New York Times, Monday, December 22, 2014

It's often hard to remember what actually triggered a puzzle. In this case, I think I was pondering "crossings," like RR crossings — which didn't seem to have much of a future. But PED looked promising, and here is the result. My serendipity moment came with cluing the center revealer, when I hit on the link between the PEDXINGs being at corners and at corner locations in the puzzle. It was submitted in August of 2013.

Will made a slight grid change. I'd submitted the puzzle with INTEL at 31D and SCADS at 32D. And not surprisingly, he changed a fair number of clues. I usually balk at too-obvious gimmes (like Will's "Where China and India are" for ASIA at 14A), so my clues probably tend toward Tuesdayish. I'll try to mend my ways with future submissions.

My only quibble with a clue change is for SALE at 58D. As I write this the week before Christmas with sale inserts spilling out of the paper, "Post-Christmas store event" just doesn't seem quite on target.

For all of you devotees who keep us constructors in business, here's to a 2015 full of great puzzling!

Nice start to the week from Lynn, featuring four PED XINGs, literally the PED trio of letters crossing in four corners (as highlighted below; so nicely symmetrical!). Fun to have the theme be opaque until hitting that revealer.

I liked the touch of having most of the PEDs be part of long answers, and a few of them related to PED XINGs — I pictured a driver hitting the BRAKE PEDAL upon coming to a PED XING sign. (SPED AWAY … well, we won't go there.) SHARP EDGE and PIPE DREAM are both strong phrases in their own right, and they do a fine job of hiding their respective PEDS.

The grid is nice and clean, too, just an ERGS and an ESO in the liabilities column. It's a nice balance for a Monday puzzle; some sparkle but also smooth as silk.

I might personally have liked a little more ambition in the theme execution, though. I appreciated the long phrases hiding the PEDs — such nice NW and SE corners!) — and I might have given this the POW if all eight of the phrases hiding PED were as long and colorful as PIPE DREAM. Given that PEDXING takes up important real estate in the middle of the grid, that would have been really tough, forcing all sorts of extra constraints, with quite a bit of overlap/interlock between themers. (Maybe a set of themers intersecting PED XING, for example?) This would have almost definitely caused more compromises, but I think the extra snazz could have been worth it. I don't mind a handful of liabilities if I can get more pizzazz.

Finally, loved the clue for SNIT, a playful one simple enough for novice solvers to comprehend and appreciate. [Pique performance?] = a wonderful repurposing of "peak performance." Great to see that type of wordplay in an early-week puzzle.