New York Times, Thursday, March 30, 2023

Brooke: I love when I look at the latest NYT byline and see Adam's name because more often than not I'm about to be faced with a theme that wouldn't occur to me in my wildest dreams. I will never forget this Sunday or of course this theme-in-the-clues Thursday. Neither of us remembered this, but it turns out I reached out to Adam to compliment his very first NYT puzzle! I'm overjoyed that one of the cool theme kids was down to collaborate with me.

And what a collaboration! We worked so hard on this puzzle! Every single component was a whole-is-greater-than-the-sum-of-its-two-constructors situation. The theme is so different from Adam's original pitch (which we would, obviously, be nowhere without). We considered dozens of options for every corner of the grid, and we clued with exquisite care — clues which have largely been retained in print! The best clue in this puzzle is Adam's 22-Down and my second favorite is Adam's 50-Across. Perhaps related to the latter, I was sad to lose original Adam's DAD clue, which was [Most common job in America for men].

P.S. The third These Puzzles Fund Abortion pack dropped this week. Donate here to receive sixteen puzzles by these amazing constructors.

Adam: Geeking out that I get to share a byline with Brooke, who happens to be the constructor of my personal all-time favorite puzzle. And wow did working with her live up to the hype. Not only did she routinely turbocharge this puzzle with fill (ERHU! RAGEROOMS!) and clues ("Pre-sale alert?"! "The Wasteland"!), she's also just fun to work with. An absolutely ideal collab.

Besides the byline, my other favorite thing about this puzzle is how human the theme is. No code, no ChatGPT, just two friends texting each other messages like "what are words that have ... synonyms?"

P.S. As many of you know, I have a word game called Anigrams. I'm excited to announce that today I'm launching a Patreon for it! Come by for bonus challenges, new games, a playable backlog/archive (coming next week), or just to lend support. I'll also share a few NSFW theme examples for this puzzle that didn't make the cut. Hope you'll consider joining!

Today would have been perfect for one of Dick Dastardly's trademark "Double drat!" outbursts. I loved his chuckle-wheezing sidekick, Muttley, as a kid. As an adult, I now wonder if all that kooky snickering was because he was a POTHEAD. Muttley, you're such a Loo / Loo.

I use the word CRAPSHOOT all the time in talking about risk/reward profiles. The fact that I never noticed that both halves mean "Drat!" makes me shout something much stronger than that. Wish I'd thought of that.

RIBROAST is also strong. I don't eat much meat these days, but realizing that both halves mean "tease" was another solid a-ha.

Not as hot on DROP KICK since I didn't as immediately make the connection between DROP, KICK, and "quit." It works, but I had to ponder this for a beat longer than I wanted.

Same goes for both GOT and CAUGHT for "heard." CAUGHT wind of something, sure. GOT … huh. I didn't totally GOT that.

Congrats to Brooke on her big night at the Orcas! Both she and Adam are stars with long bonus fill. Stacking CRAPSHOOT with ROSA PARKS and GOT CAUGHT with GOING ONCE is so money. Maybe it verges on too many multi-word mid-lengthers that seem to irritate some solvers — YOU WHAT?! / IN GEAR / PC HELP / HITS AT — but those folks can hit the RAGE ROOMS later.

Recently, a crossword editor asked me to avoid LYRE, since it wouldn't be that familiar for that publication's solvers. Totally different target audience, but I can only imagine what that editor would say about ERHU. I think I might have heard one when I was in Taiwan last—nice to put a name to the instrument.