New York Times, Saturday, November 9, 2013

I read a story online about a guy who was playing loud rap music in his car one day while driving home from work, when he somehow shifted around on the cellphone in his pocket and accidentally autodialed his own home. His wife answered the call and, when all she heard were the angry-sounding voices in the background, not unreasonably assumed he was in trouble and phoned 911. It took the police to unravel the situation for her, and I imagine it was to rather more than a small dose of embarrassment — or amusement — on everyone's part.

I got a kick out of this story, all the more so when I heard the new-to-me term for it, BUTT-DIALED. The clue for it came to me immediately, which is a little unusual, so I gave it pride of place in my puzzle at 1 Across. I guess all this is a long-winded way of saying that I hope there are lots of crossword lovers who are as readily amused by a clever neologism as I am!

I've known Michael for almost 35 years, ever since my days at Games magazine, where he created the double-crostics. He still does, in fact. A few years ago we met up again in Arizona, where he now lives, when I had a speaking engagement there. This puzzle is a good, solid themeless, with a great 1-Across. That's Mike's clue for it, too.

Strong puzzle today, expertly created. Because of the extra crossings that must be accounted for, stacks of 10s are generally harder than stacks of 9s which are generally harder than stacks of 8s. Today's 10s are all so well done. Very nice long answers with clean crossings. At first I scratched my head about ENID BLYTON, but a quick Google later, I sheepishly admitted to my own ignorance. For me, a (hopeful) writer of children's books, to not know a children's book author who sold more than 600 million books is a travesty. I'll have to add some of her works to my gigantic to-be-read pile.

Not only does Michael use four sets of triple-stacked 10s, but he intersects two of them with BRIEF ENCOUNTERS across the middle. I find that when constructing triple-stacked 10s, I need to keep the constraints low in order to keep ugliness out of my grid. To start off with the heavy constraint of a grid-spanner intersecting two stacks is daunting. And the fact that he pulled it off is impressive.

Note that the two marquee answers, BUTT DIALED (awesome clue!) and SMART PILLS are in the two corners that don't have the grid-spanner running through. There's a reason for that: it's so much easier to tackle a stack of 10s when there are fewer constraints that limit your options.

There are a few weaker areas in the fill, notably in the SW corner. In a themed puzzle, having RETD/DYS/SSNS/OLY wouldn't make me more than shrug, but for a themeless, it's a bit of an eyesore in an otherwise super-clean puzzle. Not to say that a puzzle should be judged by its weakest entries, but as I was solving the very SW corner did feel like it wasn't up to par with the rest of the puzzle.

Nice mental workout today. And I love the "clue echo" of "They use blue books" for two of the 10s. Elegantly done.