New York Times, Monday, January 25, 2016

Interlocking 9s and 10s with a 7-letter revealer today.

While a mid-grid revealer tips my hand, the placement far outweighs the structural challenges that arise by jamming a 7-letter entry into the final across spot. This isn't true for a Thursday-level puzzle that can accommodate stacked 7s in rows 1-3 and 13-15 (and more experienced solvers who expect a payoff at the end), but is perfectly appropriate for a Monday puzzle.

I added two cheater squares at 15- and 33-Down to shorten the longer, non-thematic entries and avoid any confusion with the vertical theme answers. Extra squares are always better than unnecessary confusion, I think.

Small ding: THE NERVE crossing THE NBA — both for the THE dupe and iffy THE [sports league, sports team]-type entry. But this wouldn't bother me as a solver, so I felt fine rolling with it.

Still, I was very pleased how this one turned out. Josie, my 6-month-old Lab puppy, agrees.

Another squeaky-clean construction from Ian today. This straightforward theme gives us examples of CHEW TOYs — a BALL, STICK, ROPE, BONE. I'm not convinced that a BONE is really a toy, but that might just be semantics, as there are plenty of dog toys out there shaped like bones.

I like how Ian gives us a little flair today by crossing pairs of themers. It's not done very often since it's hard to find pairs that cross nicely, but the O in ROPE and BONE is at the perfect location, allowing Ian to place these answers in the critical row/column 13. The stars aligned just right!

Once he got those in place, he had some flexibility in choosing the starts of *BALL and *STICK — with so many words that can precede each of these, there was bound to be a combination that made the intersection possible. I'm not a huge fan of MASKED BALL, as it doesn't sound nearly as strong as MASQUERADE BALL, but it works.

As usual, Ian pays such careful attention to his fill. Nary a partial, an odd abbreviation, etc. anywhere. And when you lay out two themers horizontally and two vertically, it can be a bit difficult to get in much other long fill without muddying up what's theme and what's not. Great work in integrating ALTAR BOY, THE NERVE, THE NBA. To Ian's point, excellent use of black squares above ALTAR BOY and below THE NERVE to artificially shorten the entries — at eight letters, ALTAR BOY doesn't stand out quite as much as FISH STICK, helping to reinforce that it's not part of the theme.

A lot of constructors and I tend to agree that it's fine to have "duplicates" if they're shorties like IN, ON, THE, IF, etc. But I'm in agreement with Ian here; THE crossing THE feels inelegant to me. I do love both of those though. THE NERVE! in particular is so colorful.

Not the most mind-blowing idea, but a very solid Monday.