SUNDAY PUZZLE — I’m not letting any cats out of any bags by telling you this puzzle is about bowling, right? That’s the gutter pun in the headline! There’s a bowling ball in the top center nine squares on the paper grid, and there’s supposed to be something in the electronic versions today. The first thing that comes to mind when I think about bowling is Andrew Kingsley, who just got his master's from the University of Pennsylvania this year and already has a teaching job at Riverdale Country School in the Bronx, teaching the art of the duckpin. Just kidding, he’s teaching middle and high school English. When I think about bowling I think of The Big Lebowski, but none of the scenes in that movie are appropriate to mention here.

This is Mr. Kingsley’s Sunday debut, and he’s due — he has had several good, hard weekend grids and some memorable theme puzzles (such as this confection). Today’s grid has two layers of theme, puns and visual, both of which are laid out pretty plainly in the cluing. That didn’t make it easy, though, did it?

Tricky Clues

The fill today was awfully FUN, I thought, but there were lots of names that weren’t solid for me, including ECKO, ALVY, ANSE, ARES, ANN, DRURY and others. Nothing that we shouldn’t know, though, and now we do. I didn’t fall for too much misdirection — “nada” for ZEST, “amen” for WORD and “legs” for EYES. And there were enough twists, like AMP, TREES, MELT and THE TOP to make things move along apace.

31A: We got some practice with clingy water creatures yesterday, but it’s been ages since this particular gastropod has been in the grid, so it might be worth a mention. LIMPETS are surprisingly different from barnacles, in case you were wondering.