New York Times, Friday, January 28, 2022

My first published themeless! Hurray! I made this puzzle last January, right after I received news that a previous themeless I'd sent to the Times — which I'd felt pretty good about — had been rejected. That crossword had also featured a central staircase, so when I started work on this puzzle, I decided to keep the design. This time though, the competitive Scrabble player in me insisted that I squeeze more high-point letters into the central stack.

The staircase seemed like it wasn't going to work at first, largely due to some weird letter combinations on the right-hand side. I nearly abandoned it after testing several hundred black square permutations, but then I realized that there was a phrase that could work at 28A, and the grid was saved! Filling the rest wasn't too difficult, although I did have to rework the bottom part of the puzzle due to some gluey entries.

If I were to remake this puzzle today, I'd change the upper left. I don't love the dupe at 2D and 11D, and 19A seems too esoteric. And I'm sad that I couldn't include an X, which would've made this puzzle a pangram.

Thanks to my dad for test-solving, Wyna Liu for helping me clean up the grid, and the editing team for strengthening my clues! I love what they came up with for 34A and 5D, but I'm pleased that they kept my clues for 39A and 45A. I was proud of those.

Better watch out, high-Scrabble constructors, Jem Burch is coming after your scores! Talk about JAZZing UP a solve — SO SPICY indeed.

(Now that this ol' gen-xer has said SO SPICY, generation alpha folks will stop using it. You're welcome, America.)

Neat to highlight so many rare letters in the middle stair stack. PAJAMA PARTY is a great entry, and BASE JUMPERS over ZERO GRAVITY is an evocative pairing.

I appreciated how many long entries Jem ran through that stair stack, too. It's not uncommon to have four long Downs woven through, but PHASE IN, SIMMERED DOWN, LIT MAJOR, SAM RAIMI, SOLD FOR PARTS, ESTEVEZ made for a wide-open grid with a lot of color.

I was baffled by the Dr. Fauci SNL clue since I've laughed a ton at Kate McKinnon's send-ups. Such fun to remember BRAD PITT's version.

Unfortunately, the one region I stumbled mightily on was the starting corner — not surprising that it was the region Jem expressed concern about. Being a transliteration, HIJABS has different spellings, including HEJABS, HIJAABS, HAJIBS, HIJABI. I was fairly sure UNAPT was not apt, but John JAKES was a mystery, and I always get burned trying to remember the [Egyptian sun deity]. Appropriate that IN A TRAP ran through it all.

I'd have given this themeless some POW! consideration if the cluing had been SO SPICY like the grid. There was a sprinkling of seasoning — [Source of a big scoop], literally for LADLE is awesome — but there was so much straightforwardness. Along with a few bafflers, like PTS = [Spread makeup: Abbr.], as in the point spread in betting, it wasn't as fun a solve as it could have been.

Still, excellent stair stack gridwork, another solid example in this maturing themeless category.