Did it bug you that this rebus was easy? Not me! Although I get pleasure from novel ideas that push boundaries, rebuses are already powerful sufficient for a lot of solvers. Given that the NYT’s Sunday viewers is broad and diversified, leaving it as a regular rebus is sensible.

Although, having a SHOE smashing the ROACH would have been tremendous satisfying …

PYTHAGORE(AN T)HEOREM is a textbook instance of how one can pull off a rebus: the phrase spans throughout all phrases of the entry, and it is a wonderful phrase. Even the crossing reply displays a few of this, with ANT crawling throughout LE(AN-T)O.

DESI(GNAT)ED DRIVER would normally get cited by Will Shortz since GNAT would not span the phrases — DRIVER would not do any thematic work. What are the alternate options, although? SI(GN A T)REATY is technically higher, however it’s not essentially the most thrilling of phrases.

Sometimes it is higher to flout the rules so solvers won’t STIFLE A YAWN.

Similar case for IN LIKE (FLY)NN. That’s such a colourful phrase that the foundations be damned.

JEF(F LY)NNE does object, although.

Does BEE bee-long? They’re so vital in sustaining the steadiness of nature. My spouse would have most well-liked drawing consideration to a beheMOTH drawback in her walk-in closet, and my children would have mentioned dynaMITE! if their newest worry had been included.

It’s typically frowned upon to have Across fill longer than themers — WATERMELON and SEMIWEEKLY overshadow CEL(TIC Ok)NOT. Hard to withstand the quaint PATOOTIE, although.

I appreciated that Laura greater than balanced out her to-be-stamped-out AGIN GLO glue with a lot pretty SPARE RIB LEGALESE DELI CASE and even DIATOMIC for us chem nerds.

So a lot of building is all about trade-offs, and I like most of the ones Laura made right this moment.