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ROADBLOCKS today, black squares breaking up "road" synonyms. Wow, was NUEVO LEON tough to figure out! And although I'd seen SHANGRI LA in crosswords before, how bizarre it looked as SHANGRILA (rhyming with "Anguilla").

The latter I loved, at least after finally piecing it together. Easily recognizable phrase, and it's so juicy. That's the way to execute on a theme like this.

The former (actually NUEVO LEON, nuevo = new) didn't leave me with a very good feel, wondering if perhaps I got a square wrong somewhere, even after double-checking all the crosses a few times. I like learning something from a crossword, but not when it interferes with the high I get from finishing an early-week puzzle speedily and with confidence. I threw a flag for interference today.

Why not break up AVENUE into *AVEN and UEYS? Maybe SAFE HAVEN?

Not a huge fan of SLAVE in puzzles, either. I realize some people will scoff at me for being too sensitive about this sort of thing, but when there are plenty of ??AVE options, why not choose something that's more neutral, less likely to cheese off a subset of solvers?

Okay, maybe there wasn't as much flexibility as usual, since the long down, FLASH LAMP, made the construction tougher. But while I appreciate long downs for their ability to snazz up a puzzle, something like FLASH LAMP doesn't do much for me.

(STRING TIE is better — it still feels a bit old-timey, given the Colonel Sanders clue, but it's not as odd.)

I'd almost rather have broken up FLASH LAMP at the second L. There was already a reasonable amount of juice in TOURIST and CEVICHE, that I'd have preferred living with just those. Breaking up the long downs might have also allowed a smoothing of ELKIN / ILYA, which both felt like they were pushing the boundaries of a Tuesday. Not sure I'd expect a newer solver to be able to get that square right.

A solid idea, but not my ideal execution.

– puzzle by Jacob Stulberg

I loved this concept. There's something so evocative about the HIDDEN STAIRCASE wending its way down from the TROPHY ROOM to the WINE CELLAR. Secret entrances and passageways, opened by pulling a WALL SCONCE or pushing a FALSE PANEL — fodder for many a fantastic novel!

Usually, I find it problematic when a grid gets segmented up, messing with my solving feng shui. But in this case, I didn't mind that the center is so choked off. In fact, it's a bonus, considering the theme of narrow, twisty passageways! Bravo, sir.

I wasn't sure why a TROPHY ROOM would be the start point, or the WINE CELLAR the end. But I enjoyed the Masonic cabal feel that I overlooked this.

What I couldn't overlook though, was issues with the execution. I enjoyed the Poe-esque conceit so much that I so badly wanted to give it the POW! Couldn't do it, though.

First, HIDEAWAY / HIDDEN STAIRCASE is duplicative. Then CASE / BOOKCASE too? I could see it if the BOOKCASE was the thing that was pushed back to open up the HIDDEN STAIRCASE! How awesome would that have been? So much more apt than a FALSE PANEL.

Sadly, that wouldn't have worked, since the BOOKCASE wants to be on top, but the CASE part of the HIDDEN STAIRCASE wants to be on the bottom. So in that CASE, I'd have much preferred the CASE of BOOKCASE to be more well-hidden.

CASE closed?

Nope. Bryant had to close off his middle so much, that the rest of the puzzle was forced to contain huge wide-open spaces. In the NE alone, see DRAYS, LDS, and the Maleskan ONER. That last one is nearly a puzzle-killer to me.

I think changing to shorter theme bonuses — from BOOKCASE to BOOK, e.g., would have helped.

Overall, fantastic idea. Stupendous. Too many execution problems, though.

– puzzle by Bryant White

Four cars rebusized today, with an apt COMPACT CARS revealer. FOR DUMMIES was fantastic, especially since I plunked in DUMMIES right away, and then was stymied by the crossing AF? pattern. Delightful a-ha there.

ROPE LADDER was another great rebus entry. That's the way to get some juice out of your themers!

Unfortunately, OPEL stuck out to me, as I see FORDs, KIAs, AUDIs all the time, but I've only seen an OPEL in crosswords — even back when I was traveling all over the world. I would have much-preferred GMC (EGG MCMUFFIN, YOUNG MC), or even VW (ROE V WADE, UV WAVES). Probably others, too.

No doubt the GMC option would have required longer themer rebus answers, but that would have been nice. I enjoy rebuses the most when they're part of snazzy, long phrases, especially when those phrases are longer than 15 letters — it's so infrequent that you see a 16+ letter crossword entry!

In the past, Will has told me that for rebus puzzles, the longest entries in the grid ought to contain rebuses, and I'm fully on board with that now. PLAUDITS and GAUDIEST are fine words, but they're so short that they pale in comparison to the catchy OPEN AND SHUT and DANCE AROUND.

It also doesn't seem right that the so-so LIMA OHIO is the same length as GAUDIEST / PLAUDITS, and SLOVAKIA.

Fantastic misdirect on the "Casey at the Bat" clue. I struggled mightily to recall who wrote that (Ernest Thayer). Turns out I skimmed the clue too quickly — it's the autobiography of Casey STENGEL. Clever!

[Cellular carrier?] for RNA also shined.

And I appreciated Emily's effort to include bonuses in the fill. DIRT CHEAP, MANDELA, OLD SAWS helped make up for some of the ALII, SEL, ALC kind of crossword glue.

Overall, a solid rebus concept. These days though, the body of rebus work is so large, that new ones have to shine nearly perfectly or innovate to stand out.

– puzzle by Emily Carroll

Mike's had an impressive run of themeless acceptances — his rate is much higher than most anyone I know. He said the secret is to stick with 72 words, making every one of your long entries count. And of course, minimizing your crossword glue. Easy peasy!

Nice example in the NW, a great triplet of HACKTIVISM / IMPRESARIO / STAYCATION. Editors tend to value multi-word entries since they're often more colorful than one-worders. Plus, parsing them makes for a fun solving challenge. But these one-worders are nice. A bit of AMT, TECS holding it together, but both of those are minor.

Mike usually sticks to straightforward themeless grids, focusing all his juice in the four corners, with each corner having three stacked long entries. So it was nice to see him branch out with MONEY TALKS running through the NW stack, and KRYPTON / OPEN WIDE making the puzzle feel like it had good stuff woven all through it. I like it when something fun pops up everywhere you turn.

I'm realizing more and more that there are different tiers of themeless feature entries, and my method for evaluation is shifting. To me, the best entries those that are both 1.) snazzy in their own right, and 2.) ripe for a clever clue. ONE STOP SHOP hits both of those right on. "Has a lot in store for you" made me laugh. Very well done, Mike!

HACKTIVISM is a fantastic headliner. But since not everyone will know what it means, it must have a definitional clue. So it doesn't hit criterion #2 for me. It's still a colorful phrase, just not an entry that ticks all the boxes anymore for me.

KRYPTON might be a dull entry for some, but its clue made it shine. DC area wasn't the District of Columbia, but DC Comics — as in Superman's homeworld! So although the entry might fall short of criterion #1 for some, it hits #2 with high marks.

A lot of strong entries, not much crossword glue. If it had had a little more pizzazz overall, it would have been my POW!

– puzzle by Michael Hawkins

★ Can't remember when I've loved so many feature entries so much. These flat-out delighted me:

• HODGEPODGE
• ENDLESS LOOP (programming term)
• I SAID GOOD DAY, SIR!
• HIGH FALUTIN
• GET UP AND GO
• GO HALFSIES
• WHY I OUGHTA

Every one of the seven 9+ letter entries wasn't just great — they were amazing. I don't think I've ever felt like that with a themeless. Just I SAID GOOD DAY SIR would have almost been enough, but to get seven ultra-colorful headliners in one puzzle? Whoa!

I had a long internal debate, part of me needing to give this one the POW! based on the snazz factor alone. So many memorable entries!

But I have this annoying constructor yin to my delighted solver's yang. I've learned to stomp it down to ignore the minor stuff like ENTR. And SOREHEAD … is that something people actually call each other?

But a single ADOZE makes that dark side tremble mightily.

Then MONAD?

And SPUMED?

HULK SMASH!

Note how each of those three uglies exhibits the alternative vowel-consonant pattern, so helpful to constructors. It's not a surprise that entries like this tend to make it into crosswords.

I know, I know, some of this was necessary to make all the goodness happen. SPUMED / MONAD is in a big region highly constrained by GO HALFSIES / ENDLESS LOOP. Maybe a cheater square at the S of SPUMED would have helped. But corner black squares can be unsightly.

Terrific clue for PARABOLA, although non-math types might not have appreciated its brilliance. PARABOLAs have a focus, i.e., the point where blah blah blah I don't remember exactly, but it's a great misdirect using the word "focus."

When I step back and look at the big picture, this puzzle contains so much greatness that it deserves a POW! It's a shame that just a few short entries sadly held me back.

(sounds of struggle) DIE, YIN! BWA HA HA HA YOU STUPID FLAW-POINTING-OUTER PEDANT, I'M GIVING OUT TWO POW!S THIS WEEK!

(Gotta keep all you readers on your toes every once in a while!)

– puzzle by Damon Gulczynski

There are a lot of smash-two-titles-together puzzles like this, usually containing kooky results or amazingly natural-sounding ones.

KOOKY: CONNECT FOUR CHECKERS gave me a little smile, sort of a less horrifying "human centipede." (Do yourself a favor and don't look that up on the interwebs. It's horrifying.)

NATURAL: MEMORY TROUBLE is a real thing, a very cool finding. What a coincidence that two well-known games can combine to form this phrase! It's not a perfect phrase, as "memory loss" seems much more common. But it's still a neat discovery.

I found it odd to have a mix of the two theme types. Felt like a lack of consistency. I think BEQ was going for the latter theme type, but CONNECT FOUR CHECKERS threw everything out the window — no way to interpret that one as anywhere near real.

ACQUIRE apparently was "one of the most popular games in the 1960s"? I'm clearly not the target demographic.

There's some nice fill — I loved BERNIE MAC in "Ocean's 11", SIBELIUS, RYAN GOSLING — but also a lot of gloopy short fill. ABEAM, A YEAR, ANOS, ATA … well, did you EVAH? Not BEQ's best gridwork. The Sunday 140-word grid, with seven long themers, can cause so much trouble, even for the best.

I like the "mash-ups forming real-sounding things" genre. SORRY DIPLOMACY is exactly what we're doing with North Korea! (Not sure whether to laugh or cry.) I wish BEQ had eliminated CONNECT FOUR CHECKERS and rejiggered things to have perhaps just six real-esque themers, which would also allow for a smoother grid.

– puzzle by Brendan Emmett Quigley

I've had solvers complain when I use the word SHIM. It's baffling to me — just like any good mechanical engineer, I used to carry aluminum SHIM stock in my back pocket in case something needed to be leveled. That rickety table? SHIMmed! Someone need something wedged open? SHIMmed!

Okay, I'm weird.

A lot packed into the TOOL BOX today. Most felt apt, but I scoffed at people having TAPE and SHIM stock in their TOOLBOXes. Everyone knows that pockets are where you put SHIM stock.

Wait. You're still reading? Amazing!

I enjoyed some of the finds, SCREW in GROUNDSCREW delightful. NAIL across ALVIN AILEY, too.

Will has asked me to avoid things like TUNA SASHIMI, where the TUNA part of the answer feels unused. I don't always agree, but in this case, I'd have preferred something like WISH I MAY.

Or, removing SHIM completely from the theme. Much to this mech E's dismay, I don't think it's nearly as well known as DRILL or NAIL or SCREW.

ESPADRILLE is an interesting word. I didn't know it, but it seems like something an educated solver ought to be able to piece together through common letter sequences.

I don't always appreciate themer interlock, but I thought it was neat to have ALVIN AILEY / STAYS AWAY and ESPADRILLE / EAT A PEACH knit together. Not often that you see it in a Monday puzzle, so that was cool.

On the whole, all the objects strewn about gave the puzzle an overly chaotic feel to me. But upon further thought, it seems appropriate to a TOOLBOX. There's a ton of stuff crammed haphazardly into mine.

Still, I might have preferred just four objects (deleting TAPE and SHIM) to make the grid more Mondayesque, getting rid of the OLA / APLEA, ORLON ESTER glue that's not friendly to newer solvers.

– puzzle by Julie Bérubé

I stared at the revealer for an embarrassing amount of time, wondering what a bon fire could be. Some sort of French term for a great flame? Your first love that burned bright?

Ah, a BONFIRE.

*headdesk*

"Words that can precede X" theme. I like that Ori was consistent, always choosing words where the resultant FIRE themer was a single word (as in BONFIRE), not a two-word phrase (as in OPEN FIRE). It would have been willy-nilly silly, mixing the two types.

But still, there were a ton of additional choices — crossfire, Spitfire, hellfire, gunfire, etc. — so it's not a very tight set of themers.

I did like the grid execution. Ori worked in so much bonus goodies, super important since this was a theme type that Will has largely said he's not taking more of. KNEECAP, IRKSOME, UNCLE SAM, SITCOM, GUESS WHO, even LUIGI, who's always taking a backseat to Mario.

For a second — okay, more than a second — I wondered what the heck unclefire and guessfire were. That's the danger of weaving in bonus fill in the across direction, especially in a theme like this. I would have preferred more bonus fill in the down direction instead. As it was, it almost felt like too much bonus goodness, hazing the distinction between theme and fill.

I appreciated that this wasn't just a straightforward "words that can precede X" theme, in that Ori used prefixes (ish) that could start snazzy theme phrases. It wasn't enough for me, though, as this overdone theme type needs a lot to make it feel fresh.

– puzzle by Ori Brian

It should come to no surprise to people who know me that I originally clued POWER UP as something like [Awesome ability gained by a video game avatar, such as the embiggerator or the super-immortality mushroom for Mario].

My gridding philosophy has always been to pack in as many strong bonuses while minimizing gluey short fill. Sometimes I wonder if I overdo it, though, making a puzzle too tough for solvers. I've recently had a string of people tell me how hard my puzzles are.

I love me THE FLASH, PHENOM, EXPONENT, all of which I think everyone ought to know.

Okay, I only expect people to know at least two of the four people who have been the Flash, not all four. I'm not a monster.

But did I overdo it with FLIP TOP, TRI TIP, LSD TABS? Not sure. Even BILGE RATS, which I love (I take full advantage of "Talk like a pirate day") might make a solver's life challenging.

As a constructor, I want to produce puzzles that first and foremost are solvable, and that hopefully entertain. I'm never sure if I accomplished that. So I continue to seek feedback and try to learn from it. You can reach me through the "Contact us" link on the home page if you have constructive criticism.

Final note: the grid would have come together a lot easier if I didn't feel like I had to avoid any non-thematic doubled letters in the fill (aside from the necessary EE in SEEING DOUBLE, of course). Turns out it's tough to eschew entries with EE, SS, even OO. All those entries went POOF! I have a feeling no one even noticed this, but man, my compulsions are strong.

– puzzle by Jeff Chen

Great debut! Interesting and twisty theme, perfect for a Thursday, where I want all my hard solving work to have a big payoff. DEAD CENTER hints at the word DEAD being in the black square at the center of the puzzle, completing LEFT FOR (DEAD), (DEAD) OR ALIVE, (DEAD)BEAT DAD, KNOCK EM (DEAD). Four snazzy theme phrases!

At first, I didn't notice that ON THE MONEY was also thematic, a synonym for hitting DEAD CENTER. It's not easy to symmetrically interlock LEFT FOR / ON THE MONEY and BEAT DAD / DEAD CENTER. It's rare that the crossword gods smile upon constructors so fortuitously.

It's especially rare, considering how few (DEAD) phrases Caitlin had to choose from. Sure, there are a lot of phrases involving the word DEAD, but how many are exactly 7 + 4 = 11 letters long, with DEAD at the very start or beginning?

I so badly wanted the single DEAD black square to be by itself, not touching any others. It would have been awesome if the other black squares around the middle had formed a quasi-bullseye shape, or been arranged like a shotgun spray. It would have been possible — I was interested enough to lay out a quick grid skeleton — but it would have been much harder to fill well.

Speaking of filling well, REAL SOON / AFRAID SO! LENNON / AA TEAM / MR HYDE! Even TIMBRE and DOODLE helped out. Not as big on SERVED OUT, pretty dull, but FURY ROAD was a NICE IDEA for a movie (and very entertaining!). Not sure FURY ROAD will remain crossworthy 10 years into the future, but it's spicy right now.

Nice job on the short fill, too. I counted a bit of ENS INME and the tough-if-you-don't-know-it AFTRA, but that's solid work, especially considering that the themers interlocked to form an inflexible skeleton.

Well done! Very much looking forward to more from Caitlin.

– puzzle by Caitlin Reid

This is a good example of why themelesses featuring seven-letter entries can be so tough to construct. It might seem like it should be just as easy to make a seven-letter entry sing, as compared to even an eight-letter one. But wow is it tough!

Not only are there fewer letters to work with, producing fewer word / phrase combinations, but crosswords in general use seven-letter filler more often than longer stuff. That means that we regular solvers tend to see the same seven-letter entries relatively often, making them feel not as fresh as they once were. I HEAR YA is fun. But now that it's been used a bunch of times in the NYT, it's not as interesting to me.

Compare to GUMMY BEAR (debut) or IVORY SOAP (only one previous usage). Although IVORY SOAP isn't as fun as GUMMY BEAR to me, they're both neat entries that I don't see often.

All that said, I did like a lot of the seven-letter fill. BIG TIME, SMALL OJ, TOP TIER, even SOUPS UP are great phrases. And even a couple of strong single-worders in LACONIC, PAISANO and the devilish-sounding BILIOUS.

Such a fantastic clue in [It's found between the shoulders]. Yes, a HIGHWAY is between two shoulders! Wait. It's ROADWAY? What's a ROADWAY, you ask?

It's a road?

Humph.

I liked David and Sam's efforts to spice up the grid by using a few headlining long entries. GUMMY BEAR was great, reminding me of my childhood and that annoyingly catching theme song from the GUMMY BEARs TV show (do yourself a favor and don't YouTube it).

SNIPER RIFLE had the opposite effect for me, given what's going on with school shootings. I know it's not exactly related, and the clue was great — "far-sighted" indeed! — but kind of a downer of an entry.

Solid work, if not a standout for me.

– puzzle by Sam Ezersky and David Steinberg

Few constructors would have the guts to tackle something like the middle of this grid. (I've tried and gone down in flames.) Jaw-droppingly huge! My mouth hung open even further when I uncovered the super-snazzy CEMENT SHOES and FALSE BOTTOM. Whoa! Huge swaths never contain stuff this good.

HORSE HOCKEY wasn't immediately familiar to me, but I vaguely remember Col. Sherman Potter saying it? Maybe I'll try it out in real life and see what people say.

I don't mind a little SOO glue to hold a giant section together. But FENSTER and BELEM are bizarre entries I'm more used to seeing in a region like this (and used to being annoyed by). Overall though, I thought they were worth the price of working in such great CEMENT SHOES / FALSE BOTTOM answers.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times …

Note how smartly Alex segmented his four corners so that they didn't have much interaction with the middle. It's clever — there's enough interconnect that it didn't completely mess with my solving flow, but it still gave Alex enough flexibility to fill each corner with further goodness. I think just as long as there are at least two entries connecting one subsection to the rest of the puzzle, the solving flow is passable. Important to not strand the solver.

The corners aren't nearly as big as the middle, but they're not cakewalks to construct, either. I thought Alex did best in the NE, with LOWLIFES, HOEDOWN, SOFTIE, TWEEZE, and a very minor EER to pay.

Pretty decent results everywhere else, too. OCEANO and OROIDE are heavy costs for ANOMALY and MNEMONIC, but overall, a good set of trade-offs.

I'm not a fan of choking down gloopy entries like BELEM, but I realize that they're usually necessary for puzzles like this. I like seeing this type once in a while, so I'm okay with it.

– puzzle by Alex Eylar

★ It's incredibly rare that I enjoy a Sunday puzzle so much that I don't want it to end. A great majority of the time, I get bored halfway through and finish just for the sake of finishing. I was tickled by how funny RUBBER MATCH, ORGANIC CHEMISTRY, and OPEN FLAMES were as names for dating sites. Awesome theme, and so many great finds!

Along with a solid grid — lovely bonuses like NBAJAM, COCONUT as a person's head, EVIL GRIN, Picard's MAKE IT SO, etc., and just a bit of ignorable ASI, NEB, IN LA — an easy POW! pick. Very strong gridwork.

My favorite Sunday of the year so far, from two of my favorite people in the crossworld.

– puzzle by Neville Fogarty and Erik Agard

FIGHT CLUB! Now that was a movie that surprised and delighted me, in oddly unexpected ways. Acme plays on it today, hiding fighting words at the starts of phrases. KICK and PUNCH … them's fighting words!

Don't groan. You knew I was going to say it.

BITE and SCRATCH weren't as apt for me, as they don't seem very FIGHT CLUB to me. Man, that movie was violent! BITE and SCRATCH seem more appropriate for a Three Stooges routine.

Of the themers, I liked PUNCH BOWL best, because it hides the meaning of PUNCH completely ... unless you're Tyler Durden, in which case you might actually punch a PUNCH BOWL. Talk about anger management issues.

KICKSTART also hid the KICK meaning a little, since "kickstarting" a project goes away from a kick starter on a motorcycle. You do sort of kick a motorcycle's kick starter, though.

BITE and SCRATCH don't hide their meanings at all within BITE VALVE and SCRATCH AND SNIFF. You bite a BITE VALVE to get water to throw. So again, I wasn't a fan of these two themer choices.

THROW is in the fill? I'd have greatly preferred to keep it out, especially since THROW is much more Durden-esque than SCRATCH. (Hmm, THROW RUG?)

A couple of blips in the fill, noticeably ARTE, OBLA, OFA right off the top. I think the latter two could have been avoided by spacing out the themers more. Putting KICK START in row five (instead of row four) would have allowed for a couple of black squares separating BITE VALVE and KICK START, allowing them to play more nicely together.

EOSIN is such a toughie. Normally I don't classify anything as "not Monday material" — if the crossings are fair, what's the harm in forcing solvers to learn one new thing? But even having a pharma background, EOSIN feels like it could elicit an "I have to know trivia to do crosswords?" response from newbies. No Bueno!

All in all, a good memory jog to a movie I enjoyed. Some missteps in execution, though.

– puzzle by Andrea Carla Michaels

So cool to find out that Ross, who I've come to admire as an up-and-coming constructor, is related to Garry Trudeau, who I've long admired! I used to be a huge "Doonesbury" fan. I love it when artists use their power to needle people who need their power checked, and Trudeau got some great zingers in on both Bush 41 and 43.

They team up today to give us STAND UP COMICS, i.e. comic strips "standing" in the vertical direction. I liked best the ones that they obfuscated — GARFIELD masquerades well as the former POTUS, James A. Garfield. BABY BLUES commonly describes a set of "dreamy eyes," but it's also the name of a hilarious comic strip about a family raising their kids.

And MUTTS! One of my favorite strips of all time. So gentle, the adventures of Mooch and Earl. YESSH!

(If you haven't heard of BABY BLUES or MUTTS, I give them both a high thumbs-up.)

TIGER is … another comic strip? And OPUS confused me since I was a daily "Bloom County" reader. But apparently, there was a follow-on OPUS comic.

DICK TRACY is one I knew right away, even though it's been years since I read a DICK TRACY strip. But there's no real way to disguise it, a la GARFIELD or POGO. A bit too obvious, taking away from the a-ha moment in the end.

The clue for STAND UP COMICS confused me — I've seen DC COMICS played upon with Dane Cook and Dave Chappelle a couple of times now. Why use these guys as examples? Why not Margaret Cho, or George Carlin? It felt misleading to use those two D.C.-initialed guys.

So much bonus fill! AFLAC DUCK, SERENADE, MEAN GIRL, etc. Perhaps shading or circling the theme answers would have made them stand out better, amongst such great background stuff? As much as I loved those extras, they muddled up the puzzle a bit for me today.

Nice addition to the celeb crosswords series. Great that it was so directly tied to Trudeau's profession.

– puzzle by Garry Trudeau and Ross Trudeau

Pretty good homophones for Frenchmen, Jules = JEWELS, Claude = CLOD, Toulouse = TOO LOOSE, Blaise = BLAZE. I've seen TOO LOOSE before — he's an artist in the comics strip "Mutts" — but the others were fun and novel.

TOO LOOSE was the lone homophone resulting in a word split, making him feel like the odd man out. Also, he was the only one whose full name didn't make it in. (Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, why must you be so long and crossword unfriendly?!)

Maybe to replace him for better consistency … CHARLES DE GALL? Or COCOA CHANEL? Feels like there could be others.

For name-driven themes, I prefer to keep the fill largely free of names, especially ones that aren't seen very often. Otherwise, you run the risk of ending up with a trivia exam. For those that might not have known PASCAL's first name, I wonder if EAMES, AUDRA, ARLEN might have exacerbated the problem.

The more common names (or ones you really should know) like MEL, REGIS, AMOS, EDIE, OTIS, NEHRU, are fine. But given the excess of tougher ones already ... that's a ton of names.

A constructor's life is never easy. Some strong gridwork, building around five long themers, ending up with just ACS and ESS as minor crossword glue. For as much as I despise inelegant crossword glue, though, I would have accepted a little more of it, to reduce the pile-up of esoteric names.

Always the trade-offs.

Great clue for NYC. MSG isn't monosodium glutamate, but Madison Square Garden. Beautiful misdirect!

FRENCH TWIST didn't feel like a perfectly apt hint for homophonization — to me, it more implies anagramming — but it works. And I did like most of the themers. Entertaining overall.

– puzzle by Jonathan Schmalzbach and Bill Albright

Solid Thursday, using numbers as rebus squares. Who knew that NEW ORLEANS and SAN ANTONIO were founded in the same year … and in the same month! Curious discovery, and the fact that both cities are the same length makes for a constructor's dream.

Fine rebus entries, 8 BALL the best since it's often written using the numeral. I love me my MAGIC 8 BALL — it is decidedly so! 7 UP is solid, too.

NOT 1 BIT felt wonky, as no 1 writes it that way.

For me, 1LS finished in a solid last place. It does seem to be written most commonly with the numeral, 1L = first-year law student. But it feels like a niche piece of information. Scott Turow's book, One L, might have helped popularize the term, but darn you, Chicago Manual of Style and your insistence on writing out numbers ten or less!

I liked that David bulked up the theme a bit, the ALAMODOME one of SAN ANTONIO's landmarks, and many JAZZ CLUBS found in NEW ORLEANS. It was odd that these bonuses intersected the OTHER city, but what are you gonna do?

I'll tell you what you're gonna do! Give up the entry interlock. Yes, as a constructor, it's neat for that to happen. But this solver thought it would have been a lot nicer for JAZZ CLUBS to be next to NEW ORLEANS. Shifting JAZZ BANDS up, so it started at row 1, would have achieved that.

Well-constructed grid, just some SRTAS, DAZS (how else are you going to clue this but [Haagen-___], AWNS. The part that impressed me was the BULB region, as working with four rebus entries all squished together is no joke. So clean and smooth right there, not easy at all.

Interesting finding, the simultaneous founding of the two cities. For me, it was more a "huh" moment than an "a-ha!" one. Still, a theme worth working to uncover.

– puzzle by David J. Kahn

★ Loved, loved, loved this one. I'm a sucker for giant middle swaths of white like this one. Lots of themeless constructors "stair stack" three long answers in this manner, but how many even attempt five? To pull it off with great answers — PRIDE PARADE and SOUND MIXERS are fantastic — and run four more snazzy answers through them?

CORPSE POSE was always my favorite part of yoga, basically lying on the ground and falling asleep. Along with WATER TAXIS, WINEMAKING, RARE JEWELS, this middle section is a rare jewel.

Some strong work in the NW / SE corners, too. NOT ONE IOTA / STARTER SET / AIR POPS is pretty darn nice. SAY WHEN, NAME CALLER too?

JEEZ, there's so much goodness packed in!

Yikes, even the remaining corners — which often end up dull in these stair stack themelesses — had some ORIONIDS (think of ORION), BANSHEE, OH STOP, TWO PAIR.

And it was all SOLVABLE, without running into much of any crossword glue! I squint a bit at TABU, but even that seems reasonable.

Okay, HYSONS in the plural felt odd. HYSON in the singular too!

Regular readers will be able to guess the main nit I had: the segmentation. The NW and SE were nearly cut off from the middle, potentially stranding solvers in one of the puzzle's subsections. But there are two entries connecting each corner to the middle, so it's passable.

Grid construction is much easier when using this type of segmentation since you can (sort of) independently work on each subsection. But when it allows such amazing results, I'm okay looking the other way.

Would have been the POW! for most weeks this year so far. It's just that darn good.

– puzzle by Ryan McCarty

Some solid entry/clue pairs today. My two favorite:

• FLEA MARKET is good in its own right. Using the word "stalls" to misdirect toward "stalling" instead of "sellers' stalls" makes it brilliant.
• WATER POLO uses the eggbeater kick? Took me a while to figure out how one would kick like an eggbeater, but it provided me a nice a-ha.

SPERM DONOR … yes, a clever clue, in one who makes deposits to a certain bank. I know I shouldn't get a little breakfast testy here, as SPERM DONORs provide a valuable service. Still, I couldn't get myself to add it to the list above due to a persisting discomfort. Why did it make me cringe a little? A little too cutesy on the clue? Still not sure.

As a standard 70-word themeless, the long entries must all shine, and there can't be much of any crossword glue — the bar has been raised very high for this type of themeless. I thought John did an excellent job with his long entries, only NATTERED and TASTE TESTS feeling neutral to me (Will once called STRESS TESTS "cheap" because of all the uber-common letters).

I did end up liking AIR BAZOOKA, but what a kooky term. (I've known it as an "air vortex cannon.")

And as an engineer, I know the word CAMBER. Vaguely. It does seem odder in the plural.

I don't mind a bit of crossword glue in the name of making something incredible happen. But for a 70-worder, RETD, EDER (or is that ODER?), OFA (what is "of a piece"?), OKE, TAE is way too much for today's standards.

Still, an entertaining solve, if with some inelegance in execution.

ADDED NOTE: Apparently this crossword was spotted at the beginning of "John Wick 3"!

– puzzle by John Guzzetta

There's something so amusing about the sch- rhyming dismissal. I'd love to know who first came up with it.

I liked Will's take on a rhyming theme. Straight rhymes have been so overdone that they're not viable in crosswords anymore, but this concept has an extra level. HALTS SCHMALTZ made me laugh the most, sort of a "buck up and stop crying!" concept.

DUCK SCHMUCK made me pause. Rich Norris at the LAT once told me he'd never use SCHMUCK in a crossword because it's a dirty word in Yiddish (for penis). I wonder if the NYT will get complaints.

My bigger problem was that all six themers were too easy to uncover. I filled in five of the six without needing a single crossing answer. The concept is too straightforward. Sundays are supposed to make you work at least a little bit to achieve the a-ha moment. This one was over shortly after I began.

(Some people have pointed out there are seven themers, including NO SCHMO. But doesn't seem like a real themer to me, as it's a real phrase. As in, "he's no schmo.")

I thought Will had a funny idea here, but it would have been much better suited for an early-week puzzle. With just six themers, it would have been easy to pare off one or two and put them into a 15x grid.

Solid gridwork. I liked some of the bonuses Will added in, SIX PACKS, BASE PAIR, HUMOR ME, WISECRACKS, in particular.

Better yet, Will's such a strong constructor that I struggled to find even a dab of crossword glue. All I could turn up was UKE. That's an amazing task for a Sunday 140-word puzzle, a true mark of top-notch construction skills.

Unfortunately, strong gridwork doesn't make up for a theme that doesn't have much meat to it.

– puzzle by Will Nediger

Progression, from BABY to CHILD to TEEN to ADULT to SENIOR to … GHOST? What an unexpected and funny conclusion to the series! I've seen this theme done before, but not with that ending. Gave me a big smile — I like being pleasantly surprised.

So tough to fill a six-themer grid, especially when the puzzle has to run on a Monday (because the theme is so straightforward). Hannah did wel

l to spread out her themers, going every other row, staggering them left/right.

I like her audacity, working in the juicy HOTFOOT IT and VERMONTER, along with PILE IT ON and SLEEPS IN. Great bonuses!

The grid had too much crossword glue in it for a Monday puzzle, though. Not one I'd give to a newer solver, as the collection of ARN, BERM, ROOD, ULM, ADM might turn them away from crosswords. Some of that is unavoidable — what else can the U?M pattern be, once the themers are fixed into place? But I think some of it could have been massaged out — ROOD, for example (in a region only lightly constrained).

It's so important for Monday to feel accessible to a wide audience. I thought the theme did a great job of that, but not the fill.

Still, a nice progression, with a fantastic punchline. I'm hoping some clever constructor will riff on this for Hindus, where the last themer might somehow tie back to the first one. Reincarnation!

– puzzle by Hannah Slovut

Definitely check out the link Jim listed in his comment (below). That STAR rebus puzzle is stuck in my head, one of the cleverest of Sundays that got me hooked into the NY Times crossword.

I liked seeing the concept again, although the impact was lessened for me since I remember that STAR rebus puzzle so vividly. The perils of having a long memory! I bet most solvers won't have seen it, and will thus have a much bigger a-ha moment.

The BIG DIPPER is part of URSA MAJOR, the GREAT BEAR? Wha ... ? Huh. Apparently, it is! How is it that I never knew this? (Probably because I spent most of my childhood watching "Gilligan's Island." Fun fact, Mr. Howell's teddy bear was named Teddy.)

Jeff packs in a ton of thematic material, the NORTH STAR rounding things out. Now that one felt much more solid than URSA MAJOR. Yes, the BIG DIPPER seems to be a part of the GREAT BEAR, but that's more an incidental curiosity. I learned to find the NORTH STAR using the BIG DIPPER as a guide, linking them forever in my head.

I think I would have been happier with just BIG DIPPER and NORTH STAR, plus the visual. That would have also allowed for smoother fill, along with a more accurate representation of the BIG DIPPER. It looks kind of … skewed. Like it got shoved into a 15x15 box.

It may not seem so difficult to drop in seven extra letters to form the visual, but it's actually a (great) bear. So much flexibility taken away from that middle section, when you have to work around fixed letters! And if you shift a letter even one square, the visual starts to look all wonky. Not a surprise to get a bunch of odd entries in RONDEL, ORBIS, SERE, and a potentially lethal crossing in ESO BESO / ARABY. Oof.

A good concept even the second time around, and I understand the desire to toss in URSA MAJOR / GREAT BEAR to help bulk out the theme. It's a tough call — without them, some solvers might have considered the puzzle thin.

– puzzle by Jeff Stillman

At first glance, I thought there were probably hundreds, maybe thousands of themers that would fit this puzzle. The word START brackets STREET ART, CAKING around CALIFORNIA KING, PRESELECT surrounds PRESIDENT-ELECT, and SPARK is on the ends of SOUTH PARK. Plenty of crosswords play on this idea; a word bracketing a phrase.

Took me a while to figure out that there was another layer. It's pretty neat that CA is the abbreviation for CALIFORNIA, PRES stands for PRESIDENT. So if you write "CAking," you can "expand" it to CALIFORNIA king. Huh!

And S works well, as the common shortening of SOUTH.

ST is an abbreviation for ... START? Huh. That did seem like the odd man out.

ADDED NOTE: Astute reader Jeff Mizrahi pointed out that ST is the abbreviation for STREET ... as in the theme answer, STREET ART. D'oh! Either I'm a moron or I got befuddled. Probably both.

I liked the additional layer David put on this standard theme type. Made me think.

Great bonus in POWER POSE! I do associate it with Wonder Woman more than Superman, though. Amy Cuddy's TED Talk is fantastic.

The winning entry/clue pair of the day was APERITIFS, with its delightful misdirect. "They get drunk before dinner" made me think of boozehounds. Nope, it's referring to the liquids getting thrown down the hatch. Awesome!

AWOL was fantastic, too. "Naughty privates," as in PFCs leaving base. Maybe to do naughty things ... with the other kind of privates. *rimshot*

Snazzy and clean gridwork, as usual from David. I liked the extra layer of theme well enough, but it didn't provide me a sharp enough a-ha moment to consider this one for POW! status.

– puzzle by David Steinberg

SPOONERISMS, all based on things edible by SPOON. There are thousands of spoonerizable phrases, so this is a great way of tightening the set. Mini-wheats becomes WHINNY MEETS, and cherry Jell-O, hasty pudding, Grey Poupon also get the ol' switcheroo.

Some funny results, with WHINNY MEETS my favorite. Hilarious to think about a bunch of horses getting together for a bit of a hay klatch. The others didn't elicit as much of a smile from me, but they worked well enough.

I always wondered what hasty pudding was. The Anglophile in me wants to try it! Wait. It's "wheat flour cooked in milk or water until it reaches the consistency of a thick batter or an oatmeal porridge"? Oh, you Brits and your disgusting foods.

Funny to see SRSLY in the NYT. I cocked my head when I first encountered it a few years ago. Kids these days.

Mighty fine gridwork, STIR IT UP, DARK GREEN, even SPA DAY lovely additions. I wasn't sure who THE WEEKND was, but I had at least heard of this name. Now, if someone could tell me what happened to that missing E …

I didn't understand the clue for RIG. I think "doctor" is the "to rig an unfair game" meaning, and "engineer" is more the "jerry-rig" definition? I like the misdirect, but it was a bit too clever for this engineer.

Oh, that revealer. Oh, oh, oh. I have to give it its own line because it's so long:

[What 18-, 25-, 37- and 52-Across all are (whose circled letters name something used with the base phrases)]

Wha?

The "whose" in there threw me off. Isn't that implying that 18-Across, etc. have circled letters? I think that's a dangling participle or something. Not that I know what a dangling participle is, but something is dingle-dangling in there.

An enjoyable, well-made romp, with such an apt extra layer to tighten the theme. If the clue for SPOONERISMS hadn't been so long, confusing, and dongle-dungling and some of the themers had been funnier, this would have gotten POW! consideration.

– puzzle by Erik Agard and Andy Kravis

This crossword was an enormous pain to put together. Like, trying several hundred times to fill it, with several dozen different black square skeletons, with countless hours lost to dead ends and restarts.

I'd be able to work in a few good long entries, but then I'd run into some area where I'd need a gluey bit to hold it all together.

Or I'd figure out how to turn one of the many corners, but then be unable to turn the next one successfully.

Restart!

And then it must have been 20 or more times that I got 95% of the puzzle finished, only to figure out that I couldn't get the ends to mesh.

I love puzzles with wide-open grid flow, where you can solve without feeling like you run into dead ends or segmented corners. But man oh man does that make filling a grid so painfully difficult.

– puzzle by Jeff Chen

★ CROWD PLEASER indeed! Such a solid example of a stair stack themeless, Peter hitting on all marks.

A great stair stack starts with that oh-so-important middle triplet. CROWD PLEASER / PLAY THE PONIES / THE LEGO MOVIE provide so much zazz. Yes!

Then the NW / SE stacks — POP A PILL / AMAZONIA, and WHATS APP over SNAP CHAT = good usage of those slots.

And finally, where many stair stacks fall is in the SW / NE corners, so hard to execute on once the stair stack is fixed in place. THE CURE / PHONE SEX plus STARBASE / BEDTIMES = excellent work.

And of course, Peter is such a great gridder that he wove everything together with little to no crossword glue. Some will argue that ENO gets way too much expose for his level of fame, but I think he's crossworthy enough. And RNS might be hard to figure out if you don't know it (registered nurses).

I did wonder if POP A PILL was as on point as "pill popper." But ultimately I thought it was a solid 1-Across.

I also don't love THE CURE crossing THE LEGO MOVIE, at THE, but it's not a deal-breaker.

Terrific puzzle from one of the top themeless constructors around. It's not easy to work with 68-word grids, and Peter does it so elegantly.

– puzzle by Peter Wentz

Definitional puzzle riffing on the number 21. I usually find these themes dry, as uncovering dictionary-like entries can be more work than pleasure. AGE FOR DRINKING LEGALLY isn't going to win any crossword awards, for example.

But Andrew found a nice range of answers, from drinking age to the Adele album, to the 21 gun salute, to blackjack. And I enjoyed the final twist, the last themer telling us that each of the themers had 21 LETTERS IN THESE ANSWERS — each of them a grid-spanning length. Fun punchline, very meta.

I was SURE that SPOTS ON ALL SIDES OF A DIE was incorrect. A standard die has opposite sides that equal to seven, i.e. one + six = seven. So the total has to be even!

Oh, wait.

Carry the eight, round down, dot the i's … oops.

Yes, the sum of one through six = 21, indeed. I knew that.

With just six themers, you'd think that a Sunday 140-word puzzle wouldn't be difficult. And it's not too bad.

But going down to the nearly unheard of 126 words? That's crazy! I can understand the allure to work in such great bonuses as ELIE WIESEL, MALEFICENT, ONE TOO MANY — it's important to get a ton of bonuses in, since the themers are a bit dry. But it's virtually impossible to execute on a 126-word grid, without glopping a ton of crossword glue all over.

Hoo boy, was there a lot. I would have sent this one back to smooth away ABLAST, ALOAD, SSTS, OESTE, etc. I stopped keeping track after I hit ten, and it kept right on going. It would have been better to deploy a lot more black squares to separate the themers, facilitating a higher quality of fill.

But I did appreciate the innovative thinking, the wide range of subjects covered by the number 21, and the punchline. Rare for a definitional puzzle to make me smile at the end.

– puzzle by Andrew Chaikin