Thumbnails

That's a big IF, all right! Couldn't get much bigger.

Could it?

Not surprisingly, I spent an hour goofing around with grids, trying to see what sort of layout I could achieve, that not only featured a giant IF but also reduced the number of 3-letter words. You can achieve this by shifting the I one column to the left and then rejiggering many of the other black squares, but it makes things messy.

One of the big problems is that because the I and F both use long, straight vertical lines, you need a ton of long Down entries. You can't break up the region between the I and F, otherwise you create some 2- or even 1-letter entries, and that's a big no-no.

"Big no-no" … crossword theme radar pinging …

Why does it even matter to have fewer 3-letter entries? Some editors don't care about this, or even brazenly fly in the face of a maximum count (often 20 or 22, compared to today's 31). As a solver, I find that having so many tiny entries gives a choppy feeling to my experience, forcing me to stop and start after typing in only two or three letters. Interrupts my flow.

Some impressive themeless-esque content, so rare to see even one of the bonus grid-spanners HABANERO PEPPERS, AND YET HERE WE ARE, SUNRISE MOVEMENT, BEYOND ONES GRASP, ENRIQUE IGLESIAS in a weekday puzzle. And don't forget GIFT RECEIPTS, DON'T YOU FRET! These enhanced my solving experience, even when dragged down by the necessary evils of glue like STD ESO OBE holding that tough central swath together.

Memorable debut, which is a rare event. THAT'S A BIG IF plus the grid art was too thin of a theme, though. I'd have enjoyed brainstorming on what else could be added to make it feel more satiating.

– puzzle by Sean Yamada-Hunter

★ Some great finds, ZEN GARDEN becoming EN GARDE, PROSECUTE to ROSE CUT, STABLEMATE to TABLE MAT, WEATHERED to EAT HERE. These types of letter-removal discoveries pique me most when there's a space insertion or deletion or shifting, so they all delighted me.

Apt revealer in ENDLESSLY, too, ZEN GARDEN without its ends becoming EN GARDE.

The circles confused me at first, though. Why are Z and N important, I wondered. A-ha! If you turn Z 90 degrees, it becomes an N!

Wait. P and E? Is that a reference to Proctor and … Emble? Peeking and entering?

S and E … are both compass points? Ironically, that's when I realized that my wanderings were directionless.

It would have been fantastic if all the circled letters were the same. Or somehow related. Or spelled out a relevant phrase. An extra layer would have blown my mind. It's not necessary though, since the finds were all fresh and interesting.

Fantastic debut gridwork. Some editors balk at so many black squares (on the sides of the puzzle), but I'm all for whatever facilitates colorful and clean fill — at least, up to a point. I'm fine with the aesthetics of these pyramid blocks, but I wouldn't want them to grow any bigger.

David used his black squares so carefully throughout the hardest section to fill, the middle. Dotting them throughout created a lot of separation between the themers. That didn't leave many to use for the corners, but that's okay. Regions like these big corners are tractable when you only have to work with one theme answer running through them.

Such great additions to my solving experiences in DREAM ON, DON KING, ENGAGE, DIET PILL — and that was only the first quadrant! JEAN-LUC Picard, PRENUPS, the ROYAL WE … I could tell how much time and care David put into his filling process.

Maybe Harold STASSEN is a bit esoteric these days, but I'm sure older generations will shake their fists at me for saying that.

Once I got over my disappointment that the circled letters didn't do anything except indicate removal, my admiration soared. Enjoyable finds and an equally enjoyable grid. Great debut.

– puzzle by David W. Tuffs

There are few constructors out there who regularly debut material that's not already on the XWord Info Word List. BEQ and Paolo happen to be two of them! Fantastic entries that we didn't already have in CLOSE-UP MAGIC (I'm addicted to Chris Ramsay's YouTube channel) and ON WHAT PLANET. I love me some colloquial phrases, and this one is so laden with disbelief.

Other debuts that weren't already on our list:

AL COWLINGS. I vividly remember the Trial of the Century, and if you asked me about Nicole Simpson, Ronald Goldman, Kato Kaelin, Johnny Cochran, Alan Derschwitz, I could have told you a dozen details about each. Let's not forget Lance ITO, so useful in crosswords! Cowlings, not so much.

APRIL THESES. I figured Jim Horne could teach me about these, probably something I should have learned in my (sad public) high school history classes. Jim didn't know either. Then I got sidetracked, daydreaming what kind of theses April Ludgate might have made.

MEDIA BLOG. I like this one, although I wondered, are CALISTHENICS VLOGS or NUTRITION YOUTUBERS acceptable entries? (I also wondered, how can I stop watching so much damn YouTube?)

SO LET IT GO. So, what's the SO at the start for?

YOU LIED TO ME is fantastic. The BEQesque clue (he's amazing at any relating to music), referring to the Mark Morrison song, took away some of the enjoyment for this pop music moron, though.

I had a tough time in the lower right, not remembering how to spell Marc MARON crossing ILANA Glazer crossing OONA Chaplin. All three folks seem perfectly fair, having achieved a level of fame. I'm not so sure about the expectation for solvers to get the spellings exactly right.

Enjoyed much of everything else, though, LEAD GUITAR, WAG THE DOG, and especially BEER COOLER lending effervescence.

– puzzle by Brendan Emmett Quigley and Paolo Pasco

The NYT crossword ought to progress in difficulty not from Monday to Saturday, but from Monday to Waldenday. I'm always up for a challenge to stretch the limits of my abilities, and Byron is one of the best at this. I was vaguely familiar with BALLISTA, being the ubernerd I am, but HIALEAH, ABADAN, even ALT LIT did not come easy.

I also picked up some new terms (RANGELAND), unfamiliar titles (ON NARCISSISM), and even some word definitions, like TENTPOLING as a shoring-up term, and PARSIMONY as mental tightness.

Ironic that COME QUICK kicked off the puzzle, as so many of these answers did anything but that.

I jinxed myself yesterday by saying that it's rare for so many NYT xw debuts to not come from our XWI Word List. Byron is another person who regularly works in entries that neither Jim Horne nor I have thought to add already. I kicked myself for missing UN MEMBERSHIP, which is not only a colorful phrase, but also can take on a lot of wordplay. Byron didn't disappoint, riffing on "country club."

I also loved the wordplay involved with "got in a lather." My kids get in a lather, both ways, when I've SHAMPOOED their hair. No more tears, my butt! Those little gamins.

Speaking of GAMINS, a bit of ALG, ALO, I MET, MSS. I've heard complaints about KRYPTO, but this graphic novel die-hard has read some great work (alt lit?) about Superman's dog.

Funny to see Spock quoted. I can't wait until someone quotes Worf. I'll be the first to declare that a Qapla;!

Sometimes the speedsters post about wanting ultra-challenging crosswords to further shave their solving times. I'm curious to see how quickly Dan Feyer or Erik Agard or Tyler Hinman filled in that lower right corner. Might have pushed their total time to over two minutes!

– puzzle by Byron Walden

RISE FROM THE ASHES is such a great revealer phrase, ripe for all sorts of potential crossword themes. Jim Horne and I decided to highlight some grid squares below to make the execution more apparent.

Both of us were misled by the first themer, since ARSON from JOHNNY CARSON is fire related. I was so convinced that the risers would all be similarly related, that I stared at RETNECBA / ABCENTER for a full five minutes, performing mental anagrammatics to make out what the fire-related entry could be. Things get all jumbled-up in a burning fire, right?

Go ahead, UNLEASH the HOGWASH TALKS TRASH on me. I deserve it.

Although, I still cling to the belief that a fire can BETRANCE people.

There were some impressive finds, especially the longer ones. HOGWASH to HOGWARTS HOUSES is fun, and JOHNNY CASH sharing so many initial letters with JOHNNY CARSON is neat.

I also appreciated a few bonuses dotted throughout the grid, which helped me get over the puzzlement I kept struggling with, with respect to the theme. LATE GREAT is a great phrase. Fun to have HERMIONE echo HOGWARTS HOUSES. And toss in SPELL CASTER, too! That one was especially enchanting, given its charming clue, referring to "one who casts charms."

"Lead-off selections?" confused me for a hot minute, but in a similarly fantastic way. Try pronouncing it as "led," and you'll see why an ERASER fits.

Similarly, with NAMED. I stared at [Going by], wondering why "elapsing" might equate to NAMED. Ah, that's "going by," as in "Jeff tried to go by the nickname ‘El Jefe' but no one was betranced."

Tantalizing concept, with so much potential. I've talked to at least ten constructors about related concepts, playing on fire, phoenixes, and more. This one didn't wow me, but maybe the impact would have been stronger without the confusion of ARSON right off the bat.

– puzzle by Grant Thackray

I was flummoxed on two levels today — not surprising given that my wardrobe, largely consists of t-shirts older than me, is certainly not IN VOGUE. Here's the intended sequence of revelations:

STEP 1. Enter the theme people. Not at all simple for me. Things started out well when I recognized CHLOE ZHAO, the recent Best Director Oscar winner. CELINE DION, yes!

CHANEL IMAN … I wavered, wondering if that was IMAN's full name? No, it turns out that they're two different people.

GUCCI MANE? I know old school rappers, but I lost touch in 1990 or so. The crossings were fair, though.

STEP 2. Read IN VOGUE's clue, indicating that the first name of these people is likely to be in VOGUE, the fashion magazine.

STEP 3. Ask my wife to explain.

STEP 3.5. Assist wife in dislodging eyeballs from rolled-up position.

STEP 4. Realize that those four first names are fashion brands. CHANEL and GUCCI, sure. I wondered, is CELINE Celine Dion's fashion brand? Confusingly (to those of us with zero fashion sense), no.

Although I found it a tough, multi-layered theme to grasp, I appreciated that it was different than what we usually see in the NYT crossword.

The tough grid accentuated the challenging nature of the theme, elements like WEI, KUGEL, AGGRO, RIATA slowing me down. Along with the confusion of wondering how PRISCILLA fit into the theme, this might have been my slowest Monday solve in years.

Although I wouldn't give this one to novice crossword friends, it's bold to do something so cutting edge. Appropriately iconoclastic, given that so much of fashion is daring to make a statement that will generate discussion.

– puzzle by Joshua Rosenblatt

★ AWED is a perfect 1-Across for this delight. Money is a common theme in crosswords (except for constructor pay, i.e. micropennies per hour), so you have to add an extra element to make yours stand out. That's exactly what C.C. did today, in three different ways.

1. Fresh themers. I'd never heard of ERIC YUAN, but there's no doubt that the founder of Zoom has currency (sorry) during the pandemic. PRESS POUND is a phrase that I've heard thousands of times, yet it's new to the NYT crossword.
2. International flair. Many cruciverbalists stay Eurocentric with their themes. I love that aside from the British POUND, C.C. globetrotted to use the Brazilian REAL, Korean WON, South African RAND, Chinese YUAN. I hear a lot of solver griping if constructors dip into monetary units such as the Albanian LEK or Romanian LEU, and that's understandable. The BRIC countries are economic powerhouses, though, and their currencies carry weight.
3. International flair, part two. There are so many dull ways to clue STARS, but [Quintet on a Chinese flag] is not one of them. These touches in so many clues and entries — INDIAN Ocean, GHANA, VILLA as a Mediterranean estate — furthers the worldly feel.

Accessible wordplay in many clues, sadly uncommon for early-week puzzles. TOUCAN playing on "big bill" lets even newer solvers groan at its punniness.

ATLAS shows us another type of clue we don't often see in early-week puzzles, giving a piece of information that at first confuses and even causes consternation, but then the light bulb clicks on. There is no Atlas Ocean, but there is an Atlantic.

C.C. did exactly what she needed, to make an old-hat theme stand out. Along with excellent gridwork as is her usual — spicing things up with EYELINERS, LABRADOR, NAKED LIES, and so meticulously keeping her short glue to only EPS — another POW! for C.C. is easy money.

– puzzle by Zhouqin Burnikel

Telling a zombie to hurry up and LOOK ALIVE is hilariously punny! Enough to make one roll their eyes (right out of their sockets). I bet if a head chef told their omelet cook to GET CRACKING, he'd have egg all over his face (from the dozen thrown by said cook). Along with a server being impatiently told I'M WAITING, this is my type of restaurant.

Taste in humor is so subjective, especially when it comes to puns, but these were my jam.

Not so much a batter being hurried by saying ON THE DOUBLE. It felt so strained, like something out of an Abbott and Costello early draft that got scrapped. And HIT THE GAS was apt for a nitrous user, but it sure would have been nice to pun on a profession, like the others. Perhaps a hot air balloonist?

With six themers, sometimes interlocking pairs helps with real estate. There's something efficient about packing ON THE DOUBLE and HIT THE GAS tightly into the top left. However, it often causes problems in the crossing region. Today, HOB is an unfortunate by-product.

I do like how Lee used a cheater square in the very NW corner though, which I'm sure facilitated better cleanliness as well as some fresh MAISEL fill. Curious that MAISEL has only been used once before — by Lee!

The rigid grid skeleton put too many constraints on the grid design, forcing so many trade-offs. There is a case to be made, though, that getting interesting METEOR GRENADE BEST MAN (now there's an image!) might stave off the AGUE that comes from HOB DOI IRES MAL SGT.

I enjoy a solid profession-pun theme, and many of them hit my sweet spot. Cramming in six of them, not all of which elicited a laugh, made it feel like a rush job (sorry). Still, there's something to be said for the "more is more" approach when it comes to puns, since tastes vary so widely. That does increase the chance that at least a few land for most everyone.

– puzzle by Lee Taylor

I used to listen to tons of MILES DAVIS back when I played in jazz bands. His album "Miles Smiles" sure would have been different in METRIC.

RADIAN is a metric unit? It's been a few decades since I've taken any math classes, so I figured there had to be some sort of two-factor trickery going on, since both radians and degrees are taught in American trig. Let's see … anagrams? RADIANS does rearrange to SAD RAIN!

More appropriately, RADIAN mixes into A DRAIN — as in, that theory down a drain. Although the Wikipedia page doesn't explicitly call out RADIANs as a METRIC unit, it does say that it's an SI unit.

Audacious grid, especially for a debut. Themelesses can't have any more than 72 words, yet this themed puzzle contains only 68. Only a small subset of themeless constructors can fill a 68-worder with both cleanliness and color.

I would rarely tackle filling a 68-worder with four long seed entries. Granted, you can switch the placements of RADIAN MILLS and GRAM FOOLISH, and you can shift blocks around infinitely, but it's still a ridiculously difficult task. I'm impressed that Billy was able to keep his short glue to a bare minimum — with only ERO, this is way higher on the cleanliness scale than most 68-word themelesses.

Not a lot of color to boast of, though. I did enjoy OF COURSE, CADBURY, TOP TIER, and it's nice to get AGENDA, JOANNE, MAKE ME, MARSHA. I have a feeling so much more sparkle could have been featured in a 74-word grid, though.

I was so confused by DEGREEs to RADIANs; that threw my entire solving experience off-kilter. Now that I've mulled it over more, I like the brave approach. Instead of going with something more mundane, say HALF LITER (from HALF PINT) or MILLILITER OF PREVENTION, pushing the boundaries by omitting the obvious volume measure in favor of angular measurement feels appropriate to math. I have the fortune to be friends with many mathematicians, and most of all them are … particular. In a good way!

– puzzle by Billy Bratton

This bball fan had an easy pick for standout clue/entry pair. NBA REFEREE is a great entry, especially with its baffling NBAR- beginning. Riffing on "travel authority" makes it dazzle right up there with James Harden, Jason Kidd, and Magic Johnson. We all look the other way when it comes to NBA REFEREEs looking the other way when the Beard travels. Ahem.

Neat clue for MEYER LEMON, too. I love the scent of MEYER LEMONs growing on our back deck, and it was fascinating to learn that they come from China. Bonus points for anyone who can come up with a great Asian nickname for this fruit. (As brilliant as "Kung flu," but perhaps a touch less … evil.)

I'm usually not one for names in my crossword, but KAMEHAMEHA is an interesting case. I struggled with it at first, then realized that as a Hawaiian, his name would likely draw from the Hawaiian alphabet. Neat click as I was able to narrow down the options for all the letters to only A E I O U and H K L M N P W. Also reminded me of a memorable puzzle based on the Hawaiian alphabet.

70-word themelesses go up against stiff competition these days; Will Shortz's inbox flooded with them. I enjoyed much of this solid debut, but it's difficult to achieve standout sparkle when you're only working with 10 long slots (of 8+ letters). Some of the mid-length material did help to prop up the pizzazz, QUIBBLE's rare Q, THE BEAN, and SCREW IT all colorful.

– puzzle by Adrian Kabigting

I love this pattern, such visual — and solving — flow. One might describe it as having a center and four corners, but there's so much interconnection that everything blends so smoothly.

And that center! NAH IM GOOD is a catchy casual phrase to anchor everything. The knock on this grid pattern is typically that it's so hard to fill — 62 words is no joke — that you have to compromise either color or cleanliness. NAH IM GOOD kicks things off perfectly.

TAX DODGES is a colorful entry, too.

Amazingly clean grid, Sid adhering to his strict principle of giving the solver a smooth experience.

However, there wasn't as much snazziness as I want out of a themeless. Maybe it was the A/AN phrases, HAD AN IN, RUN A RACE, GRAB A SEAT, feeling repetitive? SNACKER / SHADERS / OPENERS, too. there were also a lot of entries containing mostly "Wheel of Fortune" free letters: STEINS, ENTRÉE, PESTERS, COEDIT, CRETAN.

Part of the issue is that the upper right and lower left corners feature few long (8+ letters) slots. Not that you can't do anything with mid-lengthers — RAT PACK, GAUTAMA, ALIMONY are all interesting — but there's so much potential in a longer slot. HOG HEAVEN is such a vivid phrase, for example.

I enjoyed picking up DEAD NAME. Hadn't heard of it, but it's two words that when put together, perfectly describe what may be corrected on a trans person's birth certificate.

Yikes, that STABBED clue. I love repurposing phrases in clever ways, but "stuck a fork in it" gives some startling visuals.

Solid example of this genre. I've experienced several of them over the years, and this one is as clean as any.

– puzzle by Sid Sivakumar

Grid art! Black squares often dominate circles, washing out their effects, but the circles win out today. From the first second I opened the puzzles, the smiley emoticon jumped out at me.

So much so that I tentatively filled in SEMI, then gained speed with COLON, jumped to HYPHEN, and completed PARENTHESIS. One minute into a Sunday puzzle, and I was done!

Well, there was the rest of the grid to fill in. My mind wandered, wondering what punnish delights there might be, playing on the common smiley emoticon. Would we see references to Tavis, George, or Guy Smiley? Perhaps there would be a WINK theme (the bottom of the SEMICOLON represents a wink). Man, I was hoping I'd get pleasantly hoodWINKed!

PUNCTUATION MARK, SMILEY FACE, ROTATE CLOCKWISE?

Ah well.

Interesting to learn PAREIDOLIA, at least. It's such a bizarre-looking word that I needed every single crossing. Reading up on its etymology gave me a solid a-ha, though. "Para" is Greek for "instead of," and the rest of the word derives from "eidolon" or "image." That sounded familiar, and the Greek myth-lover in me sat up in researching it more.

A few worthwhile bonuses, LEAP FROG, WASSAIL, LOW LIFES boosting the quality of my solve. However, there wasn't nearly as much heft in this 21x21 as it needed.

I've been a critic of themeless Sundays as a cop-out for not working hard enough to find quality themes, but this could have made for an interesting "mini-themed" Sunday. Open up the corners and sides — take out black squares above PAREIDOLIA and the right of AHA MOMENT, for example — and that would open up so much real estate for jazzy fill.

Great seed concept, unfortunately not fleshed out well enough.

– puzzle by Alex Rosen

Debut! Some fun theme phrases, HOUSE PARTY reinterpreted as a group of representatives. Not so much a party atmosphere in American politics these days, but at least our House hasn't broken out into fistfights and offal chucking, as is sadly common in Taiwan.

ICE PACK, I appreciated the change of meaning from frozen water to the slang for diamonds. And DEEP SET got my biggest smile, evoking an image of Mensans sitting around, Rodin style.

SEMICIRCLE as a group of big rigs worked, too. The definition of SEMI shifted from "half" to "hauler," and it was fun to think about semis circling themselves, wagon-style. Perhaps defending themselves from Decepticons.

It's a shame that the self-described "tough old broad" didn't write this puzzle. I bet her BROADBAND is the epitome of badassery.

The gridwork had some shaky points, especially unfortunate for a Monday. Kicking off a puzzle with OSS (dissolved in 1945) in the starting corner is not ideal. Crossing OSS with SOHO makes it even tougher for non-New Yorkers.

Thankfully, there was a reasonable amount of bonus material to offset the dabs of crossword glue. VEGETABLES reminds me of Vegimals (how deep in kidland am I?), and HODGEPODGE is a colorful word. HEADS UP and PAYBACK add a lot of pizzazz, too. A few more rounds of revision, massaging out the dribs and drabs of IGER MES OKEY, and this could have been rock solid.

Given how many synonyms for "group" there are — band, body, club, bunch, crew, league, lot, etc. — it would have been great to elevate the puzzle by relating the four themers somehow. I don't know exactly how, but there are also a ton of options for each synonym word — dozens of words that precede PARTY, for example — I think there are possibilities.

– puzzle by A. Tariq

Five years ago, I was hanging out with a bunch of crossword folks, and one was gushing about this musical called "Hamilton." Everyone seemed to be agreeing with her, so I innocently asked, "What's Hamilton?"

After the derisive laughter died down (three months later), I figured it was better to keep my mouth shut in these situations.

So it was with trepidation that I asked Jim Horne, "What's KINKY BOOTS?" Thankfully, he was gentle, explaining that it won the Best Musical Tony Award and that his band plays a cover of a KINKY BOOTS song. Then I asked, "Is winning the Best Musical Tony Award a big deal?"

I had to get a new phone after Jim's howling laughter cracked my speaker.

In cryptic crosswords, there are hundreds of words that indicate anagramming, and KINKY or "kinked" is one of them. (Don't ask me why.) Thus, all the sets of circles contain the letters B O O T S in some random order.

After tending to my ruptured eardrum, I asked Jim why pairs of circled letters crossed. It had to be some insidery reference to the musical. Or they were meant to look like kinked-up boots, like my kids do after they sit on them and swear that someone named Yehudi did it? (Again, don't ask.)

Would you believe that the sets of black squares at the bottom of the grid look like two boots? Made for walking, perhaps?

The pairs of crossing themers made for such rigid grid constraints, that I struggled through the results. Starting off debating if it was Jaromir JEGR and Inter ELIA or JAGR / ALIA led to another pause at Donna KARAN … or was it KERAN? I had a reasonably high degree of certainty for each cross, having seen all these in crosswords several times. Might be tougher for newer solvers, though.

I would have preferred fewer themers or stronger boot-like visuals generated by the crossing pairs. I did enjoy getting a reason to hear Jim, a professional musician, talk in detail about something he knows a great deal about. Totally worth the trip to the otolaryngologist.

– puzzle by Christopher Adams

★ In basketball, a HEAD FAKE is when you telegraph a move by jerking your eyes or chin one way, then take off in the other direction, blowing past your defender. A successful HEAD FAKE leaves the person off-balance, tripping on their own feet. That's known as "breaking your defender's ankles." Back when I was quicker, the highlight of my rec bball days was when I head-faked a friend so bad, his toe literally tore through his shoe as he fell onto his butt. It was glorious!

Not as glorious as the deception today, though. The clever wordplay on the themer clues threw me off balance, not seeing what Sophie and Ross were planning. I had to work hard enough to understand that [Batter's additions?] referred to someone batting their EYELASHES that when I got to HEAD FAKE, I was dumbfounded, trying to figure out how Sophie and Ross got past me, lifting off for the windmill dunk.

HEAD FAKE … refers to replacement body parts … on the HEAD? Dang, that's fantastic!

When someone skies over you and dunks on your head, it's called "getting posterized," as in that pic will end up as a poster on someone's wall. When that happens — as it frequently did to me — the best response is to shake the other person's hand and admire the feat of athleticism.

I did hitch a few times in the fill, akin to when a point guard almost travels by turning their hand over the ball (called "carrying"). I know WOAH mostly from old Tintin comics — Snowy the dog often said it — but younger generations have adopted this stylized spelling of "whoa."

PIECEWISE … it's been a long time since I've taken any math, but don't most mathematical functions change at different intervals? Yes, but the clue is (awkwardly) getting at step and sub-functions.

And I'm inured to a lot these days, so I got an off-kilter smile out of NIP crossing NON PC.

Neat to see SCALED referring to both fish and rock walls. Ross and I are both avid climbers, so the insidery nod made me smile.

Small nips — er, nits — aside, an excellent debut that so aptly faked me into a beautiful a-ha moment.

– puzzle by Sophie Buchmueller and Ross Trudeau

"Perimeter puzzle," SILVER / LINING indicating that the answers around the edges all should be preceded by SILVER. Some answers left no doubt, like the Christmas classic is clearly not BELLS, but SILVER BELLS.

However, Jim Horne and I worried that some solvers might see [Second-best era] and decide that although AGE is a slightly wonky answer, it still works. So Jim fixed up the answers (below) for our database, and as an added measure, he colored in the perimeter answers silver.

I'm sure we'll still get confused emails …

We've seen so many perimeter puzzles by now that Will Shortz has increased his standards. Ten years ago, he told me that one of mine needed to have intersecting answers in all four corners, so at first, I was surprised to see two corner black squares slip by on this one. However, after searching the limited pool of SILVER ___ entries, this seems reasonable. SILVER TONGUE is such a great phrase, much more so than SILVER MINES or SILVER ARROW.

Still, it made me wonder if intersections in all four corners was possible. I would have loved ADO and STEIN worked in somehow.

Perimeter puzzles are notoriously difficult to fill since the corners are so rigid. Even if you can make them all work, knitting them together can be a bear. I'm impressed by Kevin's grid. I hesitated at BFS — boyfriends? — but otherwise, so smooth. Great job keeping the solving flow wide-open, too, not choking any of the corners off from the middle.

Not a lot of snazzy bonuses, not a SILVER BULLET puzzle, but a well-executed example of a well-established theme type.

– puzzle by Kevin Patterson

A rare sighting of diagonal symmetry, only the ninth in the Shortz era. Three have employed it for grid art reasons, my favorite evoking BENJAMIN FRANKLIN's kite. One explained it using a mathy SYMMETRIC MATRIX rationale, two more were Joe Krozel's ultra-low-block-count pair built on the same grid design, leaving only two other random themelesses.

Why don't more constructors use diagonal symmetry? It opens up new possibilities, with long answers intersecting each other in places we usually don't see. MELTING POT crossing WALL TO WALL at the L, CHICAGO BEARS setting off GLITTER BOMBS (reminds me of the flashy Jim McMahon days) — these are individually possible in themelesses with regular symmetry, although they would call for much different layouts.

One reason to shy away from diag sym is that not all editors enjoy non-standard symmetry. There isn't a searchable repository of LA Times themelesses, but I'm 95% confident that Rich Norris hasn't published more than a tiny sprinkling (if any?). In an era when there's a drenching oversupply of themelesses from constructors and a minuscule pool of publishers, it's hard to give anyone a potential reason to say no.

I'm glad this one made it through the gauntlet, the visual effect strikingly different. Aside from aesthetics, this diagonal symmetry allows for a different distribution of long/short entries. Matthew features a whopping 20 slots of 8+ letters, way more than the average of 12-14. Getting so much DO NOT EAT, PR AGENCY, LEGO MOVIE, LIONS MANE was a treat.

I wasn't as wild about some of the wastage, DETACHES, IN RETURN, SESTINAS, STEADIES more neutral than assets. Along with the side effect of requiring more 4- and 5-letter entries than usual, giving a start-and-stop feel to the solve, it didn't wow me overall.

What did impress was the number of great wordplay clues. [Ground shaking stuff?] is in Clue of the Year territory — as in PEPPER that's ground and shaken on salads. Standing O for that!

I'd love to see more unusual symmetries in themelesses, but I can understand why constructors (myself included) are hesitant. Given how many themelesses I solve, I relish being treated to the PEPPERy spice of life.

– puzzle by Matthew Stock

I laughed after uncovering MEATBAGS. My brother and I play Clash Royale, and certain high-hit point troops are known as "meat shields" — as in you send them out in front to take the punishment, while more valuable troops behind use them as armor.

I also enjoyed NU METAL, hearing the term maybe ten years ago. It sure is hard to parse, though, so Jim Horne (the professional musician!) asked me what "num et al" was. I bet it might have gone over better with Jim if NU METAL had been presented horizontally?

A ton of stuff that felt only vaguely familiar:

BRONZER PALETTE. Reasonable number of Google hits, and probably something ultra-familiar to people who wear this kind of makeup.

MOM BLOGS. My initial reaction was that this felt arbitrary, but it turns out there are way more MOM BLOGS than I could have ever imagined. Perhaps not surprising, given how intense parenthood is. Sadly, the number of Dad blogs looks to be more than an order of magnitude less.

TROLL ARMY. Would I rather face a Battle of Hogwarts TROLL ARMY, or an army of Internet trolls? It's sad that the world has come to people hiring armies of trolls for their electronic onslaughts.

LIBATE / APNEAL. Glad that these ran on a Saturday, not a Friday. Also relieved that I was able to solve them, deriving these word-ish entries from "libation" and "apnea."

Some of these entries gave me the same I'm-not-hip-enough-to-understand-this sensation as DANK MEMES, but as with that entry, I'm sure that there are many people that will delight in these.

I also wondered about GAY PORN. I appreciate that some crossword editors are pushing to reduce entries that are unpleasant to some solvers, like OGLE, LEER, PORNO, SMUT. I'm curious if those editors would count GAY PORN as a similar liability, or as an asset because of its inclusiveness. Glad I'm not an editor.

I'm a huge fan of Ryan's wide-open-middle, ultra-low-word-count themelesses. This one didn't awe me like those usually do, but I do appreciate seeing constructors expanding their breadth of work.

– puzzle by Ryan McCarty

FRESH PAIR OF EYES is not only a colorful figure of speech but also a perfect rationale for "add two I's into a word to form a new word."

It's not hard to dash off a few lines of code to get a list of words that become new words with two Is added — check out our new Replacement Finder, which does a simpler version of this. Some curiosities that Peter didn't mention: AIRINESS to James ARNESS, AS I SAID to ASSAD, BIALIK to BALK (evoking the recent travesty of Mayim Bialik not getting the permanent Jeopardy! job), etc. My shoemaker never SOLED, SO I LIED, for PIETIES sake!

However, it's much harder to integrate these specific words into phrases that generate a laugh. Tough to find a base phrase involving ASSAD! And most resulting phrases feel more awkward than amusing (see: FOR PIETIES SAKE). Great job with THOROUGH FAIRIES, hilarious image of meticulous pixies (the opposite of my children). And I loved POLKA IDIOTS, a sort of "Three Stooges at Oktoberfest" mash-up.

Like every editor, Peter has his specific tastes. He's not concerned with 3-letter words, whereas others hard cap them, and he can't stand partials, whereas some others prioritize them. Well, their argument is that if you must have a dab of gluey fill, at least solvers can easily fill in something like [ONE ___ (common rating scale range)]. Not so easy, perhaps, to crack the Pro-Bowler AL TOON. Peter is much more forgiving when it comes to names.

I'm curious how many solvers even noticed that Peter took great care to avoid extraneous Is in his theme phrases. I used to be right there with him, but these days, it feels like a factor constructors value much more highly than solvers.

Although only a small handful of constructors can be trusted to produce a solid 136-word grid, Peter is one of them. He made the most of his long slots — TRUTH SERUM and TOOTSIE POP are fantastic — and there's so much more FIRE BOMB, SWEATS IT, TELEPORT, WILDCARD, not to mention all the juicy mid-length bonuses. Easily overcomes the minor ASSN EDS EER ITE SYS trade-offs.

Not groundbreaking, but a solid example of a straight-over-the-plate theme type.

– puzzle by Peter Gordon

Now this is the kind of theme that brings you down to Earth!

The puzzle gave me an initial tremor with that crazy [What lava becomes after an eruption] clue for ROCKS. I've heard research that some solvers view 1-Across as a predictor, going as far as to stop if they can't get it right away. Glad I don't do that, because what a neat a-ha when I arrived at MAGMA at the symmetrical location.

MAGMA bubbling up through the CORE, MANTLE, and finally erupting out the CRUST? A ROCKS solid theme.

Fantastic themer selections. GLUTEN FREE CRUST is fresh, ASSUME THE MANTLE is colorful. ROTTEN TO THE CORE is more common in crosswords, but it's still a great figure of speech.

Amazing debut gridwork. Pao took full advantage of the freedom given by only three themers. THEY/THEM is excellent, easy to figure out even for a Monday, and it's a piece of fill that declares that this is not your grandpa's NYT crossword. With ET CETERA, MEGADEAL, and EGOMANIA, that's four out of four big winners.

Such excellent bonuses in SQUEEGEED and ASTEROIDS, too.

The two Qs are interesting in the west, though I don't know how fair it is for a newb to encounter SISQO crossing CINQ.

Constructors typically jump on complete sets of three, four, or five, so most of them feel stale to me these days. It's rare indeed when I can only remember one previous instance of a known set.

I gave this serious POW! consideration, but the initial quake from 1-Across was enough to set me off balance. I'm curious if some solvers don't figure out the theme today. Joanne's EARTHS LAYERS felt too overt for my taste, but perhaps something in between — EARTH by itself? — would have been perfect.

Overall, though, wonderful debut.

– puzzle by Pao Roy

Such fun themers! CLASS ACTION SUIT as a gym shirt/shorts made me cackle. "Reinterpretation" themes are best when the meanings drastically change, and this did so perfectly.

MOVE TO STRIKE also worked well, as a description of a bowler's arm swing — it's nowhere near the original meanings for either MOVE or STRIKE.

PRO BONO ATTORNEY left a split, though, given that ATTORNEY kept its original definition. It is amusing to think of a lawyer dedicated to BONO, so that helped.

Solid debut gridwork, albeit with a few minor dings. SSI falls into one of Will Shortz's hated categories, initialisms that if you don't know them, there's no way to figure them out. (Social Security Income.) This 'Murican only learned who MESSI was five years ago, so I'd worry that the crossing might baffle some early-week solvers.

A couple other entries might also slow newbs down, but GOJI berry's crossings are much easier. Maybe you don't know what SOLE meunière is, but it'd be hard to argue that SALE or SILE is more likely a fish than SOLE.

Interesting debut entries. Gavin NEWSOM, sure! I have WERTHER'S stocked in my car, but could someone argue that WIRTHERS and LIONA look equally plausible? Perhaps.

IN A CAB was a needle scratching across a record, feeling like a verboten six-letter partial.

ARM RESTS as something airplane passengers battle over was solid, but I usually expect more catchy long bonuses in a four-themer puzzle.

Some funny themers, and I enjoyed learning about Daniel's background — amazing to have come such a long way in crosswords in such a short time. It's a treat to watch him sing opera in the clip, too.

– puzzle by Daniel Okulitch

I nodded as I read Grant's thoughts about his puzzle. The ICS additions produced amusing results overall, but I would have loved some rationale that elevated the theme, like a related "I see" puzzle. I spent a few minutes thinking about it, coming up with ADDICTs as a phonetic hint. It's a bit off, though, and not super pleasant.

DOT COMICS was a perfect way to kick off this puzzle. If you're not familiar with Lichtenstein, he's the one who forms modern cartoon art out of dots. The word DOT doesn't change meaning, but the result so aptly describes his oeuvre.

Solid way to end, too, with POP changing meaning from pop open to pop being ignored by his kids as he tries to discuss POP TOPICS like sharing and the importance of apologizing. (NAPPED is an apt crossing word.)

Five themers can be tricky to build around, and there are signs of strain in the grid. I dislike RRNs (random Roman numerals) like MIII, since they feel like such a constructor's crutch. Peter Gordon at the Fireball isn't as opposed though, often relishing in giving crazily difficult MATH CLASSICS like [Product of LIX * XVII]. Along with AS IT in that region, I'd have tried different themer spacings, iterating until finding a better result.

Peter does hate partials, and Rich Norris at the LA Times hard caps them at two, so ALL OF + AS IT + A TEST would have resulted in a redo request.

AVI crossing AVIATOR … given that AVIATOR's etymology includes AVI, that's a no-no.

Some rough patches in this debut, but enough humor in the themers to give me some smiles. I enjoyed the AMERICAN / EUROPEAN pairing, too. Rare to see symmetrical long entries relate.

– puzzle by Grant Boroughs

Apt to have SSN, PIN, and DOB "blacked out." We've added in the nine letters below for the sake of clarity. Don't hate us for dacting the redactions, we're only trying to make sure solvers understand what's going on.

I enjoyed a solid a-ha moment when figuring out SLEEPLE(SS N)IGHTS. It's unfortunately spot-on for these pandemic days.

GOING U(P IN) FLAMES, too? You wonder what inspired Simeon ...

I hitched on ___ SERVERS. On one hand, I love that SERVERS is a real word, obfuscating the trick, unlike IGHTS. I didn't get a strong click upon completing GROUND OBSERVERS, though. It's a fine phrase, albeit from a long time ago. I had to work extremely hard to uncover it, and the payoff didn't feel commensurate.

I was curious, what might have been fresher? The search string *???DOB???* (the question marks insure that there are at least three letters before and after DOB) turned up some neat entries, including ORLAN(DO B)LOOM and FRO(DO B)AGGINS — cool connection, though irrelevant). I also enjoyed SACRE(D OB)JECT(S), which has a feeling of secrecy to match the theme.

Interesting choice to go to such a low word count — 73 is close to themeless level. I loved getting so many bonuses in the NW and SE; HULA DANCE, YELLOW LAB, POT LEAVES are great.

Not wild about the middle. ESTERS to STYES to the slightly wonky AEROBATS to BANC … I'd have looked at adding a pair of black squares around the B of AEROBATS. Probably rejiggering the layout, too, to avoid bottlenecking into the NE corner.

Not the first time I've seen this concept, with Joanne Sullivan getting her second she-did-it-first moment in a week, and Joel Fagliano executing a similar concept back in 2017.

I like puzzles that break the rules, though, so I welcome a "letters in black squares" puzzles occasionally. Some solvers complain about having no way to write in those redacted letters, so I'm curious to see how the NYT app handles things. It would be so mind-blowing if for one day only, solvers could navigate onto black squares, so they could type right onto them.

– puzzle by Simeon Seigel

Whoa! Stella is flexing with those gigantic upper left and lower right corners. Almost mirrors the keg she's holding in her profile picture. [What's not to like?] indeed!

The knock on quadruple stacks (no matter what their length) is that it's extremely tough to fill them with both color and clarity. BETE NOIRE (with that genius [What's not to like?] clue) is an excellent way to kick things off, and BOX BRAIDS feels fresh. I didn't know the term, but this is the kind of learning that I like in a crossword — two words that I can easily piece together.

INTERIOR doesn't do much except take up interior space, though. Foreign rivers like ELBE are called out on most editors' specs sheets as to be avoided.

The opposite corner wasn't as strong. It is squeakily spotless, but there's nothing flashy to anchor it. I don't love an AMBULANCE over a REARENDED vehicle. A MONOPLANE is a real thing, but I'd bet a minority of editors would count it as an asset. I doubt many would tick it into the liabilities column, but I couldn't say the same for GIROS.

Much more eye-catching: ARMORED CARS and IMAGINE THAT. Fantastic answers, both laden with imagery, fun, and even wonder.

Some constructors have posed the theory that themelesses don't need to shine in their grids but can stand out through their cluing. No doubt, [Dance around?] is cleverly repurposed for the circular HORA dance. I enjoyed IDIOMS clued as lessons for an advanced lessons learner. A TURTLE playing Atlas in Iroquois stories is cool trivia. I still would have liked more pizzazz in the grid entries themselves, though, especially for a 70-word solve.

– puzzle by Stella Zawistowski

I love GREAT SOUL as a grid entry. Phrases like this sometimes carry a tinge of dictionary-ness, but I've heard "Mahatma" so many times and never knew there was meaning behind it. It's so apt for Gandhi. I've read my kids a few books about him, amazed all over again at his fortitude in the face of overwhelming antagonism. GREAT SOUL, indeed.

CHICXULUB might be the most amazing string of letters I've ever seen. I can see how many constructors would spot something like this and feel compelled to use it in a crossword. I used to be of that mindset, but I've heard so much feedback from solvers how a single entry like this can sour their entire experience.

Part of me still admires the awesome letter patterns — when else will you see CXU in a row? — but I had to work so hard to uncover every crossing. Afterward, I had to double- and triple-check each one to figure out where my mistake was, seeing no electronic fireworks. Super frustrating … especially since my error turned out to be in a different part of the grid.

This Greek myth fanatic is embarrassed to admit that he ended with ARI and MIEMOSYNE. Even more shameful, given that I'm huge into fantasy basketball, plus I lurve me stories about sports agents. ARN Tellem isn't just any agent — he was uber-famous (read: notorious) for steering Kobe Bryant to the Lakers. It would have been great for the clue to say something about that, but I don't know that it would have resolved my confusion.

Some neat entries today, PAINTBALL having a "capture the flag" variety, learning that the delicious CHALUPA is named after a small boat, and a blast from the past with Bush Sr.'s downfall of NO NEW TAXES (spoiler alert: there were new taxes).

This grid pattern is so tough to work with, though, since those lower-left and upper-right corners use intersecting triple-stacks. Six long answers meshing usually means that you have to sacrifice either smoothness or snazziness. I'm curious if the puzzle's impact crater would have been deeper with the bottom stack shifted to the right side, allowing for more gridding flexibility.

Thankfully, some excellent cluing helped keep my interest, with [Long lunches?] such a cleverly repurposed phrase, aptly describing footlong HEROES.

– puzzle by Adam Simon Levine

★ I love so many things about this puzzle. Such bang-up theme phrases, lending a feeling of recency and freshness. CANNABIS OIL is a big business in Seattle these days. POLITICAL ACTIVISTS is such a sparkly phrase. RACHEL MADDOW's celebrity crossword was the most viewed puzzle in XWord Info's history. DUAL CITIZENS is another standout. Huge props for such fantastic selections.

Even more so, given the theme constraint! ART and LIT are easy to work with, but CHEM, CALC, LATIN, not nearly as much. I appreciated that Priyanka and Matthew broke the shaded letters across words of a phrase for almost all themers. ELITE STAT(U)S was the lone outlier, but it's a saucy phrase, which helps make up for not being like the others.

The meta layer was too obvious — within a few letters, I could tell the circled letters were going to spell CUT CLASS — but it's an apt extra layer to elevate the puzzle. Perfectly describes what's happened to all the classes hidden in the theme phrases.

I also appreciate that Priyanka and Matthew didn't try to do to much with their eight-themer grid, sticking at 140 words. Yet they still managed to squeeze out a lot of juice, taking full advantage of their many mid-length slots. AHI TUNA, EN GARDE, IT WAS ME!, SON OF A …, SAMOVAR, STAND UP comedy, the TIBETAN Dalai Lama — it added so much spice to my solve.

JUDO GI is something that some editors have frowned upon (same with KARATE GI), but I'm a big fan of this entry. Maybe you don't know what it is by name, but you've definitely seen many of them. And TSAI Ing-wen as the first female President of Taiwan is definitely crossworthy. I'm hopefuly that Taiwan's emerging democracy continues to work past its rocky start.

"Hidden words" themes are falling out of favor in crosswords, but as with any tried-and-true genres, an extra layer can make a puzzle sing. This concept, similar to one by Paolo Pasco that also delighted me, is something I'd be happy to see more of in Sunday puzzles. Encore!

– puzzle by Priyanka Sethy and Matthew Stock

★ I'm obsessed with Money Heist on Netflix, down to the level of wondering what city code name I'd choose for myself. Considering I'd be one of the lackeys melting down the gold while everyone else got all the glory, I'll have to go with Peoria.

Put today's puzzle IN THE BANK, because it worked so well as a newb-friendly crossword, featuring things one might see in a BANK: a VAULT, TELLER, some SAVINGS and DEPOSITs. I initially glossed over POLE VAULT as I focused on SAVINGS and DEPOSITS, so it was a treat to go back and discover that was part of the theme. Almost all of them were so well disguised, that it wasn't until I hit BOTTLE DEPOSIT that I figured out what was going on.

It's a shame BOTTLE DEPOSIT isn't as sparkly as the other themers. Perhaps MINERAL DEPOSIT would have at least disguised the concept of a monetary transaction.

It's been so long since I stepped into a bank, I'm not sure what else I'd see. I like that Zach covered all the major items, making this a tight set. Adds a touch of elegance.

Touch of pizzazz, too, what with SELF PITY and NFL TEAMS as standout bonuses. Excellent use of mid-length slots, too, with AGE OLD, Bob MARLEY, CREOLE, CT SCAN, ATTILA the Hun, NONFAT — that's a ton of solid material.

Not wild about ESSO or DYS, but those are minor shorties. The river LETHE isn't as featured in Greek mythology as the Styx, but the crossings are reasonable.

An extra layer can help a puzzle stand out in today's ultra-competitive crossworld, with the NYT accepting about 4% of submissions. A dynamite phrase can serve that need, the colorful IN THE BANK helping this one (warning, terrible pun ahead!) gain interest.

– puzzle by Zachary David Levy