New York Times, Friday, December 9, 2016

This is an old-ish one...I want to say it's been between one and two years since acceptance.

At any rate, this was an experiment in big, bulky corners. As with my last themeless puzzle, I think many of the entries came out as more neutral than exciting. My whopping 2+ years of "constructing experience" tells me that the 7's combined with the open space (read as: lack of entry choice flexibility) are mostly to blame. If I had started with some fun colloquial phrases for the 15's instead of you-know-it-or-you-don't proper nouns, maybe they could have added some zest. (Fifteenth identical) note to self: use less proper nouns and more hip, in-the-language words or phrases. Bonus points for portmanteau words!

Criticisms aside, I did like a lot of my and Will's/Joel's clues on this one. My favorite Dave originals are 50A and 52A (What?! Adam Smith had a sardonic wit? Who knew?). My favorite moderately edited clue is 22A (original clue = [Like tritium]; the alliteration seems to make it pop to my ear). However, [Web feed?], a Will/Joel original, wins best clue of the puzzle, hands down. Honorable mentions go to 19D, 28D, and 35D.

Tough to get down to 64 words in a themeless without requiring some compromises. I enjoyed this puzzle, although there weren't as many multi-word, snazzy answers as I like. MELISSA MCCARTHY is fun (hilarious in "Bridesmaids") and CHICAGO SUN-TIMES always makes me think of one of my idols, Roger Ebert. ALOHA OE (so weird to see that -AOE ending!) was nice too.

One-word entries can also sing, but I personally find them harder to gush over. PYREX, VACUUMS, ANTHRAX, SHIMMY, NOONERS pique my interest, but not so much for more workmanlike entries like SCIENCE, DICTATE, PERCENT, ASCEND, ITERATE, etc. that I hear every day. Personal taste, but those one-worders tend to feel more like neutral filler.

Great clues can elevate these more boring one-worders, though. I loved the SCIENCE clue, for example: "The great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition" is something I wish all people would remember in this day and age — it's so hard to argue with someone who discounts SCIENCE.

And ITERATE is better with its clue: [Say, say, say?]. It's not perfect, since "say, say, say" isn't as strong a phrase as I would like (how about employing the song "Sing Sing Sing" for the clue!), but it gets to the concept of ITERATE obliquely and playfully.

Smooth results in terms of short fill. I'm impressed that I had to work to pick out any gluey entries. ASEA is sometimes derided, but I think it's perfectly fine, if a bit old-timey. ALPES might be the only culprit, as the semi-esoteric foreign word. That's great work for a 64-word themer.

Ultra-low word count puzzles often rely on odd words formed by RE- prefixes or -ER suffixes, often have a ton of neutral filler that doesn't excite me much, and/or rely on a ton of crossword glue to hold everything together. It's a mark of success that I didn't actually realize that this was an ultra-low word count effort until I looked at it more carefully. Nice craftsmanship, if not super exciting.