Fun debut from Evan! The eight special squares must be interpreted TO BE in the across direction and BB in the down; a whimsical ...
read moreFun debut from Evan! The eight special squares must be interpreted TO BE in the across direction and BB in the down; a whimsical interpretation of TO BE OR NOT TO BE. Cleverly done. At first I wondered if I was missing something, because I kept thinking it should be "TO BE" in the across direction and (blank) in the down. But then I decided I was overthinking things and kicked back with a COHIBA to shut up my stupid brain.
Well-constructed grid, especially so given that it's Evan debut. He's chosen really nice theme entries for the most part, with BORN TO BE WILD, SUCKS TO BE YOU, TO BE HONEST, and BRIDE TO BE standing out. The down answers containing BB aren't flashy per se, but almost all of them do a nice job. Esoteric foreign words like ABBE are usually something a constructor strives to avoid in a grid, but in something this ambitious, some trade-offs are usually required.
And the rest of the fill is pretty darn good; lots of sparkly stuff. Evan tosses in my man Geordi LAFORGE, who gets his second appearance in the NYT, making up some ground to the ubiquitous crossword ST:TNG personnel, Deanna TROI (31 appearances) and Lieutenant WORF (six). Hopefully his CHESS SET is a Star Trek Tridimensional one.
Like with most (non-Patrick Berry) puzzle, there are flaws. Aside from the typical ORI, HOSP, FAO, etc., I don't think Darrell ISSA is terribly grid-worthy, and the same goes for XENIA, OH, which mysteriously shows up with relatively high frequency (16 appearances in the NYT Shortz era, despite being a town of about 25,000 people). In general, I really appreciate what Will has done for the NYT xw in terms of fill (browse the pre-Shortzian puzzles to get a sense for what fill used to be like), and I applaud continuing motion toward better quality fill. Here's hoping we don't see ISSA again, until he does something worthy of fame.
More importantly, here's hoping we see more work from Evan in the future! One of the best debuts I've seen in a while.