New York Times, Thursday, January 30, 2014

I remember when I saw "Wordplay" how blown away I was by the genius of the famous BOB DOLE/CLINTON ELECTED crossword featured in the movie. When I started making puzzles myself a couple of years later, I thought it would be fun to try to construct one in the same vein. While this crossword is obviously nowhere near as intricate or brilliant as its progenitor, I'm glad to be able to add to the short list of "Schrodinger" puzzles that feature squares with more than one correct answer.

One other note: when I read on Xwordinfo a few months ago about a constructor who submitted a revision of a puzzle that had already been accepted, it prompted me to revisit this puzzle, which was one of my earlier efforts. What I saw — several entries that I no longer liked — convinced me to revamp it and send the update to Will, who graciously allowed me to substitute the new for the old. I hope solvers enjoy the final version.

This is only the seventh Times crossword I've published that has two different "correct" solutions (these are the other six). This time, tho, the two different solutions hinge on just one square. The critical clue at 24D is quite pretty. I like the punchline at 63A, too.

Great use of the Schrodinger convention today, resulting in an amusing theme. This is the only puzzle in the NYT Shortz era with a single Schrodinger square, but it's used well for the theme, and the crossing answer isn't tortured at all for either answer, both SET and SEAT being perfectly fine answers for "Box ___". Well done!

I had a pause in the last two theme entries. I usually solve on computer, so ????NEWSPAPER baffled me for the longest time. I'd be very curious to know what percentage of people solve on paper still. I'll bet it's quite high, but dropping. Perhaps THIS NEWSPAPER will still be fine for the majority of solvers today, but I bet in ten years it won't. I personally tried to construct a xw with this exact same theme four years ago (I failed), and remember having real trouble coming up with a way to incorporate NEWSPAPER so it had a symmetrical entry.

And A SUNBURNED ZEBRA flows so much better to my ear than A SUNBURNED PANDA. Perhaps that's just the way I've always heard the joke, but I refused to take ZEBRA out of that space for the longest time. A thought: how cool would it have been if ZEBRA/PANDA had been five additional Schrodinger squares? Extremely hard to do, of course, if not impossible. Schrodinger squares are so difficult to pull off such that the clue works equally well for both possibilities, and when you stack five of them in parallel, it quickly becomes a Gordian knot.

Dan only has four theme answers, so he spices things up by adding in the very nice EPHEMERA, DOWAGERS, and JOHANNES. I'm not convinced BALL YARD is "a thing", but it's passable, and I bet many would disagree with me (vehemently!). Dan takes great care with the rest of his fill; I only really noticed TYRO, SSI, OKEY, etc. as lesser offenders.

Overall, a theme that comes across as a bit old-fashioned, but a well constructed puzzle. I love Dan's great attitude, going back to improve the puzzle even after puzzle acceptance. I want to see more constructors shooting for the stars, striving for perfection.