New York Times, Monday, September 14, 2020

When I hit upon the phrase HAS IT BOTH WAYS, I hopped on xwordinfo.com to check out my *ITTI* options. There are almost 600. I sought a way to narrow the set, and focused on two-word phrases with the IT_TI pattern. Suddenly it became a very narrow set indeed, and I barely managed to find phrases that suited the demands of symmetry. Also, there was no good way around the 13 / 8 / 11 / 8 / 13 pattern, which requires smooshing everything together and using ugly Utah-blocks, and restricts the placement of SIT TIGHT and WAIT TIME.

As for fill, I have a 76-word version of this puzzle that removes the block pair between ILK/ECO and WIT/KEG, but it required crossing SALIERI with LILI, and I decided to just keep it at 78 words. I do wish there had been room for a better pair of long downs, but if I managed to keep everything Monday-friendly, I'm happy. Oh, one more thing, I also tried a version of the fill that eliminated all other IT or TI bigrams (like ELITE at 6-down and KEITH at 39-down and WIT at 42-across); it was a thought, but it made the fill too rough. Enjoy your Monday!

I was so sure I nailed "Name That Theme" today. Every themer contains ITTI … itty! Surely the revealer would be ITTY BITTY. After all, my daughter has "Itty Bitty Kitty" on her shelves.

Wait. Why would I think that ITTY BITTY KITTY would explain anything about the ITTI string?

Apparently I've been a quarantine parent — indulging my daughter's penchant for dressing up her kittycat stuffies — for far too long.

The actual revealer is far more apt; each revealer HAS IT BOTH WAYS, i.e., contains IT and TI. I like John's thinking; it's important to tighten up the theme concept somehow. Imagine if all themers simply had IT and then TI anywhere — it'd be so inelegant.

These themer lengths are so tough to work with. A 13-letter revealer means trouble right off the bat since it must go into row 12 (not 13), leading to that "smooshing" effect John mentioned.

I don't usually mind some extra black squares to facilitate smoother fill, but there are a lot of black squares today. Some editors cap it at 38. Will Shortz is more flexible, often allowing puzzles with 42 or even 44.

Going up to 46 … visually, it's so unappealing. I'd have tried a few more times to take out the block above FERMI. It's not an easy task, since you have to work with a long answer in that corner (GUNSIGHT), but I think it might be possible.

Repeating the same hidden string within themers can get … repetitive (ha) for solvers, but an unexpected revealer can make all the difference. I enjoyed not being able to figure it out immediately. There were prices to pay in the grid, though. SETTE ICI GNP / NEV are potentially tough for newbs. It'd be interesting to see if stacking themers — putting DETROIT TIGERS and SIT TIGHT in rows 4 and 5 — might have made gridding easier.

ADDED NOTE: Regular reader William Girard points out that ODELL Beckham Jr. might be a head-scratcher for Monday solvers, too. Agreed! And note that he's a Pro Bowler, as in he's made the NFL Pro Bowl — not a pro bowler! Strike one! Wait, that's baseball ...