New York Times, Tuesday, November 4, 2014

Is this puzzle a little hard for a Tuesday? The test-solvers thought so. But once you catch onto the clever theme, it goes faster. The clues are almost all Joel's. He's become a first-class clue-writer — precise, colorful, imaginative, sly on occasion, and modern without overdoing it. A real pleasure.

Another solid offering from Joel, this one reinterpreting common phrases as words from a critic. Exceedingly smooth given the five themers and all the long fill he treats us to.

Really nice use of the pinwheel arrangement, which is often easier to fill cleanly than normal horizontal theme layouts, since it separates four themers into quadrants that can be filled one at a time. I personally like to use it, but only when the theme is readily apparent, so I can toss in a lot of long fill without worrying about confusing a solver with regard to what's theme and what's fill. Given that the themers are so distinct from the rest of the puzzle, Joel does well to take full advantage of the pinwheel today, tossing in bonus long entries all over the place — while doing it with sparkling cleanliness. These days I expect to get at least one pair of long fill entries, and two pairs is a nice bonus, helping a puzzle to stand out. To get three pairs (including THE WAVE and ALL DONE!), with virtually no crossword glue, is a real treat.

I often think about consistency when assessing a puzzle. I thought Joel had struck gold when I first uncovered LOVE BITES and MOON ROCKS, as both start with a rocker and end with a word of commentary. So it confused me when I got to BIG STINKS, making me wonder if BIG was some rocker I didn't know. In general, I'd prefer to have everything from the same category, or everything different, but not a mixture. Even switching MOON to reference Warren MOON would have made things copacetic for me.

And perhaps today is a case of "less is more." As much as I admire the difficulty level of working in the fifth themer, HOUSE / RULES, I found it almost a bit dilutive, detracting from the simplicity of having themers around the perimeter. I think I would have preferred just four themers, with half of them bad reviews and half of them rave, or all one or the other.

But overall, another admirable, audacious construction from Joel; a fun solve with great bonus material.