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With two elementary schoolers, we're in the depths of a bathroom humor phase in my household ... who am I kidding? I've been in a bathroom humor phase my entire life. That tamped down over the past five years given the realities of real-life poop issues, but soon, I'll be able to fully laugh out loud at BACKWARD LOO KING without bracing myself for horror movie toilet seat jump scares.

Although longtime solvers may have seen this theme concept many a time, I enjoyed Aaron's execution. CHERRY PIC KING creatively parsed the base phrase, and DOUBLE PAR worked.

PERSONAL BAN KING evoked unpleasant Putin thoughts. Maybe I should shun the last vestiges of news that I do follow.

Will Shortz wants Wednesdays to be harder than Mondays and Tuesdays; and incorporating proper nouns is one way to accomplish that. It's perfectly fine to use KARL BENZ, ANZAC, VICHY, CHIANG, etc., as long as they're fairly crossed, giving solvers every chance to get each square correct.

Another way is to use foreign words. Again, EN BANC, PAPILLON, AMIE are reasonable choices, as long as the crossings are fair.

Avant-garde terms are yet another way. AVANT POP eluded this pop music dunce, but the fact that it's two recognizable words made it easy to piece together.

I prefer difficulty stemming from devilish wordplay in clues, but I did love Ted CHIANG's Exhalation.

Enjoyable way to elevate a common theme type. Just don't tell my kids, or the backward loo maneuver may be looming.

– puzzle by Aaron M. Rosenberg

Fantastic example of making the most out of your rebus themers. All too often, the Across rebus themers stand out while the Down crossers are sad pandas in comparison. Five years ago, something like (STEM)MED or SY(STEM) might have been employed in the Down direction, simply trying to make things work.

It's ideal to use pairs of long crossing rebus themers. LOSE ONE'S TEMPER is strong on its own, but when you cross it with the fresh and fun GHOST EMOJI, it haunts me that others haven't achieved this level of greatness.

Will Shortz is typically hard and fast about breaking rebus entries across words of a phrase, and Malaika managed to do this five out of six times. Talk about a TASTEMAKER! (Even though that's officially a one-word answer, it has the multi-word feel that so many editors prize.)

IT'S TEMPTING to ask for a fourth rebus square. These days, with such a huge body of rebus puzzles, three feels thin. However, scan through some of the puzzles and count up the long rebus themers. Six is definitely above average.

Excellent rebus rationale. STEM CELLS = put STEM into single cells. I'd be tempted to play on different rebus squares for variety's sake, but SCIENCE is too long, and using the abbreviations SCI TECH ENGR MATH would be inelegant.

Appropriate to STEM education, this debut exhibited a standout foundation.

– puzzle by Malaika Handa

Love the CLOWN MAKEUP / FIRE EATERS pairing. It's hard enough to fill all your long slots with main-stage material, and to achieve such a delightful duo is memorable.

On average, themelesses feature about 14 long slots. The lower you go with that number, the more critical it becomes to convert a higher percentage into gold-star entries. With 16 long slots, Eric gave himself some leeway to accept a few neutral entries — impressive that only ON CASSETTE stood out as a shoulder-shrugger. Perhaps younger folks won't mesh with RIB TICKLER, but the older generations might be tickled by it.

It's hard enough for experienced constructors to tackle a 68-worder, so it's impressive to see Eric debut with one. Even more impressive was that there was only one trouble spot: the lower right, with BAL crossing BLAU. Eric could have made his life much easier by going to a 70-worder — for example, breaking up BEAR SPRAY at the P. That would have given him all the flexibility he needed to polish those last edges.

But would it have been worth it? BEAR SPRAY and EGG WHITES are both strong entries. BLAU isn't nearly as common as BLEU here, but I like the decision. Especially given today's landscape of ultra-competitive themeless submissions, go big or go home can be smart.

I would have loved more wordplay cluing, like a PIANO TUNER as a "professional at pulling strings," as so many clues were too straightforward. Great grid, though, and I bet the cluing in Eric's next offering will rise to his gridding skills.

– puzzle by Eric Warren

★ It's difficult to stand out as a themeless grid technician. So many people are making them, and so few 72- or 70-word grids are distinguishable from others. For any random themeless, you could give me twenty guesses, and I might not get the first letter of the person's first name.

Ryan is different. You ask me to name the five best low-word-count themeless grid builders, he's easily in there. Maybe top three.

Maybe top one.

Another beautiful football-shaped center adds to his distinguished portfolio. Not just five long Acrosses in this gigantic middle — seven (!) of them.

And that's not all. Sectioning off the middle would make it much more tractable. Many top-notch constructors have resorted to this. Ryan not only kept everything wide open, but he wove six (!) long Downs through — including sparklers like JET SETTERS and SOLO ARTIST! All of that with amazing smoothness. Not even a hint of an ERROR MESSAGE.

Incredible cluing, too, both in quality and quantity. [Go to the next line] made me think of how many times I've switched checkout lines, only to realize the ERROR MESSAGE flashing in my head. If only line management were as easy as PRESSing ENTER on my keyboard.

[One all over the board] cleverly sums everything up today. Anyone would be lucky to find themselves with Ryan as a TEACHER.

– puzzle by Ryan McCarty

One thing that Jill appreciates about me is that I love her food. When it's her turn to cook, whatever she puts in front of me, I eat with gusto.

With one exception.

Years ago, Jill had assembled a sausage and greens scramble, which looked delicious. I could barely wait to take that first bite … which almost came back out onto the plate. I tactfully asked if the sausage hadn't been cooked all the way through?

Turns out it wasn't pork, but Porque.

Por que?!

I've learned to tolerate and even seek out MEAT SUBSTITUTES, thanks to Dr. Michael Greger shredding away the last vestiges of pleasure I used to have over animal products. I've become that guy. You know, the one who checks chiq'N over chicken. Hold the bacon, but add the bay leaf + quinoa = bayquin.

Even after vaguely remembering that John-Clark and I discussed this years a while back, I was pleasantly baffled by the shaded squares. POREC was particularly obfuscating — the anagrammer in me tried to make sense of REC OP as a Spec Op that's just for fun. Neat find in PORE CLEANSER to mimic(ish) the sound of pork.

Jill is giving me all sorts of side-eye for mumbling "porek-lenser" over and over.

Great gridwork, something I've come to expect from John-Clark. He took full advantage of a lowish theme density, filling the sides with meaty (sorry) OUT OF ORDER / SCAREDY CAT / HOW DARE YOU / AT LONG LAST. All of that with just a bit of ERGing is outstanding.

MEAT SUBSTITUTES often lack depth of flavor and can be one-note — today's theme came across similarly. I still appreciated the silken tofu solving experience, though.

– puzzle by John-Clark Levin

This theme made a lot less sense when I confidently plunked in HUMAN GENOME.

Fun reinterpretation of NATURE, from "inherent characteristics" to "natural phenomena." It's neat that Lynn found four examples that fit the form (body part) + (natural occurrence). It's doubly neat that they're so consistent, each one overtly referencing the body part. If you'd never been to the FINGER LAKES, I bet you could guess what they (roughly) look like.

Surely there are more examples that would fit? Knee … plant? (Jill has given up taking care of plants, what with the kid knees smashing into them.)

Nose … waterfall? (See: Jake's nose since the start of the school year.)

Elbow … macaroni? (Nope, the only mac ‘n cheese my kids will eat is hardly natural and causes digestive problems.)

Butt ... (TMI.)

BUNGLER is such a fun word. It perfectly sums up my experiences as a parent. See also: TRIAL and LOUDEN.

Solid gridwork, rarely easy with a central 9. I'm not wild about all the extra black squares on the sides of the puzzle — single cheaters could have worked in the place of the triplets — but whatever gets you smooth results is ultimately fine. It would be a different story if there were already a ton of black squares elsewhere, but a total of 38 black squares syncs with most every editorial spec sheet.

I did hesitate on the ELAND crossing the OLLIE. Amusing image, an antelope attempting to leap while riding a skateboard, but perhaps cluing to a famous Ollie would have been better. Or at least, one of my favorite Ollies.

HEADy Monday theme that will hardly be the butt of jokes.

– puzzle by Lynn Lempel

OPPOSITES ATTRACT crossword constructors. There's something so alluring about finding entries containing opposites, and OFF / ON A LARK, BIG / LITTLE LIES, LEFT / RIGHT AWAY, and OUT / IN FRONT are solid examples. They're all themer-worthy phrases, and it's neat that LEFT RIGHT AWAY uses the meaning of RIGHT so differently.

It's elegant to have the themers isolated out in front. It makes them so easy to notice — you don't need to circle or highlight them, even for early-week solvers.

Although this is a great presentation for newbs, I fondly remember some more complicated offerings. I enjoyed having to suss out hidden opposites and the creativity involved with embedded opposites.

Interesting fill choice in TAME IMPALA. It's not my jam, but it's easy to suss out the two recognizable words. I'm sure fans of the group will appreciate the inclusion. Early-week solvers will appreciate the explanatory clue, too.

Uno ESOS or OSO, ICI or there, no biggie. Three is a lot, though, from a single category in many editors' lists to avoid. DO NOT feels partialish as well, and the ETHNO prefix isn't great. Are these worth the double-double bonuses in SUPERFOOD / SOUR BEER and LATTE ART / TAME IMPALA? This sounds like a Buzz Beer advertisement!

I'm sure this won't be the last time we see OPPOSITES ATTRACT, but this is a solid early-week version of it.

– puzzle by Enrique Henestroza Anguiano and Matthew Stock

We've had a few recipe puzzles over the years, but a recipe for one of my favorite sides — from a professional caterer? Yes, please! I'm intrigued by the addition of CUMIN. Skeptical, but again, the word of an experienced professional means a lot.

I lost track of all the ingredients, so I highlighted them below to make them stand out. Bam, look how neatly symmetric they are! I hadn't noticed this during my solve, and I appreciate the elegance.

I also enjoyed that SALT and CILANTRO intersect in a matching way to JALAPENO and LIME. That adds to the feeling of mixing up all the ingredients — much more so than when I tried my uneducated hand at it. Whoo, did I get a lot of puzzled looks from friends on that one.

It would have been great for the themers to stand out more. Shading them would have made the grid look too busy, but at least it would have made the fresh ingredients pop. It's rare for me to consider sacrificing themer symmetry, but if all the ingredients could have intersected in a criss-cross style — as if they were actively being mixed — that could have been a chaotically neat effect.

I enjoyed having some of the GUACAMOLE letters inside ingredients. It's a shame to not have all of them, though. Trying to achieve both themer symmetry AND all letters embedded into the ingredients feels impossible ... perhaps placing the GUACAMOLE letters in a perfectly round shape — no letters in any ingredients — would have been neater?

I'm not one to follow recipes, but I might just try adding CUMIN. Thanks for the advice, Miranda!

– puzzle by Miranda Kany

I appreciate that Simon did his homework. So many constructors have approached me with the exact same flippin' flipping concept, switching front and back halves of words. It's been done so many times, that you need something different to even get noticed. I like today's constraint. Although the second word doesn't change, the overall effect is punchy. ALE HOUSES to HOUSE SALE works well.

It's not every day that we're treated to kookiness in a grid. We've added thick lines below to mimic what the NYT has done with the print edition. I was positive that the thick lines were hurdles that the themers had to jump over, but this works, too. It's a shame that there aren't any numbers at the H of ALEHOUSES and second H of HOTHEADS — feels like there's some clever approach that could make use of that.

There's often A LOT TO LOSE when you work with adjacent long Downs. Getting all the Across answers to play nicely is a bit of herding cats. Running two themers through that area risks cat scratch fever. Excellent work in the lower left, a SECRET DOOR running through the good ol' US OF A. The opposite corner suffered some AGITA, but that's a reasonable price to pay for ANIMANIACS / WATER SNAKE.

Hardly a MOUE-inducing entry elsewhere! That's solid work, for a six-themer puzzle.

I love it when the NYT messes with the boring ol' square grids that are just so square. Cool idea to draw in those thick lines — especially intriguing that the one in the middle of PRINTOUTS seems to close off that passageway between black squares, like a door that could swing open. Crossword theme radar pinging …

– puzzle by Simeon Seigel

PREGNANCY PILLOW across the middle provide such support. When Jill had one, I may or may not have stolen it from her in the wee hours a few times. Don't look at me like that — they're comfy!

Great color sprinkled all around, from HOLY TOLEDO to I OWE YOU ONE to SPA WEEKEND to THERE THERE. With this sort of standard themeless layout, those four stacks in the corners have to be filled to their maximum potential. Triplets of snazzy, multi-word phrases like MELLO YELLO / LEGO PERSON / SPA WEEKEND is the opposite of a TRAGIC FLAW.

I remember the first time I encountered ONED. It had to be wrong. Tragic flaw in the puzzle! I've mello yello'ed since then, but I still despise this sort of thing. Same with TENK, though AONE never bothers me. I never said I was consistent!

So much of this is subjective, with some constructors and solvers loving the oddity of only-seen-in-crosswords entries like MANDMS. For some inexplicable reason, I can't stand that one, but PBANDJ is perfectly fine.

Holy Toledo, I wouldn't blame those who decide to UP AND LEAVE my overanalysis.

Incredible clue for BETS. I couldn't figure out [Plays favorites, perhaps] even after getting all four letters from the crosses. That's "plays (the odds-on) favorites (at the sports book)." Wickedly clever. I would have loved more along this wordplay line, instead of the incredibly tough stuff like having to know that Sauron was a LORD.

I know, I have to turn in my dork card now. Tragic flaw, indeed.

– puzzle by Claire Rimkus

★ You had me at OH HELL.

Sometimes you can tell right away when a themeless is going to vibrate at your resonant frequency. Crossing HELL with HORCRUX feels like one of the Unforgiveable Curses, but in a Gryffindor way. I bet COOLIO would be cool with being thrown into the mix. Round it out with a TURING test, and I'll declare that I'm not a robot!

That made more sense in my head.

Huge middles in themelesses are the jumbo-size candy bars in my Halloween bag. It's so tough to work with a stairstacked set of five answers, and DUNK TANKS / XRAY TECHS are so ENDEARING. Tom GOT INTO IT! BLOCKCHAINS and CHINESE TEAS are not at all WHAT A DOWNER-worthy.

Smart layout, too. Note that once you figure out your middle (easier said than done, of course), you have a ton of flexibility in filling each of the four corners, mostly independently. This was so useful the first time I played with this type of themeless grid.

Take the lower left corner, for example. The 49-Across pattern is flexible enough to accommodate HANG ON A SEC, HOLD ON A SEC, HAN DYNASTY, VIDEO NASTY, so you can try each one in turn. Given that there are only two long slots and a handful of mid-lengthers, it's so important to make all of them count — brilliant multi-worders like MAN CAVES, ALOHA OE, and even a Z in IONIZER is an excellent result.

What with interesting clues like ACROBAT linked to the Greek for "walking on tiptoe," and ALOHA OE meaning "farewell to thee," GO WHOLE HOG is right. I don't know what kind of unicorn blood Tom is drinking, but I want some.

– puzzle by Tom Pepper

Awesome find in BACK and FORTH within BLACK FOREST HAM. As if the meats weren't tasty enough! It's impressive enough to find two halves of a common "X and Y" phrase within another phrase, but to have them so neatly arranged? I'm YODELing over this find.

There are a ton of "X and Y" phrases out there. Finding both components in a single phrase is another story. Add the constraint that they must both be found in proper letter order — and that the X word must start first? It's a wonder that David found so many. All these layers makes me appreciate the BLACK FOREST HAM discovery even more.

Some editors are hesitant to take themes that require circles spread out through themers, saying that they look ungainly and random. There sure are a lot of circles and shaded squares today; a visual assault.

Take HEAVEN ON EARTH. There's the usual challenge of trying to figure out where the spaces are in that phrase, but then you add in the circles. A N O N, okay. Wait. You also have to focus on the shaded squares? That interweave in and out of the circles? It's not my idea of heaven on earth, but as a change of pace, it can work EVER and ANON.

Excellent gridwork, David doing everything right with the layout. Pairs of adjacent long Downs in the lower left and upper right, where they only have to work with one themer apiece. Black squares wisely deployed, focusing on separating the themers, especially in that dense middle.

Now that I've been able to rub my eyes and refocus, I appreciate the finds more. Concentrating to find four that were as tasty as BLACK FOREST HAM would have made for a fantastic 15x15.

– puzzle by David Tuffs

For some reason, I'm craving lamb rogan josh.

Sam is an excellent example of someone who gets theme development. My rule of thumb is that it takes maybe 20 ideas to come up with a glimmer of a seed of a wisp of an idea. Most people fall off well before that point, but not Sam. He regularly sends me batches of concepts, and while I usually craft a response that hopefully sounds more polite than "Bah, humbug!" there's occasionally a peek of notion of a trace of something interesting.

I wish I could say that when Sam sent me this concept, I knew from the start that it would get accepted. I did estimate that there was a 95% chance that some editor would take it, but—

I meant to say that I knew for sure and that everyone should always listen to me.

(I wasn't. They shouldn't.)

It's so much fun for me when a co-constructor's skills have developed to Sam's level. It used to be that I'd always build the grid skeleton, testing it out to make sure it was flexible enough to be filled with color and cleanliness, but Sam is now in the driver's seat. This makes it possible to have rewarding higher-level discussions, like if the cheater square below RIM is worth adding or not.

Or why I can't be Roy Kent instead.

– puzzle by Sam Koperwas and Jeff Chen

★ My friend Frewin and I recently won our 16-team fantasy basketball season. That's a threepeat of either finishing first in the regular season or winning the playoffs ... without watching more than five minutes of NBA games for the past three years.

That may seem strange, but what I love about fantasy basketball is much more the fantasy than the basketball. Formulating a strategy to win at least five out of nine categories every week (points, assists, rebounds, etc.), figuring out player salaries, roster construction, number crunching, Monte Carlo analysis — it's a data miner's dream.

If any future Seattle Sonics execs are reading, I happen to know a quant jock who would work for free …

That analytical technician in me appreciated Peter's offering. BRACKETOLOGY is such an entertaining term, perfectly describing the statisticians attempting to optimize their March Madness brackets. An entire branch of math is devoted to predicting what upsets might happen. Well, "math" is a strong word for it, but some have shown elements of success.

And the grid technician in me admired the set of constraints — FINAL placed at 4-Down, ELITE at 8-Down, and SWEET at 16-Across. That is sweet indeed, as it's so difficult to get specific entries at specific locations. Not only that, though! Intersecting BRACKETOLOGY with FINAL and ELITE is elite technical wizardry.

The non-basketball watcher and wordplay-seeking solver in me was plus/minus on the overall theme, but this technical feat — a Nikola Jokic-like triple-double with defensive stats, zero turnovers, and a 50/70/95 percentage shooting line — made this STEM-head sit up and want to figure out how Peter did it.

– puzzle by Peter Gordon

Back in college, I spent many hours playing SONIC THE HEDGEHOG with a bunch of dormmates. Idyllic times, doggedly redoing levels over and over to attain maximum ring collection, swearing up a blue streak at Dr. Robotnik. Trying to Tetris in enough studying to get by was even harder with our attempts to beat TETRIS.

OUT OF REACH and NOT A CHANCE aptly summed up my shot at graduating with any sort of honors.

Although I've played thousands of hours of video games in my life, I'm not sure I'd have ever come up with the connections Michael did. [Ghost in the machine] hinting at the ghosts in a PAC-MAN arcade machine is clever!

DONKEY KONG got some side-eye. [Barrel of monkeys] … Donkey Kong does throw barrels, but he's a gorilla, not a monkey. This clue only makes sense if you get deep into the games. (Or if you exhibit less annoying anality.) There are monkeys in subsequent games who interact with okay, you've stopped listening. Understandable.

When ANGRY BIRDS came out, I was steadfastly adhering to my Motorola flip-phone, so I don't know much about the game. [Knock me over with a feather] sort of works, but it's not like you're launching individual feathers at the pigs.

Are you?

Pray for me as I download ANGRY BIRDS "for research." I'll see you in about 50 hours.

The connections between the themer clues and the video games were too tenuous overall for my taste, but I appreciate the creativity and the solid gridwork.

– puzzle by Michael B. Berg

TUMBLEWEEDs rolling through the puzzle, the letters W E E D progressing in such an orderly fashion. Note that the first W starts in the lower right corner (through SPEEDWALKING), and then rotates counterclockwise with each successive themer.

Great themer choices. SPEEDWALKING is so ironic, providing humorous contrast against the TUMBLEWEEDs slowly blowing across the puzzle. TANGLED WEB evokes such imagery, bringing up the Sir Walter Scott poem. And again, it almost hints at a TUMBLEWEED.

I paused at WOULD WE EVER, wondering if it felt arbitrary? It works well for this theme, but I'm not sure we would ever love seeing it as a feature entry in a themeless.

Will Shortz doesn't take a lot of these types of "shapes puzzles," because they often require significant compromises in fill. Stacking ED atop EW, and then adding in three more permutations can get tricky. Luckily, there's enough flexibility in the W E E D letter placements that this particular challenge isn't so bad. Rebecca filled it well, keeping short fill super clean, and even incorporating mid-lengthers like EXPEDIA, OEDIPAL, and TAG TEAM.

The first time I tried to piece together SUHWEET, I was exclaiming anything but "sweet!" I like its slanginess more these days, though I wonder if some solvers will struggle with the SAHL crossing, given that there's no "correct" spelling of SUH-WEET.

Neat imagery, getting across the shapes and motions of TUMBLEWEEDs. I typically enjoy elegance in orderly progressions, but this is one case where more randomness of the W placement might have been cool, better expressing the unpredictable patterns of TUMBLEWEEDs blown at different speeds by varying winds.

Classic Jeff overthinking, too many ideas tumbling around in my head.

– puzzle by Rebecca Goldstein

Many moons ago, Rich Norris at the LAT told me that GO COMMANDO was too risqué for their solvership. Will Shortz has always been more open to being the head of butt jokes, with the entry previously clued as [Not be underdressed?] and [Not cover one's butt?]. Today's clue rebutts them all with [Join a boxer rebellion?]. I'm all for this race to the bottom! (Sorry.)

Fantastic example of how to do a 70-worder right. The competition is ultra-fierce in this space, so you have to make near-perfect use of your long slots while leaving your short fill flawless. Great color, from JUMP SCARES to BEAUTY REST to PARASAILED to DRAG MOTHER.

Corner stacks aren't difficult, but running long answers through them amps up the difficulty. Doing that for not just two corners but all four makes life interesting. Smart grid layout, deploying so many black squares in the middle to facilitate the melding.

Those long answers intersecting in the middle aren't as colorful as the marquee entries. As Carter mentioned, ENDANGERED is more muted, like EARTH TONES. That's a natural consequence of working with so many constraints, and a fine trade-off to make. Even better is that Carter elevated these entries with clever cluing. [Browns, e.g.] made me think the hapless Johnny Football. And while BLUE WHALES isn't a mind-blowing entry, [Ones calling across the ocean?] employs fun wordplay.

Perfectly fine to have a bit of film marring a beautiful corner, though acknowledging a poor entry like ALGA is better than trying to get cute with the clue. [Bit of film] points longtime solvers toward CEL, and eventually landing on the odd singular wasn't great.

Solid debut, with clearly a ton of work put into both grid and clues.

– puzzle by Carter Cobb

I was supposed to read "Romeo and Juliet" in high school. I quarreled about reading it, yes I did, sir! I have a lot of Shakespeare-adoring friends, and when they go off on the comedy of errors that is my high school education, I say they're making much ado about nothing.

Nothing is right when it comes to my knowledge of Shakespeare. Among many other things.

BIG shIFt from DO YOU QUARREL, SIR to BIG IF TRUE, true that. Thankfully sites like Know Your Memes exist for those of us who are big ifs when it comes to modern slang. Sad but true that these three regular words mystified me when connected.

Such a hot clue in [It's a mouthful, frankly]! If anyone tells this to my daughter, who loves HOT DOG BUNs (but considers hot dogs ATROCIOUS) and repeats jokes six thousand times, I will be DISGUSTED.

I appreciated the novelty of the grid design. So many themelesses these days are variants on the ol' four triple-stacks in four corners, or stair-stacked middles, that Ada brings freshness. Neat to get so many interconnecting marquee entries, GET RICH QUICK to ON STEROIDS (with a safe clue) to SEMORDNILAPS to CHEAP DATE forming a solid spine.

Enjoyable "something for everyone" approach. Although two of the headline entries baffled me, entries like the funny NOISE MUSIC and the dreamy DREAM TEAM entertained me.

– puzzle by Ada Nicolle

Years ago, Parker Lewis and I tried our hand at single-word parsing. I'd randomly observed that TEMPERAMENTALLY (can you tell I'm a parent of young children?) interestingly breaks into an Arizona noodle census. How hard could it be to find others that broke out like this?

Dozens of lines of code and months of sifting through hundreds of false positives later …

Parker and I were focused solely on breaks into three, so I enjoyed seeing today's with fresh eyes. KIN ESTHETIC reminds me how glad I am that our kids inherited Jill's looks instead of mine, and a DEPARTMENTALLY to DEPART MENTALLY is a joke that writes itself.

Such solid gridwork! Most experienced constructors let about ten gluey dribs and drabs slide. To finish with only BFS and RMN (maybe AGLARE is aglaring to some) is such a smooth result.

Arriving at a Sunday 140-word puzzle with this level of cleanliness means forcing yourself to work at a high minimum word score, rarely letting yourself dip into "look the other way" mode. It's not a difficult process — the difficulty comes in exercising the patience needed to continually backtrack and go down a different branch of the decision tree when you're forced into something unsavory.

I wasn't wowed by enough of the finds, but bonuses like the colloquial IDIOT TAX and ALBUM ART helped keep me going. And as much as I admired Robert's wordplay in his ETYMOLOGY clue, the new one, [Word has it!], is playful as well. Touches like that, plus the awesome [House floor manager?] to describe a ROOMBA, encouraged me to reach the finish line.

– puzzle by Robert Ryan

A couple of months ago, a friend pinged me with a "hidden synonyms" concept, featuring entries like BOUNCE, ROLL, JET, PEEL, SPLIT.

Umm … is the theme … my six-year-old's electronic toy, because I had to peel back the sticker to access the screws and split the casing open, after he jet-rolled and bounced it into the wall?

There was more than a DASH of laughter from my friend.

Great set of finds, phrases where the first word is a food and the second is a synonym for "dash (away)" that you would definitely know if you were only as hip as me. Amazing that there's a workable set, and it's even more incredible that everything matches symmetrically. I tried to come up with even one more possibility, but all I could unearth was DESSERT DESERT, which has nothing to do with anything. As is my usual wont.

Wild layout! Counterintuitively, stacking themers often makes gridwork easier, but only when you have just a few letters of overlap. It also opens up possibilities for great Across fill like MESS TENT and REPARTEE.

It's a whole 'nother story when you have 8 (!) overlapping letters. Fantastic result, with such a smooth solve throughout the north and south.

Oddly, the middle was where I paused, with ESPO and MONDE. (I'm sure both came quickly to Jim Horne, our resident Canadian hockey fanatic.) Adam could have smoothed things out by putting a black square at the ending S of SITARS, but that would have choked off grid flow, so I like his decision.

I'm curious to see how many people I can roll my eyes at today when I drop the term ROLL, as in PEEL, as in SCRAMBLE.

Fine, I'll cut the crop (gold medal clue for REAP!) and split.

– puzzle by Adam Vincent

Repeat after me … again! Again!!!

TABOOBOOBOO looks like a BOO BOO, but it sure is fun to say.

This concept has been around for a long time, but I hadn't seen any of these specific themers. QATAR TARTAR made me laugh with its sheer ridiculousness, and although I couldn't remember the word for a Russian villa, the theme helped me piece together DACHA.

The "repeated syllables" genre is tricky. Old hands will have seen variants of it so many times, that after the first themer, they can jump down and fill in the other themers right away. Newer solvers may not have seen it though, and let me tell you, there's not much more intriguing than trying to make out what's said during a LEMUR MURMUR.

Just as long as these cute little animals aren't plotting something most foul in their whisperings — no LEMUR MURMUR MURDERs for me, thank you very much.

I usually favor multi-word bonuses for their color, but DECADENT is a decadent one-worder. Broccoli is a staple of my growing plant-based diet, and it's not every day that you see the word FLORETS in a crossword.

After yesterday's [What did the fish say …] = DAM, we get the acorn saying "Gee, I'm a tree!" I almost reflexively made an excuse to go into the other room to get away from my joke-telling kids, but it's never too early to get the next generation hooked into the crossworld.

It's tough to emerge from the deep well of repeated-syllables puzzles, but Michael's efforts made me smile.

– puzzle by Michael Lieberman

I've seen this theme type many times before, but FLICK OF A SWITCH is genius. It so perfectly describes "Freaky Friday" and "The Parent Trap." Surprising that there are enough movies in this genre for IMDb to dedicate an entire page to it.

PROFILE PICTURE and WATER FEATURE work. They're not as amazing as FLICK OF A SWITCH, since there are hundreds of movies that could fit into their clues instead of "Malcolm X" or "Jaws," but that's only something that anal analysts care about.

Shame to lose CLING FILM — this climber loved the punny connection to "Free Solo"!

TALKIE is digging deep. Maybe it would work if you're referring to a movie the debuted in the wane of the silent era. I wonder what Cormac McCarthy would say if you described one of his movies as a "talkie." Probably more "Blood Meridian" language than "Child of God."

A set of themers with lengths of 14/12/12/14 is no joke for a debut. This forces you to put your first themer in row four instead of three, compressing everything toward the middle. I admire that Madeline shot for the stars, with an audacious 72-word grid. Adding a black square at the A of OPERATION or Q of ANTIQUES would have made her life a ton easier.

Solid results, too. KEROSENE isn't anything to write home about, and I wondered if MILE TIME was enough of "a thing" to be crossworthy. It definitely is! Love the pairing of OPERATION and CORKSCREW though. I do not have a steady hand, so my childhood OPERATION set got CORKSCREWed across the room.

It's nearly impossible to do something completely new in the crossworld, but FLICK OF A SWITCH for "Freaky Friday" was a breath of fresh air.

– puzzle by Madeline Kaplan

★ It's great to experience a boundary-pushing rebus the likes of which I've never seen. I experienced a similar struggle as with the last one, but thankfully today's wasn't as much of a brain-buster. It was easy enough to figure out that there was some sort of ONE rebus going on. Figuring out how to put ONE and ONE (and ONE) together was a different story.

Such a neat a-ha moment when I finally hit on the old saying, "Two's company and three's a crowd." ONE and ONE makes TWO, which substitutes in for the word COMPANY in (COMPANY) COMMANDER and THE EAST INDIA (COMPANY). Add ONE more to make the WISDOM OF THE (CROWD) and (CROWD)SOURCING.

There is the small matter of how "Three's Company" raised me, but those tales are best saved for my kids' future therapy sessions.

My first reaction after figuring out the concept was that including TWOS COMPANY THREES A CROWD would have been great — especially considering I was sure that the WISDOM OF THE (AGES) indicated that I was three years old.

Maturity-wise, at least.

I like that David put his trust in Thursday solvers, though. The a-ha moment was so much stronger because I had to work for it. I took pride in earning it, and I bet I'll be in good ONEONE today.

Fantastic clue for THE NBA, hiding the capital R of Rockets at the start of the clue. They're tanking so hard to jockey for position in next year's draft — someone clever might be able to link "rocket" and "tank" in a delightful clue.

Such a smooth solving experience, especially with so many rebus squares to work around. Wrangling with a completely new rebus mechanism can be frustrating, but David's gridwork eased my path forward perfectly.

– puzzle by David Kwong

Such an eye-catching grid pattern! I was certain that this one riffed on Morse code, but it turns out that TMTTTTMT doesn't spell anything.

Unless ... there's a deeper code buried within, said the man still in Puzzle Boat 9 hangover!

(Alas, there isn't.)

Blake's comment gave me a smile — as if we need yet one more thing to add to our front page link salad. Now I feel compelled to try beating the one Jim mentioned below. Thanks a lot, Blake!

Some beautiful marquee Acrosses, LINE DANCERS punnily describing the grid layout. (Kinda sorta.) I'm curious to see if MOIST TOWELETTES will elicit the cringes that the word "moist" seems to trigger, but as a parent of two small, sticky kids, I approve.

As a math junkie, I also loved BOOLEAN OPERATOR, but I can see how non-logicians might LEAN toward "BOO!" I'd almost forgotten that the word "Boolean" stems from the mathematician George Boole. He could be as aggravating to some solvers as other proper names are to others, if not more.

I'm relieved that Blake and Will Shortz went with "Would I LIE to you?" instead of tennis's ILIE Nastase. That might have made the crossing with LOMO saltado a total guess. Along with not being familiar with the characters in "Ulysses" and only vaguely recognizing PO-PO as slang for the police, that was a tricky region.

I wasn't wowed by LOW TIRE PRESSURE, especially since the clue's wordplay fell a bit flat (sorry), and ASSESSMENTS's common letters and boringnessessness flattened that precious slot's potential. Still, the distinctiveness of the grid pattern, as well as the quality of the other long Acrosses, made me hopeful that others will continue to innovate in themeless designs.

– puzzle by Blake Slonecker

I USEd THE FORCE in solving another gem from Robyn, the themeless JEDI MASTER! So many conversational phrases perked me up — NO PRESSURE, STAND ASIDE … YOU DID WHAT?!

BONUS POINTS will be awarded to the best short story linking those three evocative phrases.

Y yes, I do love the FLUX CAPACITOR! I have such a vivid memory of seeing "Back to the Future" on the big screen, captivated by this amazing piece of technology. There hasn't been such a creative coinage ever since. I did get some glazed expressions from solvers when I used this a while back — give me a second to get up to 88 MPH so I can send similar questions back to that day.

Given Robyn and my love of all things fantastically awesome, I'm disappointed that EASTER EGGS wasn't clued to Ready Player One. Then again, Ready Player Two was Game Over. (Don't bother with it.)

CAN I SEE SOME ID? Didn't you just ask me that? Although the two entries aren't exactly the same, it stinks to get scooped by just a few weeks — especially when the previous clue was so wickedly clever! [Common request at a bar] does misdirect to drink orders, but playing on the "utterance" vs. "queue" definitions of "line" is hard to beat.

NO LEFT TURN is a decent enough entry. That clue, though … jughandle? Why is it called — ooh, super descriptive! I'll pour one out for learning that tidbit.

Robyn continues to flex some serious BIONICS in her themelesses.

– puzzle by Robyn Weintraub

"Drop a letter" puzzles are so overdone, that you need something else to even get noticed. There are hundreds of possibilities for dropping an I — try out our Replacement Finder to see for yourself — so David's THIRD EYE BLIND adds an extra layer to tighten things up.

SPITTING IMAGE to SPITTING MAGE is hilarious, evoking images of Draco Malfoy getting so mad at Harry Potter he could spit. This one was the big winner for me, especially since IMAGE to MAGE is a dramatic change.

It took me a minute to figure out the base phrase to ORIGIN STORES — that's ORIGIN STORIES, as in the legends of how various superheroes got their powers. The base phrase PICKING ONES BRAIN was much easier to pick out, although PICKING ONES BRAN reminds me of my kids' reaction when I pick out my bran cereal at the grocery store instead of Froot Loops.

I wonder if riffing on the FIVE PILLARS OF ISLAM will be controversial. A few readers have told me that it's offensive to use ALLAH in a crossword puzzle, for example. Not being Muslim or even any sort of religious believer myself, I'm in no position to say, but I wasn't believing in the resulting FIVE PILLARS OF SLAM, which feels as lyrical as I would be in a slam poetry event.

I'm not familiar with THIRD EYE BLIND's music, but I appreciated how the band helped elevate an old-hat theme into something more modern. It takes a lot for anything to register as notable for me, and David's favorite group now has a place in my memory banks.

– puzzle by David Karp

Complete sets of three to five things are crossword construction gold. Figure out how to cleverly disguise or misdirect away from those set elements, and voila!

Today Simon and Trenton play twenty questions — er, six questions — to hint at the animal, vegetable, and mineral in three band names: COUNTING CROWS, SMASHING PUMPKINS, ROLLING STONES. It took me forever to figure this out, counting the minutes as I was smashing my head on my desk. I was anything but rolling, but I enjoyed earning my a-ha moment.

In 2007, I was mulling over a career change, and I randomly picked up The Mysterious Benedict Society. Three hours later, I'd decided to work toward becoming a middle grade author. Talk about an influential experience! Those first 50 pages consumed me.

I literally squeed (rhymes with "peed") when I saw Trenton's byline today. My kids are now devouring his books, just the other day telling me how much more talented he is than me.

Kids say the darnedest things.

Great work gridding around the middle section. It's not easy to work around the gap in a divided themer — apt that GAP fills the gap!

Fine, he is more talented than me!

Employing only three themers ups my expectations around fill, and Simon and Trenton delivered. SPACE RACE, MAINSAIL, AMBROSIA, SLIDESHOW are excellent. There is a RACE / RACING duplication, but how many solvers notice that kind of thing?

I would have loved some extra element to explain why we were playing Twenty Questions around band names — feels like MATCHBOX 20 wanted to be involved somehow? Thankfully, the freshness in the clues kept my OCD brain distracted. I've never heard ROLOS defined as "fez-shaped," but that's precisely how I'll describe them from now on.

– puzzle by Simon Marotte and Trenton Lee Stewart