New York Times, Friday, November 5, 2021

Very excited to be appearing in the NYT again! While this is my second themeless published, it was the first themeless I ever made — so it will always hold a special place in my heart.

This was initially seeded with MAKE LOVE NOT WAR, which I was surprised to see had never made its way into an NYT puzzle before. In retrospect, I wish I had a better 15-Down to complement it (CASSETTE PLAYER isn't necessarily the snazziest entry), but hopefully that is made up in the solver experience with the great clue (full credit to the editors for that clue).

My original submission was rejected by the editing team, who said they would be open to taking a second look with some updates to the northwest and southwest corners. I was happy to find suitable replacements that fit in without much rework.

Hope you enjoy!

When our kids were younger, Jill and I sang various songs from Jesus Christ SUPERSTAR to them at bedtime. Why? DON'T OVERTHINK IT; the catchy melodies and lyrics simply made it something fun to sing.

Maybe I shouldn't be surprised that Tess calls Jake "Judas."

Some will wonder, aren't SUPERSTAR and STARDOM egregious dupes? Short answer is no. Will Shortz calls this a "quasi-dupe," where the word STAR is part of other phrases, and he doesn't care that much about quasi-dupes. However, he generally won't allow the offender by itself — in this case, STAR and SUPERSTAR would be a no-no.

That might seem arbitrary, but all "dupe rules" are arbitrary. Some solvers have complained to me about things like MOVIESTAR crossing START ME UP. This seems ludicrous, as there's no shared etymology. People feel how they feel, though. So much of crosswording is subjective.

Having a third star in ONSTAR should be grounds for a revision, but then again, this isn't the first time Will has let this sort of thing slide. Only a few solvers kvetched to me about the three BASEs; I imagine it'll be the same today.

DON'T OVERTHINK IT is right.

I enjoyed much of Joseph's mid-length material, rarely an easy task to squeeze a ton of juice out of these slots. ODD DUCK features the interesting triple D, Jake wants to be Optimus Prime of the AUTOBOTs when he grows up (Tess is his Megatron), and YALE LAW / RAGTOPS are both sparkly entries.

If it hadn't been for his picture, I'd have guessed Joseph was much older, what with MAKE LOVE NOT WAR and CASSETTE PLAYER, but it's neat to see younger folks embracing interests of different generations. I wasn't as keen as all the EINS ESTE HWYS ICI glue required to hold the longer material together, but there was enough color here and there to make it a worthwhile solve.