO FRONT, you need to start entering the acrosses ... in BACK TO FRONT order! And then when you get to FORWARD HO, you go ... FORWARD again. Things switch again, appropriately at IN REVERSE, and then flip one last time at LEFT TO RIGHT.

This in itself was a fresh and amusing take on a backwards-type puzzle. But the friendly-sounding cluing made it stand out even further. I didn't get what [watch out now!] and [you can relax ...] meant during my solve, but afterward, it all came across so fun and amusing, like a square dance caller yelling out instructions or something. Colorful, really playful, right on my wavelength.

And the gridwork! Usually backwards puzzles have enough glitches in the matrix that my entertainment level diminishes. It's especially tough to construct something like this, where only certain entries are flipped. I was utterly amazed at how well Alex did with his fill. (I've used the dual-grid trick he described once before with a backwards puzzle — I originally learned it from Patrick Merrell some time ago. It's quite handy!)

There were a couple of toughies in TAMA, COATI, and GERI, but they are all legit(ish). And a minor ERN, that's it? Whoa. Such care to give us a smooth solve is very, very much appreciated.

There weren't a huge number of long bonuses, but RECORD DEAL and DAVINCI were both great, and EPONYM helped out too. (PINKEYE, though … eew.)

Loved this puzzle. It's so rare for me to see something as innovatively fun as this, while still working within all the general rule of one-letter-per-square. Can't wait to see what Alex has planned next.

– puzzle by Alex Eaton-Salners

My fascination with Paolo's "Seinfeld" fascination continues! Love that ENEMY clue, referencing Jerry and Newman's rivalry. It also amuses me to no end that Paolo and I also share a love for "Parks and Recreation." Along with DEATH RAY, FACE PALM, PITY PARTY, and DRUNK DIAL, so much of his snazzy vocabulary is right on my wavelength.

It makes me feel good to dig a puzzle from someone from a different generation than me. Sometimes I have a tough time relating to puzzles written by the younger crowd; not familiar with their pop culture, personalities, or slang. But I feel like I'd enjoy hanging out with Paolo.

(I can just see him cringing.)

Not as much in terms of long fill as I usually like — just eight entries of 8+ letters — but Paolo did make great use of each of those long slots. The only one I wondered about was the outdated YAHOO MAIL, as us cool, hip folks (hopefully my absurdism comes through) use Gmail. But it has been in the news recently, Yahoo having been hacked in a gigantic way.

Some nice bonuses in the mid to even short stuff, with DOVE BAR and its great clue, something cold from Mars — the company, not the planet — the cringeworthy MANKINI, and even THE EU. Rare that a short answer catches my attention, but THE EU is in the language, and it looks so weirdly cool as THEEU. When I first saw that entry a few years ago, it was too bizarre for me. But I've changed my mind on that.

Smooth work, the puzzle held together so cleanly with little crossword glue. A case could be made that AMA and BIP might be gluey-esque, but generally, I think they're reasonable entries; minor dings at most.

The only one that I hitched on was BIS. Do body-builders really call their biceps BIS? Not at my gym. Granted, not many of my climbing friends are bodybuilders, but BIS sure hit my ear funny.

Anytime you're in Seattle, Paolo, the drinks are on me! (Just as long as you start "The Office" already.)

– puzzle by Paolo Pasco

I love me a PB themeless roughly once a month, every one doing something different in grid layout. We have a "topologically similar grids" feature (hit the "Analyze" button below and scroll down), and it's no surprise that there are no similar grids in our database. I love that drive to innovate.

So glad Will ran this one on a Saturday instead of Friday! In general, PB's puzzles are more Saturday-difficult than Friday-easy-breezy for me, since he uses such devilishly clever wordplay, obfuscating answers so much. I love it when [Something work-related] turns out to have nothing to do with corporate work, but artistic works in a COMPANION PIECE. But having that great entry/clue pairing in such a wide-open space made it so difficult for me to crack.

I did enjoy that top, once I eventually got it. I wasn't sure what MOMMIE DEAREST was, but apparently, it was quite a thing back in 1978. I wasn't sure who Christina Crawford was — heck, I'm barely familiar with Joan Crawford — but I bet people of an older generation might think this entry a total gimmie.

Very unusual for PB to allow such segmentation in one of his grids, the black squares chunking the puzzle into a top, middle, and bottom. It's not the worst kind of segmentation — the connections in the NE/SW are slightly more open than the very choked-off tunnels in the NW/SE — but I didn't care for the choppy nature of my solve.

Also unusual to see STETS in a PB. I can just see him at his computer, wringing his hands, wondering if he could allow such a minor ding past his sky-high standards.

And the puzzle did have an older feel to me, what with MOMMIE DEAREST, the discontinued LESABRE and XTERRA, and ROSEANNE. But given that there are likely a lot of older solvers out there, it's good to have a puzzle targeted there in a while.

Impressively clean 62-word puzzle, albeit with a few more liabilities than PB usually allows. The wide-open nature of the top and bottom made them two incredibly tough workouts.

– puzzle by Patrick Berry

Sam helps BREAK THE GLASS CEILING today, six women cracking into their respective fields. The circled letters contain types of GLASS — it's not a PINT that's a 16-ounce container, but a PINT (GLASS). It's not STAINED that's a building material, but STAINED GLASS. Nice how each of the women breaks through these different GLASSes. I enjoyed these groundbreaking — er, ceilingbreaking — women getting featured in a puzzle with a nice trick.

Fun that the first letters of the women's names helped form a new word in those GLASSes. PINT to P(O)INT, STAINED to ST(R)AINED, etc. Didn't totally get the rationale for that, but there were some interesting finds.

I also dug Sam's fill. I love the DIY KIT, OH GEEZ, YOU IDIOT, SEXILE mid-length entries. FLEXAGON is another one I love (written about by the great Martin Gardner). Some may hate it because they don't know what it is, but haters gonna hate.

I wasn't a fan of the grid segmentation. As Sam mentioned, it helps create six distinct "ceilings," and makes each of the "rooms" easier to construct — but it was such a choppy solve. Felt like solving 10ish mini-puzzles; no flow at all.

The north and south are the worst offenders, what with a single entry connecting them to the rest of the grid. Opening those even just a little, like moving the block between IRE and EASTON one space to the right, would have helped tremendously. But that would have made construction much more difficult, no doubt.

A couple of gluey bits, but less than usual in a Sunday puzzle: I SEE A is indeed a bad partial, and OSA is an entry Will and Joel are trying to phase out. But very smooth overall, especially considering all the constraints.

All in all, I liked the concept and celebration. If only the grid had been even a little less partitioned, it would have gotten serious POW! consideration.

– puzzle by Sam Trabucco

Debut! Andy gives us HIDDEN CAMERAs, i.e. CANON, SONY, NIKON hidden across phrases. PRISON YARD is a snazzy phrase, evoking images of one of my favorite movies, "The Shawshank Redemption." I wasn't familiar with SPUTNIK ONE, just SPUTNIK, but it was interesting to learn the full name. It does appear to be SPUTNIK 1, not SPUTNIK ONE, but crosswords often play fast and loose with numbers that way.

I CAN ONLY HOPE is also good, although not as peppy to my ear. I found myself testing other phrases to see if another felt more spot-on. LETS HOPE SO sounded better, but that's personal preference.

Another minor ding for I CAN ONLY HOPE: CANON fully contains one of the words, CAN. This isn't going to matter to anyone but us crossnerds, but I find "hidden words broken across a phrase" themers much more interesting if only part of the hidden word is in each of the themer's words, like how SONY and NIKON are hidden.

Ambitious grid for a debut, only 72 words (max allowable is 78, debuts often are 76 or 78). Andy had to work with relatively big swaths of white space, most notably in the NW and SE corners. Note how HIDDEN CAMERA and NEAREST EXIT intersect, with the mid-length BASMATI and TESTER weaved right in — that makes for a tough area to fill.

While I did enjoy those entries, I wasn't sure they were worth the price of IT'S A and ERINS, given the other gluey bits in the puzzle. Having multiple instances within a particular category of glue makes these shorties especially noticeable: ERINS is made worse by ERIKS.

But I did like how Andy spread out his crossword glue into different categories in general: MDT, ITSA, ERINS, EXO, IRED are all different types of crossword glue. As a whole, it's too much for my taste in a Monday puzzle, but at least there aren't five partials or five plural names, etc.

Simple theme, audacious grid. I'd have preferred less audacious, which would have helped smooth out the fill. But the wide-open grid does allow for some interesting mid-length extras like THE HELP and LAMPOON.

ADDED NOTE: Reader Ed mentioned that the black squares in the middle look like tiny cameras. Neat effect!

– puzzle by Andy Hinz

★ Great puzzle. Finn gives us a twist in the "definitional" theme type, i.e. a single word with multiple meanings. Entertaining to think about Queen or Queens in four different ways.

Will doesn't run this theme type often, since the grid entries tend to sound forced, as if from a dictionary. Finn does well to choose themers that can stand alone — CHESSBOARD, NEW YORK CITY, RUPAULS DRAG RACE, and ROCK AND ROLL / HALL OF FAME are all great entries. Much better than PIECE IN CHESS or FEMALE MONARCH or something.

Fantastic that Finn was able to divide up ROCK AND ROLL / HALL OF FAME in the most natural place. Cross-referenced answers are a pet peeve of mine since they break up my solving flow, but if you have to, do it this way. If Finn had required a 7 and a 14-letter themer and needed to pair them with ROCK AND / ROLL HALL OF FAME (7/14), that would have worked, but it would have been inelegant.

I enjoyed ARROWHEAD and BRUNO MARS (I didn't know who the latter is, but I've at least heard his name in the news). I'd have loved to get one more pair of bonus entries, perhaps by shifting NEW YORK CITY to the left and then trying for a nine-letter entry where MEAT and JOAD are. I'm sure it would have caused some problems, but a guy can wish.

This might have also solved the Y??U issue — a shame to have the one odd entry in an otherwise stellar grid. I did like the attempt to save it with a clue relating to the more recognizable YALE, but "random rivers" is one of those categories most constructors try hard to avoid.

There was one other spot I hitched on: the SXSW x NSFW crossing. I (mostly) knew these — South by Southwest and not safe for work — but there's no way for someone to infer these. I likely would have asked for a revision in this corner.

But these are minor issues. Overall, I dug the spin Finn put on the "definitional" theme type. Smooth, enjoyable solve.

– puzzle by Finn Vigeland

LETTER DROP parsed into LET TER DROP. PORTRAIT PAIN made me chuckle-cringe, imagining a model developing a cramp, and the painter pleading for him/her to hold the pose just a few more minutes. (I have a weird phobia of being asked to sit for a portrait, in a fixed position for a long period of time. There's probably a term for it — fixaphobia?)

I had a good laugh at PRAIRIE OYS, people in wagon trains kvetching about the rough rides. I didn't know what a PRAIRIE OYSTER was, though, which took away from the amusement. Apparently, it's a hangover "cure" consisting of raw egg, Worcestershire, hot sauce, salt, and pepper.

I'd rather have the hangover.

LETTER DROP does have dictionary support, but is the term used these days? Hard for me to say since I rarely go to the post office. I think I've seen slots before, but I always thought they were "mail drops."

No long bonuses in the grid, but CHIMERA, ERNESTO, POISONS, and PLODDED are all pretty good. I especially liked CHIMERA, as it has so many interesting definitions: the Greek fire-breathing monster, a wished-for thing impossible to achieve, and a biological organism with a mixture of genetic tissues. Great word.

Some crossword glue holding everything together. But considering there are six themers, to keep it to the minor evils of LAN (local area network), UPSY (can only clue it one way), HST, TSP, DES, and AM SO isn't bad at all. PREXY isn't something I've ever heard in real life, but it does have dictionary support. Perhaps it's a term used more by a different generation?

None of the themers made me out-and-out laugh, so I might have liked fewer examples. That would have allowed for more sizzling bonus fill like CHIMERA worked in for good measure, plus fewer short, gluey bits.

ADDED NOTE: Reader Deb Gordon points out that PRAIRIE OYSTERS are also slang for ... ahem ... bull testicles. OYS indeed!

– puzzle by Ned White

Debut! Ross contacted me about another puzzle a few weeks ago, asking for some rework advice. Neat to hear that Will accepted it shortly after.

I liked the idea, symmetrically placed terms for the same thing in America vs. England. I've highlighted them below, as I found them difficult to keep straight. Nice to have ATLANTIC OCEAN down the middle, dividing the puzzle just like it separates the US and Britain in real life.

This is a grid screaming for mirror (or left-right) symmetry — it would have made it so much easier to visualize the theme. It would have also elicited a mirror-world sci-fi analogy for us ubergeeks, one where when you look in the mirror, things are identical … except in very subtle ways.

I usually think MATHS is amusing, but in this case, it muddies the theme. Fun that QUEUEING is LINING UP, KNACKERED is EXHAUSTED, but MATHS is … MATH. According to the theme, MATH should be where ABASE is. Inelegant.

I also thought it was odd to have the American terms on the right-hand side, and the British on the left. Why not the other way around, to reflect real-world geography?

I enjoyed many of the bonuses, DEER HIDES and GO VIRAL in particular. I'm mixed on ALITERATE, which my stupid spell check keeps changing to ILLITERATE. The former has dictionary support, but I can't imagine using this word except in some sort of party trick.

Tough to work around so many theme entries, even if they are shortish. Ross does pretty well, minor ICI, RAH, ATUG. I WON, I HEAR, I CARE are all fine, but in aggregate they seem awfully repetitive.

The only real trouble spots came in the NE / SW, no surprise given their big sizes and constraints. I would have deployed more black squares in these sections to avoid the randomish E TRAIN and ... AFLERS. That last one is tough to swallow.

But overall, nice idea, with ATLANTIC OCEAN placed perfectly.

– puzzle by Ross Trudeau

DATA SCIENTIST as the "sexiest job of the 21^st century" = a great entry and clue combination. Sometimes I get overly excited about a phrase I might seed a crossword with, and I might even finish out the grid before realizing that it can't take a very good clue. "Uncanny valley" was one like this — neat phrase, bizarre idea, but how are you going to clue it? DATA SCIENTIST, with its fantastic clue, makes for the type of seed I love.

Strong gridwork. Kyle does use a 72-word grid — the max allowed for a themeless — which often comes with fewer long slots than I like. But Kyle employed some very long entries, JESSE EISENBERG, DATA SCIENTIST, ILL DRINK TO THAT!, which helped the puzzle feel meaty.

Nice work converting some of the mid-length slots into assets too, TRUST ME and JOE COOL in particular. Even BEDREST and TOUPEES are fun. Most every long or medium slot is used wisely, except for DIAPERED. (Given my toddler and baby, maybe I'm too deep into the literal crap to appreciate that one.)

I did wonder about featuring two long proper names — it can be rough on a solver if you don't know who the person is, giving you at best a "meh" when you finally get the answer. But JESSE EISENBERG has had multiple starring roles, and TREVOR NOAH hosts "The Daily Show," so I think they're way beyond the threshold of crossworthiness. Still, I had so much more fun solving DATA SCIENTIST than JESSE EISENBERG.

Great work on short fill; a sign of skilled craftsmanship. I did hitch at BOITO and LENI. BOITO is famous in opera and thus (I think) crossworthy, but thank goodness Kyle ensured all the crossings were fair. LENI … perhaps if this had been a title character? It stuck out as the lone iffy-feeling entry. (Some might cringe at JAMA, but given that my wife is a doctor ...)

If you're going to go to 72 words, you have to make your grid virtually flawless. Kyle executed well.

– puzzle by Kyle Mahowald

The constructors' eternal trade-off is snazziness vs. smoothness. Almost all of us want to work fantastic entries into our themeless, of the LASER TAG, BAD KARMA, HAVE A COW, GEEK CHIC type. Lovely phrases. Most of us would also get satisfaction out of weaving in GEE WHIZ, SQUIBS, TOY CAR, YOWZAH, too — great use of slots that too often contain neutral filler.

But almost all of us would also like to avoid the gluey bits that are so helpful in holding a grid together. ITEA, A BEAT, SSR, EAN, ON ME, VTEN, DREWS, etc. are so handy, but so inelegant. (Not to mention, the oddballs like SEINED.) As a solver, more than roughly five of these uglies and my enjoyment level falls off exponentially.

It's tough to balance these two opposing forces, and every constructor has a different balance point. For me, that falloff in enjoyment is so steep that I work hard to keep it to maybe three or four dabs of glue at most.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm mired too deep into construction to enjoy puzzles as much as I used to. Like I mentioned to Jim a week ago, I LURVED Harry Potter the first three (okay, five) times I read the series. But after reading critical analyses, I started noticing every unnecessary adverb Rowling employed — they were everywhere! Although my fourth (six) reading of the books was still enjoyable, it diminished because I kept on picking those up.

Two fantastic clues elevated my overall experience today:

• Having a business background, I'm used to dealing with contractual problems … not the type of contract-ual SPASMS type of problems, though!
• A TOLL as something needed to "raise the bar" — the toll gate bar — put a smile on my face.

– puzzle by Frederick J. Healy

DO THE SPLITS, apt title for introducing spaces into regular phrases for kooky results. I enjoyed GO OFF ON A TAN GENT, and BRA IN WAVES evoked a funny image.

Humor is so subjective. I found some of the resulting phrases stilted, especially POE, TRY READING. Not only grammatically does it feel odd, but I imagine Poe wouldn't have needed much prompting to read. And FAT AL ATTRACTION … something there makes me cringe. Not sure what.

UNFUNDED MANDATE as a base phrase. I vaguely recognized it as a thing, but even after researching it, it still doesn't sing to me.

Some nice long bonus fill, RAW RECRUIT matching well with a TROOPSHIP, and … GOOSESTEP. That last one is a regular term for a common military practice (especially outside America), but boy, does it have uncomfortable connotations. Perhaps recently reading about the siege of Leningrad colored my thinking.

Lynn is so good with her short fill — she usually focuses on Monday puzzles, giving us some of the smoothest Monday offerings around — and today is no different. Although it's a tough task to build a 21x 140-word puzzle — I'd estimate it to be about five times harder than a Monday, since there are necessarily much bigger swaths of white space to fill — this is such a smooth offering.

I did hitch at DAVA, but 1.) all the crossings were fair, 2.) Pulitzer Prize nominee, and 3.) if that's one of the few quasi-gluey bits you end up with, that's a win.

Although most of the themers didn't resonate with me, a few great clues helped to elevate my solve:

• [Gives an order] made no sense for RANKS until I realized that it wasn't a sergeant giving an order, but a spreadsheet jockey.
• LADLE delivering a punch sounded like it should be "delivering punch" or "a cup of punch," but I still liked the clever wordplay, nonetheless.
• ATOMS are indeed at the "heart of the matter" — all matter, to be precise!

– puzzle by Lynn Lempel

Debut! Brent and Michael bring us a vowel progression theme with the HxLL pattern. I love the term HULLABALLOO, an all-too-familiar description of a house with a 6-mo. old and a toddler who can now reach just about anything.

I've heard some folks say they're dead tired of vowel progressions, and I do think they are going by the wayside. But that's just the natural course of any standard theme type. Constructors have to figure out ways of doing an overdone theme type better, more elegantly, a little differently for it to stand out. A shame that this one is so similar to the one Brent and Michael pointed out.

ACME told me that vowel progressions are like poetry — I liked that sentiment. The sound of HALL to HELLO to HILL to HOLLY to HULLA ... some might holla that it's hella pretty.

(Don't worry, the poetry police just revoked my license.)

Five super-long themers are no easy feat. The overlap between HALL OF FAME and HELLO HOW ARE YOU causes all sorts of problems, for example. Check out where GOT TO sits — there are so many down answers that need to run through that section, and that causes strain. Inelegant to get OF ART at the very top, and that NIMES / AMATO crossing is a killer. Toss in REMOW, and that's butting up against my threshold for crossword glue for an entire puzzle.

Considering HELLO HOW ARE YOU is just so-so in my eyes, I'd rather have seen something shorter, like HELLO THERE! matched with HOLLY BOUGH or the like.

Nice bonuses in ALL FEMALE and RULE OF LAW; hard to accomplish within such a theme-dense puzzle. A few years ago, I spent some time in the Gambia with an NGO, and I came back with all sorts of ideas how to help. One of my former econ profs suggested that what he'd do would be to find ways of strengthening RULE OF LAW, for, without it, any other effort will be close to meaningless. Fingers crossed for a smooth transition of power in the Gambia.

– puzzle by Brent Sverdloff and Michael Blake

Debut! Daniel breaks the record for youngest NYT constructor. What was I doing at age 13? Oh yes, still watching ELMER FUDD.

I spent hundreds of hours following the exploits of that wascally wabbit, so this puzzle brought me back. I particularly liked QUACK OF DAWN (from "crack of dawn"), as it hinted at Daffy Duck, another one of Fudd's usual targets. And SWAT MACHINE (from "slot machine") hinted at Wile E. Coyote's crazy contraptions! How cool would it have been if every themer related to Looney Tunes.

Using six themers is no joke, especially for a debut. Such a high theme density will almost always require some dabs of crossword glue to hold everything together. So I appreciated that I noticed very little as I solved. ON OR here, WYE there, some minor ERE, ATO, INS, but that was it. Nice craftsmanship to produce a smooth result.

And the big NE / SW corners! These roughly 6x4 chunks are so tough to fill with interesting and smooth material. I enjoyed that NE, what with MARINE and ESPRIT de corps, with just INS and an outdated SUPRA. The SW was even nicer, with so many evocative answers like SAMSON, SQUASH, AUSSIE, and MANTRA. Well done.

Not many extras in this puzzle; not a surprise because of the high theme density. But I liked AW GO ON, which looks so amusingly like AW, GOON. Seems like that should be a Looney Tunes title.

Love me some Harry Potter, so yay for the OWL clue, referencing Ordinary Wizarding Level exams.

Can't wait to see what my daughter's patronus is, BTW.

This lisp-ish concept has gotten somewhat overdone, and not many of the themers made me laugh. But I liked ELMER FUDD as a revealer, and I thought Dan did a great job executing his gridwork. If only there had been something extra, like all the themers chosen and clued to Looney Tunes, this might have been POW! material for this Road Runner junkie.

– puzzle by Daniel Larsen

Such a cool idea to have celebs co-construct crosswords! Huge fan of Jesse's roles in "The Social Network" and "Now You See Me." And Patrick is a great partner for a debut collaboration — one of the top puzzlemakers out there.

This is one avant-garde snowman. I've seen HEAD OF LETTUCE and EARS OF CORN in food-like-body-parts crosswords before, maybe even BUTTERFINGERS too, but none of them related to snowmen. Points for … originality? Not sure I ever would have thought of sticking LETTUCE on this horror movie fiend. I can't decide if sticking CHERRY PITS under a snowman's arms is hilarious, or incredibly creepy.

No long bonus entries, but some nice mid-length fill in NFL TEAM, CUTOFFS (perhaps the snowman is a nevernude?) and DARWIN. And some rare letters worked in with care — in JAZZ / ZITI / ZAHN — spices things up.

Such a smooth grid, something Patrick excels at. It was so smooth that I would have liked some more bonus long fill in exchange for a little more crossword glue. Taking out the black square between AGOG and ELITE is one way to do that. Shifting the block above TACO to the right is another option. These changes would make filling harder of course, but as long as the final tally of gluey bits was still reasonable, I would have liked to see that trade-off.

I'd also like to have seen the body parts in more anatomical order, starting with HEAD, to EARS, to PITS, to FINGERS. That would be much tougher to do, since HEAD OF LETTUCE's length makes it unsuitable for row three, forcing all the themers to be shoved tighter together toward the center — and less spacing is almost always a constructor's bane. But I think it would still have been doable.

Some great clues spiced up the solve:

• MACS are decidedly un-PC types — IBM-PC, that is.
• Neat that STENO anagrams to NOTES!
• The (hated, vile) Cowboys are an NFL TEAM, but the Indians are not. Neat use of "cowboys and Indians."
• Absolutely love the DIOR and RIOT clues Jesse mentioned above.

Nice kick-off to what hopefully will be a long series of these celeb collabs!

– puzzle by Jesse Eisenberg and Patrick Blindauer

Yet another debut! That make four days in a row, as well as four Thursdays in a row. New voices and new ideas are a great thing.

Love this particular idea, BLACK rebus squares helping to take away the perceived ASYMMETRY. (I've grayed out the rebus squares to better illustrate this point.) I saw this idea maybe seven years ago (in a different venue) and thought it was the coolest concept ever! Even though the novelty wasn't there for me this time, I still enjoyed the effect.

Some great entries, starting off with the themers. Particularly cool to get a BLACK box in the middle of a phrase, in THE BLACK KEYS. But even BLACK BEAR, which looks so close to BLACK BEARD (there's a crossword theme in there somewhere …), and the finance term IN THE BLACK are awfully fun.

Loved TERMINATOR in the fill, too. I hope this factoid — 100% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes — doesn't prompt crossword trolls to go give it negative ratings. Don't do it, people!

Some mid-length MAMMOTH, CARNAGE, SHINTO also added to the quality of my solve. A singular SCRUPLE was a bit odd, but it does have dictionary support.

Just a little too much crossword glue for my taste today. I didn't start noticing it until I hit SES / TET, but then I started picking up OLEO (which admittedly some people think is fine), MAL, ARA, MTS. Nothing cringeworthy, but as a whole, just up against my threshold.

Two great clues:

• [Needing salt, maybe] doesn't refer to seasoning, but salt for ICY snow conditions.
• Nice misdirect in [Shoots in the jungle], making it look like "shoots" is a verb, not a noun, for BAMBOO.

– puzzle by Keith Redwine

★ A ton of sizzling material!

It's easy enough for strong constructors to make a good, single triple-stacked quadrant, and even not so hard to make it both colorful and clean. Check out that great SW corner, for example: IN BAD TASTE / NEON YELLOW / HIDDEN MIKE are all fantastic answers, and nary a dab of crossword glue necessary to hold it all together.

But I've come to appreciate going above and beyond, linking stacked entries — what a delightful combination in INDIAN FOOD and Thai STICKY RICE. Same goes for CHAIN EMAIL and TEXT ALERTS. Four strong corners, two of them mini-themed on their own = very cool.

I also appreciated the long answers jutting into the middle, BOHO CHIC a beautiful entry. TEN HUT and CREAKY are two good mid-length answers, too. I wasn't sure about ONES ALL, as it felt like a partial, but in the end, I think it works.

On that note, there were a few answers I wondered about:

• HONKY TONKS as a plural noun? I associate it with a musical style, but it does have dictionary support as a noun. And it's so fun to say, that I gave it a thumbs up.
• CHAIN EMAIL … is that what those are called? After struggling to come up with something more accurate or snazzy, I decided it indeed was the correct term.
• PISH. This isn't something I hear every day, but the word amuses me.
• HOT LICK. I played in jazz bands for ten years but never heard anyone say this. I have seen it in reviews and critiques, though, so I think it's fine.

Overall, so many great entries — I'm hoping ELAINE CHAO brings some sensibility to the current administration, another yummy entry in RACK OF LAMB with a BUTTER DISH right next to said lamb (don't judge me with your STEELY GAZE) — and these are in addition to all the ones I've already mentioned. I love it when a constructor can pack so much juicy fill into a single grid.

And just a little AMO, SGT, TRE to hold it together. The last two are so minor I even hesitate to mention them.

Beautiful work of craftsmanship.

– puzzle by David Steinberg

Yet another debut this week! Very cool; I'm hoping that the NYT does a full "new constructors" theme week in the future. It'd be especially cool if a few of them were female, or from diverse backgrounds. (Newbies, feel free to contact me if you're interested, have a theme idea, and/or would like some help!)

Steve uses his mid-length slots so well. Love that intersection of DREAM ON and NO CAN DO. Along with SIX GUN, RATED X, FREE DVD, TV GUIDE, ain't no BAD NEWS here. Steve's ON A TEAR! I don't remember the last time a puzzle's mid-length material stood out so well for me.

Some nice longer entries, too. Love the German DER RINGDO … er, DERRING DO. And SWEATSUIT, LET US PRAY, DEWEY EYED, NOBLEMAN, yes! Good work, putting at least one strong entry in each of the corners.

Not as much a fan of ALIENATE, SENTENCE, OVERTONE, BORDERED, as they're more neutral entries in my eyes, words I hear every day in workmanlike usage. They also carry slightly negative-ish OVERTONEs, which wasn't super uplifting. Not that I need or even want every crossword to lift my spirits, but as a form of entertainment, I'd rather come away with a sense of fun than a feeling of having my buzz harshed.

A bit of crossword glue holding everything together, ENERO a constructor's crutch what with its friendly letters and vowel/consonant alternation. Minor SASE, DTS (although I heard someone use that term the other day!). DO NOT was the lone entry that bugged me, a partial in disguise. A cutesy clue, without a question mark, in [Prohibition's beginning], just made it worse.

And tough entry in SANGAREE. It's definitely a thing, and I like having learned it (although it sounds slightly to incredibly disgusting). During my solve, though, it wasn't satisfying to be forced to piece together every single letter, just to wonder what this thing was.

LIEGE apparently can either mean the person in charge … or the person working for that person. Interesting tidbit of info.

Great use of mid-length slots, and if the longer slots had been used to that level, this would have been a POW! candidate. Given the standard-ish themeless pattern, I think that might have been possible, especially in the NE/SW.

– puzzle by Steve Overton

Sound change, from UH to OH, thus UH-OH! I laughed at NO GOATS NO GLORY, the motto of the saddest goatherder in the world. It's a great base phrase, "no guts no glory," and the change in meaning is amusing. I also like STONED SILENCE, from "stunned silence" ... although aren't stoned folks usually giggling and chatty?

That's what my friends tell me, anyway. Ahem.

None of the others did much for me, unfortunately. BREAD AND BOATER feels stilted. A hummingbird feeder and a HOMING BIRD FEEDER seem too similar. And I don't have great associations with Confederate Era Dixie, so DIXIE COPES left a bad taste in my mouth.

I did like that Bruce chose some interesting spelling changes; CUPS to COPES, FUN to PHONE, etc. Much better than a simple letter substitution of *UH* to *OH*.

Great work on the short fill; hardly anything stood out. Minor ENS, NENES, hardly anything else. IMMUNO is a prefix, but it's interesting. Big thumbs-up for the super-smooth solve.

Some fun long fill, too, especially that nice WAKING UP / OPEN CASE / STAGE SET triple. None of those blew my mind, but they're all good.

I do wish there was a little more long fill. There are some CRAWDADS, AP TESTS, HACKERS strewn about, but it felt like most of the puzzle was dominated by four or five-letter answers, with not much to break up that sensation.

Not a fan of that big diagonal slash across the middle, as it hindered my solving flow. It makes grid construction so much easier, as once you work through part of the NE and SW corners, you can effectively fill the halves of the puzzle separately. Opening one or two spaces along that diagonal would have helped a ton. Or opening up the spaces at the ends of it, perhaps by moving that set of three black squares under NEOPET down one row.

The theme didn't do much for me, but I did appreciate a lot of the grid execution, especially the very smooth fill. It was so smooth, in fact, that I would have loved to get some more long bonus entries in exchange for a couple more dabs of crossword glue.

– puzzle by Bruce Haight

President's Day extravaganza, featuring eight POTUSes and interesting trivia. I had heard some before, like BUCHANAN the lifelong bachelor, and TAFT who went on to become Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. And I think we've all heard enough about OBAMA's birthplace.

But there were a few good ones in there, especially ROOSEVELT climbing the Matterhorn. Appropriate for the Rough Rider!

It took me a while to read the long FORD clue, but I liked that one a lot. (He became VP when Agnew resigned, and then President when Nixon stepped down.)

And HARRISON's grandfather was also President? Yes — William Henry Harrison. I suppose the clue could have been written for the latter or the former.

On that note, I would have liked something pulling all the trivia together. The tidbits were interesting, but as a whole, it felt scattershot. Each and every POTUS has something quirky about him or his Presidency, so focusing the trivia around hobbies, political careers, families, etc. would have been great.

Although none of the themers are long, check out how many there are (highlighted below). Such high theme density almost always makes for a tough grid making challenge. Ed and Paula wisely spend many of their black squares in the middle, separating HARRISON / OBAMA / TYLER / BUCHANAN, and the results in the center are smooth.

But without many other black squares to deploy, they're forced to work with relatively big swaths of white in the corners. Some entries like INTERIM and STATION are good, and I like OZONE HOLE and MACADAMIA (yum!). But ORGANDY, TRALEE, WYNN, SMEW, make for more aggregated toughness than I think a Monday puzzle ought to have.

And the south suffers in terms of short fill, with ATIE, ADDN, LTD, LLCS. Those last two are fine, in common business usage, but as a whole, that little south section felt heavy with crossword glue, especially also considering SMEW and CLEO (do people really call Cleopatra that?).

Some trivia I'm glad I learned, but it would have been nice to get an organizing principle to rationalize why these eight Presidents were chosen.

Note to self: OBAMA at 44-Across — POTUSes at their appropriate number — would have been cool!

– puzzle by Ed Stein and Paula Gamache

A* P* phrases, with AP TEST acting as a revealer. Initialism puzzles are a very common theme type, so it's important to have some element(s) to help distinguish them. I appreciated the high theme density — I didn't realize at first that AMY POEHLER and ATOMIC PILE were themers — and Tim sure picked some good phrases. In addition to the aforementioned, I loved AL PACINO in "The Godfather." And who doesn't love a good ol' fashioned APPLE PIE? (Answer: my wife. I promise, she's not a communist.)

AIR PIRATE … is that a thing? Some Googling says yes, but I've never heard of hijackers referred to this way.

But AIR PIRATE is a themer! Curious how I missed it at both first and second glances. I highlighted everything below to give you an idea of how much theme Tim packed in. Impressive.

Even more impressive was the smoothness of his short fill. Some will see PTUI as dicey, but I think it's at least funny, plus it's used in comics all the time. With such high theme density, there will usually be some price to pay, so Tim did well to finish with just a bit of minor ASST, OTC (over the counter), TMEN, PTUI.

Where I think the grid suffered a little is in some of the mid-length fill; enough oddballs that as a whole, I was left with a head-scratching sensation. AGAVES in the plural to kick off the puzzle. SEA EELS — is that different from EELS? (Apparently so!) TUNA OIL is a thing, different than the more common "fish oil"? I like learning a thing or two from my crossword, but more than that gets tiresome, especially in an early-week puzzle.

Overall, it felt like a Monday theme with Wednesday fill — I can see why Will ran it on a Tuesday. But I like my Tuesday puzzles to have a little more theme complexity than this, and a little easier grid fill.

Solid gridwork around impressively high theme density, though.

– puzzle by Timothy Polin

Love this take on word ladders. We've seen so many crosswords with individual rungs of word ladders in the grid, like a recent BLACK to WHITE one, so Kyle's approach felt fresh. Excellent a-ha moment when I realized that the curious [... SLID SAID SAND SANE SINE NINE ...] clue was the middle of a SLIM to NONE word ladder!

Nice selection of themers, each of them snazzy. I say NOTE TO SELF all the time, in a humorous (or so I think) way, and HERE TO STAY and AMEN TO THAT are great too.

I would have liked a more lasting a-ha moment somehow, as once I got the trick, it was too easy to fill TO into spaces 5-6 of each themer. But it was a strong enough click; an innovative idea that managed to mostly hold my attention even after I got what was happening. Certainly memorable, and that's saying a lot.

I was curious to see how many other themers might work: COME TO PAPA, WENT TO TOWN, DAWN TO DUSK, NUTS TO THAT! Most every pair of four-letter words can be connected via word ladder, although it may have to be a very long word ladder.

Speaking of length of word ladder, check out the 11-word ladder connecting AMEN to THAT! Curious if a shorter one could be generated.

Nice gridwork. Only two feature pieces of fill in REPORT CARD and ANTISEPTIC, but both were solid. And BREXIT, SYNAPSE, O HENRY, added to the quality of solve too.

Not much to report in terms of short fill, which is exactly what you want. Short fill is like a baseball ump — he/she does a great job only when he/she isn't noticed. Some may balk at IBN, but it's a common enough word in Arabic. Minor dab of crossword glue. (BTW, LSU = Louisiana State University if you didn't know.)

I liked the twisty take on word ladders. If the a-ha moment had persisted a bit longer, or if Kyle had managed to work in a couple more long pieces of jazzy fill, this would have been my POW! choice.

– puzzle by Kyle Dolan

It would have been easy to use a set of random numbers for the redo — FRESHMAN FIFTEEN leading to FRESHMAN SENATOR and SWEET SIXTEEN leading to SWEET CAROLINE were two of my favorites — but that felt inelegant. I wanted some set or progression. It took a long time to figure out a set that worked with 10, 20, 30, 40.

If you've never tried to create a grid in which themers have to be at specific numbers, don't. It's like hitting yourself in the head with a hammer. A white-hot hammer. A white-hot hammer with an angry shark duct-taped to it.

I didn't want to use so many black squares, and I hated going up to 78 words, but every sub-78 word grid I completed (about two dozen of them) had some small entry that rubbed me the wrong way. Or didn't have enough colorful material. Or sticky shark bite prints.

Big relief to finally get the "we're good to go" email from Joel!

– puzzle by Jeff Chen

Often, themelesses featuring a lot of 15-letter entries don't have a lot else to talk about. I like Andrew's innovative layout, spacing out his 15-letter entries so the rest of his grid can breathe and shine. He weaves in an impressive 12 long entries — so hard to do when some of them are grid-spanners.

I loved QWERTY KEYBOARDS and its clue. That QWE* start is so odd, and what a great misdirect, referring to "power output." This still confused me even after I got the answer. I finally realized the clue meant that the top of the keyboard — the top line — could be used exclusively when typing the words "power output." Clever!

BRITISH INVASION was nice too. Oldie but a goodie. DESI ARNAZ too. And the pairing of DRIVE TIME and MASERATIS was fun. I like it when a themeless constructor can generate associations between adjacent or crossing answers.

Not as much a fan of EXERCISE SCIENCE and EDITORIAL WRITER. Both are legit, but neither sing to me. Interesting terms to look up, but I doubt either will stick in my memory, not like QWERTY KEYBOARDS. In themelesses featuring 15-letter answers, I want those feature entries to shine. The north half of the puzzle, that was the case, to full effect. The south, not so much.

A notable aspect of Andrew's puzzle is how smooth it is — this usually isn't the case for themelesses featuring uber-long entries. The grid is constrained all over the place, with those 15s and 10s and 9s interlocking, creating so much rigidity and inflexibility. But Andrew scoots by with just an outdated QWEST (now CenturyLink) and Sydney OMARR, plural RENES, RAH.

Well, there are the oddballs: OSIER, KITER, NATAL. Hmm. Each is reasonably fine on its own, but as a group, they didn't leave me with a great impression.

Some of that overall smoothness of fill may have come at the expense of snazzy entries. I wonder if EXERCISE SCIENCE and/or EDITORIAL WRITER could have been replaced with snappier entries if Andrew had allowed a little more crossword glue. Ah, the eternal trade-off.

Yay for the Q in LGBTQ! I had been wondering when it'd finally make its debut (past just LGBT).

– puzzle by Andrew Zhou

★ Loved this one. A 66-word grid without extraneous black squares ("cheaters") is extremely tough to fill with snazziness and smoothness. Mark has so many great entries, BIOBURDEN my favorite (my previous career was in biotech). SWIPE LEFT is a Tinder thing (so I'm told), so that gives the puzzle some freshness.

What stood out for me was that so many of Mark's one-word entries were so good. I love Arthurian lore, so EXCALIBUR elated me. The word EBULLIENT feels so bubbly, so effervescent, so … EBULLIENT! And what a great clue for ARMADILLO, that it hops straight up when startled.

The fact that ABORIGINAL and ORIGINAL have similar meanings ... I stared at those first two empty squares for the longest time, wondering if there was some trick going on utilizing empty squares. Love it.

Single-word entries are often harder to make memorable than multi-worders — MINIATURE vs. something as neat as the mid-length BBQ RIBS for example — but Mark shined today.

Speaking of mid-length entries, BBQ RIBS wasn't the only standout. CAPISCE?, PUP TENT, OPEN NOW, TOY CAR, ALIMONY all added to my solve. Great stuff.

And what the heck kind of long entry starts with DS*? I was sure I had something wrong, especially since I was thinking about [60s sorts] as people from the 60s. LSD maybe? No, it was 60s ... as in 60 percent! What a fantastic clue/entry pair.

Nice and smooth grid, too. I did hitch on the BANC / BIEN crossing, as I don't know my Indochina War trivia. But this is a Saturday puzzle, so a ["Tres ___!"] clue would have been way too easy.

AIRSOFT was the one head-scratcher for me today. I used to run a boys' group, where we did all sorts of laser tag-type events, so it's mystifying that I hadn't heard of this. But one head-scratcher in a puzzle is fine and even welcome; a good source of learning.

DEWED was just about the only real complaint I had. "Dewy," yeah? But that vowel-consonant alternation in DEWED is so constructor-friendly.

All in all, such a delight to solve.

– puzzle by Mark Diehl

MIXED FEELINGS explains it all, various feelings like WOE and WONDER anagrammed within phrases for kooky effect. I usually am not hot on this theme type, as the lack of flexibility in anagram pairs often makes for unfunny theme phrases. But I enjoyed many of Josh's. DOWNER WOMAN (from "Wonder Woman") would make for one sad superhero. MY SIRE LOVES COMPANY gave me a funny image of a king just looking for someone to play with. It's also a fun anagram find (misery to MY SIRE).

My favorite was CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM — hilariously uncomfortable show to watch — to CURB YOUR SUN ATHEISM! Great anagram and a chuckle-worthy result.

Now that I look at the answers again, I'm surprised at how many amused me. TINY AXE ATTACK makes me think of little one-inch high dwarves raging en masse. Good stuff.

My main issue sticking point was that I had a hard time figuring out what the base phrases were. I had to put TINY AXE into an anagramming website to figure out it was ANXIETY. Same with UPRISERS and SURPRISE. Even HAVE NO FARE and STRUTWORTHY baffled me for a while.

Maybe I'm just terrible with anagrams. (HAVE NO FEAR, TRUSTWORTHY.)

Josh usually does themelesses — really well — and his expertise there shines through. I didn't even notice it was a 136-worder, an incredibly tough construction task because it was so smooth, so pretty. He features some great bonus fill: ROAD BIKES, WAIT FOR IT …, SAKE BOMB (extremely potent!), MOM JEANS, BIGWIG, TEA TIME.

And he does that with just a tad of crossword glue: ORO and ATS. ALEATORY (risky) is an oddball of a word, too, but these are all minor infractions. A typical 140-word Sunday puzzle has maybe 10 dabs of crossword glue. To keep a 136-worder to low single-digits is amazing.

Anagrams are often mined for crossword ideas, but I liked how Josh kept his idea tight, mixing up only types of feelings. If it hadn't been so hard to figure out some of these base phrases, this anagram-skill-deficient-solver would have considered it for the POW! But as it was, I had to struggle a little too much to grok the connections.

– puzzle by Josh Knapp

I've seen a lot of homophone themes, and I've seen a lot of word swap themes, but I can't remember quite this combination. Neat finds in STARES DOWN and DOWN STAIRS, PEACE TIME and TIME PIECE — I like that those create very different meanings.

PLAIN PAPER and PAPER PLANE wasn't as compelling for me, since you can make one out of the other; just not as interestingly transformational. Plus, PLAIN PAPER seems like an awfully plane answer. Er, plain.

Nice job of executing on six themers. C.C. wisely intersects two sets, i.e. runs PAPER PLANE through PEACE TIME, which helps maximize spacing throughout the grid. This arrangement — if interlocking is possible — is much easier to fill around, compared to running six themers all in the horizontal direction. That latter arrangement means you have to cram all the themers together with bad spacing.

It is missing some of the trademark C.C. long fill, though. It's to be expected given how much real estate the themers take up, but I always enjoy seeing what new phrase C.C. will introduce, like VIP ENTRANCE from her last one.

Ah, the spelling of Georgia O'KEEFFEE. Er, O'KEEFFE. Dang it. Up until a few years ago, I was sure it was O'KEEFE … sure enough to use it as fill in an easy crossword. Whoops. Glad for editors who catch that sort of idiocy!

Pretty darn smooth for a six-themer puzzle. INSP(ector) isn't great, but there's otherwise only minor bits such as EINE Kleine Nachtmusik (I suppose it's not so minor if you're an early-week solver who doesn't listen to classical music) and RTE. And it's neat to get MOANA, the Disney flick featuring some brown faces. Can't wait to see that.

It would have been incredibly awesome if C.C. could have found pairs where BOTH of the words changed to their homophone, with every theme answer being real phrases. (Matt Ginsberg did a variation on that a while back.) As it was, it was still entertaining.

ADDED NOTE: Sam Ezersky noted that there are actually two more themers — RED SEA and SEE RED. Drat, can't believe I missed those. Thanks, Sam!

– puzzle by Zhouqin Burnikel