New York Times, Monday, February 2, 2015

Great selection of themers today, phrases containing NYC to celebrate THE BIG APPLE. DESTINY CALLS is so colorful and vivid, making for a great entry. COMPANY CAR and FELONY CHARGE sing, too. (Sing Sing, in the latter's case.)

I would have been so tempted to stick in KENNY CLARKE, the great jazz drummer known as "Klook," but TONY CURTIS plays to a much bigger audience. Sigh.

As an 11-letter entry, THE BIG APPLE smack dab in the middle of the grid sure makes things hard. Interesting layout today; I like how Jeffrey smooshed pairs of themers together to separate them as much as possible from that troublesome THE BIG APPLE. This can be tough feat to do, but Jeffrey wisely chooses theme pairs with easy letter combinations, making the north and south regions nice and smooth.

It does leave big swaths of white space in the SW and NE, roughly 4x6 chunks which are rarely easy to fill, especially when fill needs to be Monday-smooth. Jeffrey does an impressive job in the NE, featuring Jerry STILLER and JON SEDA, the latter thankfully done with easy crosses.

The SW does have the fun ALL EARS and FLY ROD but overall doesn't come off quite as nicely, needing some glue to hold it together. I might have considered breaking up ALMONDS with a black square at the O, which would have given more flexibility in filling. (My wife, who loathes ALMONDS to the point where she accused me of poisoning her with an almond cookie, would approve.)

Then again, that would create even more 3-letter words, and the current count (25) is already on the high side. So many trade-offs in construction.

It sometimes just takes a single clue or entry to make me want to high-five someone, and BIDS did that for me. As a huge bridge fan, this very bridge-specific clue made me wistful for the time when bridge ruled American culture. It's tough to make a puzzle cover a huge range of topics, from bridge to WAFFLES to TONY CURTIS to BALI, and that effort is much appreciated. Something for everyone.