Joseph Knecht

  You Take the High Road And I'll Take the Low Road     Today's constructor is Debbie Ellerin, who has published 24 puzzles on the Corner, starting on March 15, 2015.  Her puzzles seem to be predominently themeless, but today her starred clues treat us to a WALK through a themed puzzle. 3D. *Delivery job not as common as it once was: PAPER ROUTE .  My very first job was as a paper boy, circa 1960.  Hand up if you delivered papers when you were a kid. 9D. *Computer storage device: USB DRIVE .  Here Husker tells us that Debbie is a retired Computer Programmer .  Perhaps she constructs crossword puzzles as a different way to DRIVE people crazy.  I hope this one didn't affect you that way.  😆   31D. *Nostalgic locale: MEMORY LANE .  Here's a trip down MEMORY LANE for you: Lyrics 38D. *...

Today's constructor is Paul Coulter, who by my reckoning has published 82 puzzles in the LA Times in the last 6 years, starting in February 6, 2015.  The works out to almost 1 a month! Paul's reveal-less theme plays on HOMOGRAPHS , words that are spelled the same but have different meanings.  Here pairs of HOMOGRAPHS in each clue are punned against one another: 17A Blades for trimming blades: LAWNMOWER .  A machine for trimming blades of grass:   28A Development that ended much development: DIGITAL CAMERA.   The invention of the DIGITAL CAMERA brought a steep decline in the use of photographic film and dark rooms.  The Eastman Kodak company didn't see this coming. 46A Club used at a club: PITCHING WEDGE .  In golf a pitching wedge is...

    Stuck in the Middle The lyrics Today is the 6th  appearance of constructor Dan Margolis on the Corner, and here's a bit of bio from a review of his first four puzzles for that "other newspaper".  As this is a Thursday, this puzzle should have a theme, but Dan seems to have hidden it well.  There are no clearly identifiable themers, no stars, no circles, no reveal, and no real pattern discernible in the cluing.  However the usual suspects, the 4 longest fills, seem to contain what statisticians might call a " measure of central tendency ", in this case the MEDIAN , which is the value separating the HIGHER half from the LOWER half of a data set, e.g. the count of clues in this puzzle. 20A. Often euphemistic words for lacking employment: IN BETWEEN JOBS . The good news is that the number of people in this situation continues to go down (at least on the day this review was written). 27A. Manhattan a...