New York Times, Thursday, February 18, 2016

My day job is ophthalmology, so you might think this "I" surgery puzzle would be right in my wheelhouse. That was not really the case, as it was a long hard process. The first version of this puzzle looked much like this version, but the only entries that used the I's were the four horizontal corner entries. Anna Shechtman (Will's assistant at the time) wrote back and said Will was not overly impressed with the four entry tie-in, but if I could do the trick with all 24 horizontal entries that touch the I's "that would be cool". This was great news, sort of, and I remember spending a minute wondering whether the lovely and talented Anna thought it would be cool, or just Will. Hmmm...

The puzzle probably seems like it would be nearly impossible to construct, but it actually was pretty easy once I realized I could utilize "heavy bars" like the ones used in the puzzle of 12/19/13, and as mentioned by David Steinberg in his constructor blurb of 1/1/16.

Will and Joel decided not to use my idea to clue BIG at 40-Across as "like two of the letters used in this puzzle", but Nancy Schuster (one of Will's testers) told me she would NOT have wanted that revealer. Hope you experienced a nice aha moment when the Big I's came into focus. Matt Ginsberg, if you are out there, I'd be interested to know how Dr. Fill (crossword solving software) did on this puzzle...

What a great idea, the giant black "I"s in the grid sneakily playing a role in a crazy number of across answers. In case you missed the idea, check out 1-Across. The answer looks so wrong as ADELPH … and that's because it is! It needs that I formed out of black squares to become ADELPHI. Similarly, at 7-Across, TEM ONE has to be wrong, yeah? That's because it's really (the giant black I) + TEM ONE = ITEM ONE. A gem of an idea.

Interesting commentary from Bruce — I agree with Will that only a few across answers using those "I"s wouldn't have been very elegant. I appreciate Bruce taking up the challenge to go for broke by requiring EVERY SINGLE ACROSS ANSWER THAT RUNS INTO A BLACK I TO USE IT. That's a really tough challenge, especially considering that relatively few words end in I (compared to E, S, T, etc.).

I felt like the ones like (I)CEMAKER, (I)DBADGE and HOT CHIL(I) worked best, because 1.) they're really nice phrases in themselves, and 2.) they look completely wrong without the I. Typically I find "wrong-looking" themers a bit clunky, but in this case, it's perfect. Answers like JAMES I and LIED don't feel nearly as nice — I totally missed that it's actually JAMES II who was England's last Catholic king, not JAMES I, since the latter looks perfectly fine.

Of course, I'd prefer to keep gluey bits like ICAL out of any grid, and especially out of any themers, but some of that is probably bound to happen given the giant constraints of the grid. I mean, when a full 24 (!) of your across answers are "special," there's bound to be some strain in the form of EFTS (young newts), ERST, ENCE, etc.

I really liked the concept here, and if all the "thematic" material had been as good as SAMURA(I) even, it would have been an easy choice for the POW! Unfortunately, there was enough of the PONT(I) and TRO(I) and the aforementioned that it felt like there was some potential left on the table. Still, a very fun solve.