Guest Freestyle 3, Quiara Vasquez: “You Might Drop Dead”.

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Mean word length: 5.22

Have something you wanna say? Got a question? Wanna do a guest freestyle? Wanna just say hello? Hit me up by email!

Big, big ups to Quiara Vasquez for kicking in this awesome grid today. Talking about being generous and coming through with great timing. I get an email not so long ago with the subject line, “You need any puzzle help mid-move?” and of course that grabbed my attention. Despite that, I was very ready to write in this space that I wouldn’t indeed have a grid for today, when, last night, I get an email with a really cool-looking draft grid from Quiara asking if this would work for Club 72. Hell yes, it would work. Then, I don’t know what time zone this is coming from, in fairness, but I get an email after 4:00 am with the completed, clued grid. So, mad props (does anyone still say that?), Quiara, and I cannot thank you enough for this gem of a grid and a tour de force of cluing. It fits right into my vibe. But I’ve talked enough, so I’ll let the constructor tell the tale:

Big ups to Tim for letting me guest on Club 72 – I’d like to think that this puz has “big Croce energy,” even if it doesn’t have the trademark 12/15/12 grid you’ve come to know and love. I actually started this puzzle with the southernmost entry and filled my way up towards the top, but that triple stack at the top is so beautiful that you’d never know it. If you like this puzzle, there’s more like it on my blog QVXwordz (which Tim has added to the site’s blogroll – nudge nudge), and you’ll also find another tricky themeless from me this October in the Boswords Fall Themeless League, registration for which will open on September 1.

I would have bet a lot of money that the northwest stack was the genesis for this grid. And yes, it has been a while since I’ve updated the links. But they now include QVXwordz (which I swear was going to get included anyway based on this post!).

I don’t think I’ve ever included two musical selections on a post (the fabulous choice up above was Quiara’s), but I really feel like I have to include this one in the post as well, cliched as it is: