New York Times, Tuesday, March 3, 2015

GONZO JOURNALISM is one of the most colorful phrases I've seen in a while. I wasn't totally sure what it meant, but it came back quickly enough with a quick refresher on Hunter S. Thompson. We've seen this phrase in NYT themeless puzzles before, but it's great to see it featured in a themed.

Not having read (or seen) FEAR AND LOATHING / IN LAS VEGAS, it was tough for me to squee over the theme. But I did admire Kristian's gridwork. A 10/15/15/15/10 set of themers is tough to work with. It often results in compromises in the west and east section, where plenty of down answers must interact with two themers. Check out the east — SINO is only a minor ding, and he managed to work in the beautiful CUDDLE UP. Excellent deployment of black squares.

Additionally, Kristian wisely used the least-constrained part of the puzzle to work in some Scrabbliness, an X and a Z. Since that SE corner only has the end of LOATHING fixed into place, there's all sorts of freedom. Sure, ETES is a minor gluey bit, but to work in RIB CUT, HE/SHE, and X GAMES along with that X and Z is solid.

I did hitch slightly on NAV, which seems like a curious abbreviation for NAVAL (or NAVY?). But I personally like NAV, as it's commonplace in finance. A mutual fund's NET ASSET VALUE is an important indicator of (insert sound of readers falling asleep).

Finally, a great clue for US STEEL, throwing back to a heyday where US Steel built the "Unisphere" for the NY World's Fair. It's a company that has always fascinated me, because 1.) its ticker symbol on the New York Stock Exchange is the awesome "X" and 2.) it reminds me of Asimov's "U.S. Robotics," a company in his books that produced humanoid robots. And an actual company (which makes modems) took up that name! Life imitating art imitating life.