New York Times, Saturday, January 7, 2017

This puzzle was constructed in November 2015, and accepted for publication in March 2016. This is one of a trio of themeless grids of similar design that I constructed in 2015, where the starting point for the fill was a central 9-letter idiomatic remark. All three puzzles were picked up, two of them here.

This fill started with ARE WE GOOD. I think idiomatic expressions make good crossword entries, especially those uttered in private or unguarded moments. To those who say WHO WAS IT is perhaps too much of a good thing, I say SPARE ME. ;-)

I like pangrams — they're fun to solve and to construct. When I solve a puzzle that's shaping up to be a pangram, I root for it to happen. The challenge in constructing a pangram is to accommodate the high Scrabble value letters without using answers that otherwise wouldn't be allowed in the grid. I think this effort was successful in that regard.

I would like to thank Will and Joel for their work on the clues. I particularly like their clues for MASSEUR (1D - One pressing the flesh) and MEAT RUB (1A — Barbecue chef's coat). As for a clue that survived the final edit, I like the one for SOFA BED (28A — All-weather convertible?).

SPACE TIME crossing ARE WE GOOD in the center — love it! Themeless that feature mostly mid-to-short entries have to really make their few long entries sing, so it's nice to get these two front and center. WIFI ZONE and IN THE BAG are pretty darn great as well.

I wasn't so sure about WHO WAS IT. Certainly a common phrase, but it feels more ho-hum, something functional in everyday conversation. CAPRICES … not a spectacular entry, but for a one-worder, it's pretty colorful. Not as sizzly as WIFI ZONE was for me, but still nice.

I'm not a fan of this sort of layout that breaks the puzzle up into so many subsections. It's all too easy to get stuck in a single region, making for a stop and go solve. Not super satisfying if there are only two ways into a corner, and you can't figure out either of them.

It sure does make construction easier, though. Once you select those entry words, you can work on that little piece of the grid just by itself, not worrying about the rest of the puzzle. I'd rather constructors avoid this crutch, as the resulting puzzle flow is so stilted and jarring for me as a solver.

That said, I really liked some of the results — it did feel more polished and snazzy than Roland's last use of a very similar grid pattern. Kicking it off with MEAT RUB is awfully nice, and a MASSEUR as [One pressing the flesh] = fantastic misdirectional clue! And I really, really enjoyed the bottom right. The rare J X in NINJAS / JUKEBOX / ROLEXES were neat, and I liked TERABIT and SEDATES with its tricky [Gives a number?] clue. (Think numb-er, as in one who numbs.)

Not as much a fan of the upper right, where PESETAS and PEERAGE takes up valuable real estate. It sure is tough to execute on triple-stacks of sevens crossing other triple-stacks of sevens.

Good workout overall, each of the five mini-puzzles taking a quite while to crack into.