New York Times, Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Whereas my first three NYT crosswords were published within one or two months of their acceptance, this little guy sat around for twenty months. It's a pretty simple theme, so maybe that had something to do with the long wait.

The original version of this puzzle had HOP ON POP as the theme. However, the H on top of the P proved to be quite challenging and, while Will and Joel liked the theme, they weren't crazy for the fill. So HAM ON RYE was born and a better puzzle made. I do remember that in Joel's acceptance email he said the five instances of HAM being on RYE was quite challenging to pull off and a key factor in the puzzle's acceptance.

Hope you enjoyed!

During my solve, I was wondering if Alan was in the process of furnishing a home. After seeing a DRYER and then a FRYER, I turned up a CRYER! Wait, that's not a home appliance (it should be). Turns out Alan needed a lot of *RYE* entries to fill out his literal HAM on RYE puzzle. The letter combinations (HR, AY, ME) are very friendly, but it's still impressive that he was able to work in five instances — two right on the HAM ON RYE revealer!

With so many instances, I'd usually expect to see a ton of crossword glue to hold everything together, so Alan does well to limit it to generally minor stuff. The short usual suspects like SSW and EER and OER are so prevalent that I tend to gloss over them. OME … that's harder to ignore (it's sometimes clued as something like [Place where ‘Enry ‘Iggins lives]). FUL is an awkward suffix. And END TO, a partial, is more noticeable to me, since it takes up a longer slot.

I did appreciate how many bonuses Alan gave us — SYNDROME, BAHRAIN, HAYRIDE in particular. It's not easy to do in a puzzle that has so many constraints, and it really enhanced my solve.

Also enhancing my solve was a reference to Festivus! Ah, the FEATS of Strength and the Airing of Grievances.

Typically, I find that these sorts of themes get kind of repetitive, as once you've seen one of the HAM on RYEs, the impact of the next several isn't very strong. But it was fun to wonder what the heck was going on with the FRYER DRYER CRYER stuff. I appreciate the 3x2 blocks not being shaded, which would have made the conceit pretty dull.

Finally, a curious entry, THREE AM. Is that really the predetermined time when we "spring forward"? I was all ready to comment about the arbitrary nature of the entry, but it appears that it's really a significant time after all — that's the time we "spring forward" to. Neat piece of trivia.