New York Times, Saturday, December 15, 2018

Just gonna retweet my and Doug's constructor notes from last month, adding that The Inkubator can now be found here, and that the house clues I most enjoyed in this one are 24-Across, 40-Across, 25-Down, and 26-Down. Happy holidays!

Talk about CHUTZPAH! Few constructors dare to dip into quad-stack territory; those 4x10 regions in the SW / NE are so daunting. Triple-stacks are hard enough to get snazzy and smooth. Adding that fourth entry makes them so much harder. Maybe even an order of magnitude.

There are almost always trade-offs necessary to make these quads work. I think there's a case to be made that certain "neutral" words like UNDERSTOOD and SUPPRESSED can be made great via clever clues, but to me, it's hard to compare them to stuff like BEER COOLER, which is both a sizzling entry in its own right, and also has the potential for a great clue.

I'm hesitant to see PBR (Pabst Blue Ribbon) or worse yet PBRS in a grid, since if you've never had one, you might feel like it's a total guess. But I liked the crossing of PBRS and BEER COOLER.

ULEE not so much …

Similar trade-off in the NE, with BIOL and ATTA holding everything together. I like the balance that Erik struck, both corners showing two gluey short entries and a neutral long entry or two = a very reasonable price for such greatness in CIGAR SHOP / SEASON PASS, and PIED PIPER / CHUPACABRA.

I also appreciated how Erik didn't stop with the two big corners but continued to weave in a lot more long entries — HOTEL BAR crossing MUST BE NICE crossing RENT A COP, for example.

I used to think the SIT N SPIN was a universal thing — I spent much time on one as a kid — but I've had enough people give me head-scratching reactions that I'm not so sure. I wonder if CD DRIVE will elicit similar responses from the kids these days.

Hey dad, what's that shiny circular thing?

(sigh)

I'm generally not a fan of 4x10 constructions because of the trade-offs they require, but today's is one of the better ones I've seen.