New York Times, Saturday, November 16, 2013

I was inspired to construct this themeless, which was submitted and accepted in August 2012, after observing how much more lively fill I had been able to jam into my 72-word January 6, 2012, puzzle than in some of the more open grids I'd been experimenting with. I also had a lot of 8- and 9-letter seed entries I'd been meaning to use for a while, such as APPLE CARE, FORCE QUIT, and, best of all, I'M TOO SEXY, which I think is a great piece of fill! I was particularly happy with how the top stack turned out, since it contains three entries that are New York Times debuts. Also, I thought it was cool that AEON FLUX and ZAP COMIX fit in the same corner, and I figured that the X?X?? letter pattern would definitely give late-week solvers pause! I'm not overwhelmingly fond of ALE YARD or DREW U, but both have been used in other puzzles, and I like the surrounding fill in those areas a lot. Enjoy!

David Steinberg continues to amaze me. I accepted this puzzle last year, when David was still only 15. On top of that, how does he even know the things that are in his puzzles? For example, I'M TOO SEXY, which is making its debut today, came out four years before David was even born. The grid is packed with good stuff, including DOUBLE BED, FORCE-QUIT, BAD ADVICE, ZAP COMIX, and OH BABY. I did have to be careful editing the lower-left corner, which has a pile-up of proper names at 23D, 35D, 36D, and 37D. So I tried to clue the crossing answers more helpfully than I usually would on a Saturday. You're welcome.

Amusing how one of David's least favorite entries, ALEYARD, was something I quite liked. Perhaps it brings back the days of drinking many an ALEYARD out of a gigantic glass boot in college. (Don't ask because I don't remember.)

Some strong entries today, my favorite being FORCE QUIT on top of BAD ADVICE. It's tough to include three strong entries in a 9-letter stack, and it's too bad INSPECTOR is a bit of pedestrian fill in that corner. But a neat clue, "Case worker", misdirecting toward a social worker, added a lot of life. And I didn't know ZAP COMIX but what a cool name. R. Crumb was such a pioneer in his time, I wish ZAP COMIX had gotten a bigger following. It was also fun to uncover OH BABY and HAYSEEDS in the puzzle; very amusing.

For those of you wondering, the APPLE CARE clue refers to Apple's service program for their MacBook Air and new iPad Air products. I'm a little embarrassed at how long I had APPLE CORE in there, having convinced myself that the apple's core somehow improves air quality. I convince myself of many stupid things.

As David mentioned, DREW U isn't great, as it only gets less than 100K hits on a Google search (when put in quotes). I don't imagine alums call it DREW U, but I could be wrong about that. And the fact that it crosses DER and RELOAN and is adjacent to AERO makes that region a little unsightly, but as with most themeless puzzles, there will be trade-offs. It's very, very hard to keep all the PRS and ALER kind of things out of a grid.

I really enjoying seeing fresh, new entries introduced into the NYT xw. Keep 'em coming, David! Amazing to think that he probably has twice as many years ahead of him in his crossword construction career than I do.