New York Times, Thursday, November 7, 2013

This puzzle went through three incarnations. The first one had a musical theme. I had (NIGHT)INBANGKOK, (PAC)(PAC)SHAKUR, (DOG)(DOG)(DOG)NIGHT, and (WAY)(WAY)(WAY)(WAY)STREET (a CSNY live album). Will questioned the 2Pac entry (among other things, rightfully so) but said he was interested in the theme. I couldn't find any other musical TWO entries that would fit, so I made a new puzzle with (ARMED)BANDITS, (STAR)(STAR)MOVIES, (CARD)(CARD)(CARD)MONTE, (WAY)(WAY)(WAY)(WAY)STOP.

Again, Will said he liked the theme but felt (STAR)(STAR)MOVIES was kind of arbitrary. It could be two or three or four…would I be interested in trying again? Well, hell yes! So I replaced that with (BIT)(BIT)CROOKS. The only thing I was worried about was the decidedly "criminal" angle the puzzle took. Bandits, crooks, and a three card monte don't really mesh with a four way stop. I looked for a criminal FOUR for a while but found nothing that fit. Hopefully, the bloggers don't take me to task for it too badly :-)

I'm guessing this puzzle is a little hard to break into, but once you catch on to the theme, it goes much quicker. It's a lovely theme idea. Also, I like the entries AUDIOBOOK, STEAMPIPE, and RETURN FIRE.

Every time I think I've seen all the twists and variations on rebus puzzles, another one pops ups to delight me. I really enjoy the moment when extreme frustration flips to the (pleasing) smack to the forehead, and this puzzle did that right. I was stuck trying to figure out ???? STOP, thinking I must have entered something wrong, but when I finally understood what was going on, I smiled. Well done.

Rebus puzzles are a unique construction challenge, auto-fill not being as readily available (to see if a particular grid arrangement is possible or not). It's not too tricky if there are single rebus squares dotted about the grid. The NE corner is a good example, where ??ARMED could be such entries as SWARMED, ALARMED, CHARMED, or UNARMED, and it's possible to use the brute force method of trying each option to see if good fill is achievable or not.

Not nearly as easy with stacked rebus squares. Consider the SW corner, where Alan already makes things as easy as possible (nicely done) by creating a 3x3 block to work with. Even then, since the only reasonable WAY?? entries are WAY IN, WAYNE, WAY TO, and WAY UP, there are only a limited number of combinations to try, each one creating some difficulty. As it is, Alan did pretty well, with only NIE sticking out as unappetizing. The double sets of cheater squares makes for a somewhat unappealing visual image, but it's certainly acceptable.

I was curious about his choice to include the word FAIN. At first glance, it would be easy to dismiss it as a sloppy job of construction since there are so many other options available up there, so I e-mailed Alan to ask him about his rationale. He gave me a thoughtful response, saying that 1.) he wanted the puzzle to be more challenging, and 2.) he found the word fascinating, in that it was utterly commonplace in Shakespearean days but is now largely archaic. It's neat how much tastes vary from constructor to constructor, and I was glad Alan had a reason for incorporating it.

Considering the many constraints, Alan did a nice job executing this strong concept. An enjoyable Thursday.