New York Times, Thursday, January 7, 2021

MATTHEW/SID: Our pre-written construction notes are below, but our hearts are very heavy today. This is a dark time in American history — we can only hope that our puzzle brings some light.

MATTHEW (he/him): I'm so thrilled to be making my New York Times debut on a collaboration with Sid, who I met through the crossword community on Facebook last year and quickly became a very dear friend. Coincidentally, we both live in St. Louis and got to hang out IRL over puzzles and tasty food before social distancing and quarantining took effect. I'm forever grateful for our friendship, conversations (about puzzles and other stuff) and collaborations, which have made me a kinder, more thoughtful puzzlemaker and person.

A quick bit about me: I teach ninth grade algebra as part of an amazing Americorps program in East St. Louis, IL; I run my own puzzle blog, Happy Little Puzzles, where I post free 11x midis and full-size puzzles every week; and I help out at the Crossword Puzzle Collaboration Directory. If you're interested in making puzzles and want help getting started (and/or you want to collaborate with me)(and/or you're a crossword veteran who wants help getting connected with mentees), please don't hesitate to reach out!

SID (he/him): Excited for Matthew's debut in the Times! Matthew's far from a novice constructor — he's one of the most prolific puzzlemakers of the past year, having written and published something like a hundred puzzles in many venues, including his website and mine. I'm honored to be his collaborator, his fan, and of course, his dear friend.

Matthew and I independently came up with the same idea for this puzzle, so we decided to tackle it together. Usually, themers of lengths 10/8/15/8/10 can be positioned in any number of ways, but the Xs forced us to rethink our gridding strategy. We tested 160 arrangements of theme entries and black squares before finding just two grid skeletons that seemed feasible: the pattern you see today and a nearly identical one with PIXY STIX in place of THX / IBEX. The latter option didn't work out, but the former filled readily after placing the vowel-heavy EEYORE at 33A. Escaping with a few dabs of XIS (shoutout to the editing team for the A+ clue), SRIS, ALII, ERY was miraculous given the constraints. Hopefully the puzzle makes for a satisfying solve!

I solved on computer, confidently typing in FELT HATS, then quickly realizing I had to put Xs in for some reason. Easy enough change. Hitting STRIKE THAT, everything made sense, and I enjoyed the concept. Colorful and colloquial revealer; a perfect explanation for what was going on. Probably not a standout Thursday, though.

Or was it? I continue to have the privilege of weekly conversations with Jim Horne, my XWI partner, and listening to his experience elevated this puzzle in my eyes. He's a great solver, so eschews pencil (I imagine a $5,000 fountain pen requiring hourly oiling and silk cloth massaging). I hadn't thought about the solving experience from an old-school perspective. Like me, he confidently penned in FELT HATS — and then he had to literally strike THAT, using Xs to X out those four letters. Awesome!

Jim asked if I had noticed the different ways THAT was broken across phrases. He thinks he knows me so well that I would be one of the five people in the world to know and care. Ha! I did notice, so there!

Wait.

I mean, I did notice, but in a way he didn't expect. Some constructors would insist on breaking up THAT in different ways, claiming that it's elegant to do so. I wouldn't totally not be not one of those negative-positive asserters, no sir! In today's case, it led to DEATH AT A FUNERAL, which is so much less interesting than many of the other THAT phrases out there. I say, constructor's elegance be damned!

That one nit aside, I highly enjoyed my solve. Neat concept, cool to see a ridiculous number of Xs integrated more smoothly than I expected, and hearing about the pen and paper experience drove it over the top. Well done!