New York Times, Thursday, October 4, 2018

apparently it's been three years since my last NYT puzzle! lest anybody think i've dropped off the face of the earth, or at least from puzzleworld, i can assure you that is not the case. i've been devoting most of my puzzlemaking time to outside the box puzzles, where i construct variety puzzles for an audience of email subscribers.

having said that, i've been trying to get back into making "regular" crosswords on a "regular" basis. i'm pretty sure this one started with the observation that EKCO is an anagram of COKE, and then wondering if there were other people whose last name is an anagram of a soda brand. there weren't really enough to support a whole theme of just people's names; in fact, it was in researching this puzzle that i learned that JUDAS PRIEST is a band, not the stage name of a solo artist. but broadening the search to two-word phrases enabled me to go to five theme answers plus a revealer, so i was satisfied—but i think the puzzle would not have been worth making without both COKE and PEPSI represented.

We've been conditioned to expect something radical on Thursday — words turning corners or going backward or busting out of the grid or, well, anything goes. So, we approach Thursdays with a combination of excitement and trepidation, knowing that things are unlikely to be as they appear.

"It might pop out of a kids' mouth" turns out to be BUBBLE GUM. No obvious wordplay there, so our antennae go up. Something must be wrong, but let's go on. JUDAS PRIEST and GAS PIPES have straightforward clues too. Wow, this is going to be sneaky. "Swinger's club" is cute, but BASEBALL BAT comes to mind easily. Yikes, what are we missing?

The revealer, pointing to the ends of the other theme answers is SODA MIXER. Looking back, well, we have anagrams of SPRITE, PEPSI, COKE, and TAB. After the build-up (self-imposed, but not unreasonable) we have simple soft drink anagrams.

The only one left is UGM or GMU or, well, it must be MUG. Is there a MUG soda too? Perhaps it's a regional thing. A quick search pulls up MUG root beer which, while not a brand I've encountered, is legitimate.

After whining earlier this week that complaining about the day of week that the puzzle runs on is dangerous, this doesn't feel like a Thursday theme. In the rest of the grid, there are some odd facts to uncover, but little wordplay. So, I don't know; it's a well-constructed puzzle. I was fooled because I wasn't fooled. That's a meta crossword for you.

Feel free to publicly embarrass me if I'm missing something here.

A-HA! So much for those previous comments about day-of-the-week issues, eh, Jim?

Eh?!

EH?!?!!?

(Jim is Canadian. And thus wouldn't gloat like the petty American I am.)

As much as I hate to completely agree with Jim, he said just about everything I was going to.

Drat.

I've had several discussions with Will about this issue, even sending him data about the dearth of tricksy Thursdays recently. The NYT used to fool me all the time on Thursdays, to my utter delight. Not so much in the past two years.

Will's perspective is that all he wants is for Thursday to be harder than Wednesday. I respect that he's sticking to his guns.

However, over a long period of time, he's set expectations about Thursday tricksiness. And although he is right that some solvers HATE being tricked, I think Thursday tricksiness is part of what distinguishes the NYT. Not only can it present 1.) easy, smooth, elegant Mondays, but 2.) audacious Sundays with creative themes, 3.) brilliantly executed themelesses, 4.) solid mid-week puzzles, AND 5.) out of the box wonders?

Historically, the NYT has been a "5-tool player". What other publication can say that? I worry that Will is letting this last tool slowly fall by the wayside.

So, what could have been done to Thursday-ify this puzzle? Some would argue that making the grid more challenging — going down to 72 words, perhaps — would help. I say no, as that just makes the solver's hard work feel even less worth the payoff.

Jim's "meta" comment made me think — what if this had been a meta-puzzle (with SODA MIXER dropped from the grid)? "The answer is a nine-letter drink — send in your entry for a chance to win a million dollars!" You bet that would have caught my attention!

Probably the best answer would been to just run this on a Tuesday, though.

Since Jim doesn't get a chance to rebut my rebuttal, I'll finish today out for him: "Jeff has been proven extremely and utterly correct, and Canadia is not."

Pretty sure that's what he would have said, anyway.