New York Times, Monday, December 2, 2019

Lynn puts herself in limbo today. Get it, limbo? Because she lowered the bar?

Speaking of lowering the bar, I'll be here all week, folks!

Making a trigram descend is not a novel idea — the one Mary Lou Guizzo and I did a few years ago is just one in this theme class — but Lynn executed it so well. The breakdown:

1. Well-hidden BARs. No BAR OF SOAP or HEATH BAR CRUNCH or DIVE BAR. I had no idea what was going on until I hit the revealer, and that made for a snappy a-ha moment. Lynn even avoided the BAR sound completely. SANTA BARBARA might have been too overt, for instance.
2. Judicious BAR spacing. It is possible to get the BARs on a perfect diagonal line, but that requires either the themers to be in columns 4/6/8/10/12, or 2/5/8/11/14. Both of those present technical difficulties, especially when you have Monday smoothness as a target. Lynn's BARs don't lie on a perfectly straight line, but that's hard to see, even if you use a ruler. Fine compromise.
3. Great execution around themers. Typically, you'd space out CABARETS and LOWER THE BAR by placing the former at the top of the grid and the latter at the bottom, to minimize overlap. Today though, you need to keep both of them toward the bottom. That should cause problems in the SE corner, but Lynn just shrugs it off and produces a silky smooth result, even tossing in some DASHES and SELECT.

When it comes to puzzles featuring down-oriented themers, Will Shortz is laxer than other editors about including long across fill, not worrying about muddying up the theme. Today, I like the inclusion of BOARD GAME. That provides color, important since there's not much room for down-oriented long fill (the five themers take up too much space). I'd have loved for READS UP ON to be as snazzy as BOARD GAME, but what can you do.

Same sentiment for the assemblage of ABBR / NGO / ECTO in the NW corner, but that's a reasonable result, given the level of technical difficulty.

Overall, a Monday offering I'd happily give to a newb. I'd likely have to circle the BARs for them afterward, as they're easy to miss (see below for highlighting), but that only shows them how much a genius me be.