New York Times, Thursday, February 27, 2014

Inspiration for this puzzle came from my 30-year-old son Marc (whom Will bounced on his knee at my home about 27 years ago), who sells items on eBay for his London office-salvage business. One of his recent items was a plaque with the theme message, for which only the original WE'LL needed to be changed to WE WILL to break perfectly. By dumb luck, Will was short of non-rebus Thursdays, so it appears today only 19 days after he OK'd it.

I clue puzzles hard by having as many "new" clues as possible, requiring some thought and reasoning to solve, rather than ones that can be solved at sight by solvers with good memories. Most of the new factual clues here come from Internet research, such as 52A, 63A, 8D and 34D.

An added requirement to my harder clues is that only general knowledge should be required to understand them, even if the fact itself isn't well-known. For example, anyone from New York should know that AMAZIN (14A) is associated with the Mets, so it shouldn't be surprising that a website all about the Mets is called Amazin' Avenue.

One other clue nicety here that might not be obvious: a factual balance between new pop culture (like 18A, 55A), older (40A, 25D), and historical (42A, 10D). I made sure that all my factual references could be quickly and authoritatively verified with Google, and passed that info along to Will with the puzzle.

While some of my new clues for uncapitalized answers also come from Web research ("Time-stretching" for 41D SLO-MO came from a Wikipedia article), I can often think of something fresh by just letting my mind wander. That's where I got 56A and 1D, for instance.

Will is obviously on-board with all of this thinking, since he kept about 75% of my clues, including all the ones cited above.

In the 1,000+ crosswords I've constructed and the 5,000+ I've edited (for the New York newspaper Newsday and Puzzle Social) since adopting Crossword Compiler in 2000, I've found that with careful grid patterning it's never necessary to use obscurities, even for wide-open grids such as the 72-worder here. This sometimes requires that I check Google News and Google Books, to be sure that words I think are in common current use actually are. I look forward to the day where this fussiness will be standard procedure for constructors, so we can finally bid the OLEOs, OLIOs and ANILs of crosswordese an unfond farewell.

Anyone wishing to throw bouquets or stones at me, or a constructor wishing to learn more about my "crud-free" approach to puzzlemaking, is welcome to contact me through my website.

Quote puzzles have an incredible ability to draw out strong reactions from solvers, some people loving them, some people calling for the guillotine. Well, I say haters gonna hate, solvers gonna solve. Not totally sure what that means, but it sounds catchy.

A veteran of the crossword world steps in for his first NYT puzzle in quite some time. Stan edits the Newsday crossword, and often comes up with the hardest puzzle each week, his "Saturday Stumper." I wrote one Stumper for him and tried to race Dan Feyer on it. But Stan had upped the difficulty so much, I barely solved it, having to guess in a few places (chalk up another victory to Dan; no surprise).

The quote today is amusing, although I found it slightly too easy in that I was able to guess the quip with a lot of blanks still out. And these days quote puzzles have become a bit overdone, requiring a truly hilarious or surprising quote in order to make it stand out. I did like today's, but I didn't personally find it to be something I'd tweet. Look at me, joining the 20th century! (Twitter: @JeffChenWrites)

I found the grid very interesting, though. Very unusual to see three black squares stacked in each of the corners. These "cheater squares" are a bit unsightly, but they are necessary when putting a 13 (or 14) letter entry in rows 3 and 13. Doing this does let Stan spread out his four theme entries so that it's easier to make a low word-count grid (72). And there is something visually cool about seeing those rectangular blocks. Perhaps it's just the novelty of it, but they started to grow on me. I wouldn't want them very often but to see them once in a while is a nice change of pace (just like a quote puzzle!).

One trademark of Stan's "Saturday Stumpers" is that he's very careful to avoid easy-to-answer three letter entries like SST, ESE, etc. And true to form, look at the care he's put into this grid: very few subpar entries. Maybe REDRAFT is the least appealing piece of fill? And not a single three-letter entry is a stinker. That's very good work. Granted, there isn't much with a "wow" factor, perhaps SODA POP or PEAPODS as the snappiest entries. But that's what often comes with a tight, clean grid.

I appreciate both ends of the spectrum: Stan's ultra-clean but not as snazzy approach on one end, and other constructors' wildly fresh but with a necessary sprinkling of crosswordese on the other.

While I have the greatest respect for Stan, both as an editor and a person, I don't completely agree with his puzzle philosophy. Specifically, I don't think crosswords have to avoid all difficult words. A crossword consists of two parts, apart from any theme — the grid and the clues. In my opinion the challenge can come from either part. Completing an interesting difficult answer can be just as rewarding to the solver as solving an interesting difficult clue.

By an "interesting difficult" answer I don't mean an insect genus or a 50-mile-long river in Russia. I mean something that's stimulating, amusing and/or useful to know. Honest people can disagree about what words meet this criterion. But presumably someone who likes crosswords also likes learning words and exploring the richness of the English language. This means that crosswords don't need to be limited to the 10,000-20,000 most common words — which can get overused besides.

Another problem with Stan's philosophy is that it can lead to blandness of vocabulary and overcaution in themes. I don't judge a puzzle by its worst entries. I judge it by its overall effect. An ambitious theme may require compromises. A great entry or combination of entries may require compromises. I think average solvers judge a puzzle on its balance. I do, too.

So I admire Stan's "fussiness" and attention to using only common vocabulary. I'm happy to publish crosswords of this sort. I just don't think every crossword has to be like this.