New York Times, Thursday, January 29, 2015

Unlike some themes, which take plenty of fiddling with before coming into focus, the idea for this one came at once. I remember precisely where I was at the time — in the middle of our living room moving furniture — the very spot where I abandoned an armoire for several hours while I went to pick theme answers and fill the grid. (Question: What's the most valuable resource a crossword constructor can have? Answer: An understanding wife.)

I wanted to avoid words like MANIACS that leave non-words (IACS) after MAN was removed. I like that the threesome making the final "cut" included RAIN, ICE, and AGUA. That was a bonus — or you might say, as Walsh tells Gittes in Chinatown, "The guy's got water on the brain."

The biggest challenge was getting the Downs to play nice, with six of them crossing three theme answers and two of them crossing four. Though there were other grid possibilities, they had issues too. For the most part, I think it worked out all right.

Regarding clues: If you have a beef with the one for AXE, please take it up with Unilever. If you don't like the ones for ANT or ERA, you can blame me. (I do think it's fun to come up with new clues for short answers.) But if, like me, you find "Chapter seven?" for ETA to be so utterly diabolical that it takes longer than you want to admit to make sense of it, please send your letters to Mr. Will Shortz at The New York Times. (That's really a gem.)

As we used to say when honeymooning years ago in Fiji, "Bula!"

Sometimes I miss the cleverness a puzzle brings. Today, I wondered why AGUA was a Latin American capital — perhaps it was a currency unit of Guatemala or Nicaragua? And the theme didn't really make sense to me. I saw the sets of two MAN entries "spread out" from where they were supposed to be, but that seemed like it didn't really jive with CUT OUT THE / MIDDLEMAN. So I shrugged and went on with my day.

One of the many great things about providing daily commentary about puzzles is that it forces me to go back and revisit them. Not only does it help my own construction skill development, but I uncover elements I missed the first time around. So to finally grok that AGUA was actually (MAN)AGUA, with the middle of three MAN entries cut out … yes! A great a-ha moment.

The same goes for RAIN(MAN)'s middle MAN cut out, and THE ICE(MAN) COMETH as well. I particularly liked that central one, the cut out MAN sitting in the middle of HIT(MAN) and (MAN)ANA.

I'll explain Will's and then John's cryptic clue for ETA, since I still didn't get it after John hinted above at its awesomeness. (I had to ask John about it, FYI.) Apparently when fraternities and sororities launch new chapters at different schools, they label them with Greek letters, i.e. the first chapter is the Alpha Chapter, the second is the Beta Chapter, etc. So although it requires a deep understanding of an esoteric subject, but the repurposing of the bankruptcy term "Chapter 7" is really neat.

I might have liked all the MAN entries to be more hidden as in MANDY and MANAGUA, but overall, a beautiful, clean execution on a great idea. I know it's not currently possible, but how awesome would it be to open up your newspaper and find three chunks physically cut out of your crossword, like so?