New York Times, Tuesday, December 24, 2013

David Kahn is the master of tribute crosswords, which he's done quite a few times. He always picks someone worthy of honoring, then manages to pack an incredible amount of theme material into the grid. Because tribute themes tend to be straightforward, I don't care to run this sort of thing too often. But once in a while, for novelty's sake, definitely. TATA (46A) here is a bonus theme answer — an amazing coincidence, I guess. David's clue for TATA did not mention Mandela.

Tribute puzzle to a great man, NELSON MANDELA. It takes a lot of speed and coordination to come up with a good tribute puzzle and push it through the editorial process of a major newspaper. Kevin Der did the last one, a tribute to Steve Jobs, and it was sad to hear some people accuse him and/or Will of vampirishly sitting on a pre-written puzzle. Lest you think David or others morbidly prepare puzzles about people likely to die in the near future, it's not how it happens*.

Will's point is well-taken in regard to tribute puzzles. Once in a while they help solvers remember the life of a truly inspirational person, and factoids like Mandela spending 18 years in ROBBEN ISLAND prison is something worth highlighting. I hadn't known the name of the prison, so I enjoyed learning it. Yes, tribute puzzles can run a bit dry, being more informational than entertaining, but most everything in moderation provides variety. The great thing about doing a regular daily puzzle: if one day isn't to your liking, chances are one in the next day (or two) will be.

Note the parallel long downs at 2-/3-down, and 40-/41-down. Typically this sort of grid arrangement is difficult to fill cleanly, and often requires ugly short fill which makes it seem like a bad trade-off to me. WALLOW IN is a great entry but CIE is something I'd like to see less of. And the SE is nice and clean, although LIES OVER feels a bit out of the language. Trade-offs as always.

A final observation about the subjectivity of "ugly fill". I personally dislike TWOD since you never seen it written as anything other than "2-D", but to my surprise, more than one constructor I've collaborated with has purposefully targeted entries like ONE-K or PG-THIRTEEN because they look so cool written out like that. And I have to admit, something like VH ONE seems perfectly fine — even desirable — to me. To each their own.

*Although I have written and filed a tribute puzzle for myself, which includes the NOBEL PEACE PRIZE, my ELEVEN OSCAR WINS, and the date of my death, which is NEVER because I discovered/invented the FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH. A truly magnificent life. Now back away, vampires.