New York Times, Saturday, January 16, 2016

I knew that if I wanted to get a themeless published I'd have to make it sparkle, and the fill would have to be exceptionally clean. I think I basically succeeded here, and this is actually the first puzzle I've had published with no revisions or edits to the grid. I was hoping to debut PHOTOBOMB, but Barry Silk beat me to it while this one was in the queue.

Sean Dobbin, formerly of the "Man vs. Puzzle" blog! Great to see him back in the construction game.

This grid skeleton does a nice job of balancing solver flow and ease of construction. The triple-stacks of answers are separated, those sinuous sets of black squares acting like labyrinth walls. Yet there's plenty of ways into each of the corners, so that the puzzle doesn't feel choked off. It's a great layout in terms of allowing you to work (mostly) on one corner at a time.

I liked the NW and SE corners a lot, each featuring three very nice entries. I personally liked PHOTOBOMB / ROB REINER (of "Princess Bride" fame and more) / OOLONG TEA a little better than AD INITIUM / RENE RUSSO / ERGOMETER since the former set felt a little fresher, but I wasn't keen on MT APO (a bit esoteric) and OENO (prefix, and not a super common one at that). Tough to achieve that perfect balance of snazziness and cleanliness.

Note how the other two corners both have a long entry running through them — LIP SERVICE through the NE and CINDERELLA through the SW. Although these entries add a lot of color to the puzzle, they also add a level of construction difficulty to their respective corners. I liked IT CAN'T BE! and SINGSONG (although apparently that means "monotonous" — exactly the opposite of what I had thought!) but SHIVERED is more neutral for me.

And ATTAGIRL is okay, but IRONICAL … isn't that "ironic"? And DESK SETS is one of those entries constructors rely on for grid edges, given its preponderance of friendly E S T letters. (STRESS TEST and ESSAY TEST also fall into this bucket).

Thankfully, Sean gives us all fair / easy crossings for Julie TAYMOR, who earned two Emmys for "The Lion King." I like learning a new piece of information or two, but only when it's introduced in a way that allows the solver to conquer the puzzle. Sean does a nice job of accomplishing that.

Jeff apparently skips over the theatre section of his newspaper. Julie TAYMOR was in the news for months over the "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark" debacle. She co-wrote the book and began as the director, only to end up suing her producers and eventually settling out of court.