New York Times, Thursday, March 16, 2023

At some point (before seeing one rolling across the highway somewhere between Sedona and Phoenix), TUMBLEWEED became a common phrase in my household. At some other point, I realized it might make a good revealer by parsing TUMBLE as an anagram indicator for WEED. To elevate a standard hidden anagram theme, I used this mechanism so that the WEEDs are rolling not only within their entries, but also visually throughout the grid. Happy Thursday!

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TUMBLEWEEDs rolling through the puzzle, the letters W E E D progressing in such an orderly fashion. Note that the first W starts in the lower right corner (through SPEEDWALKING), and then rotates counterclockwise with each successive themer.

Great themer choices. SPEEDWALKING is so ironic, providing humorous contrast against the TUMBLEWEEDs slowly blowing across the puzzle. TANGLED WEB evokes such imagery, bringing up the Sir Walter Scott poem. And again, it almost hints at a TUMBLEWEED.

I paused at WOULD WE EVER, wondering if it felt arbitrary? It works well for this theme, but I'm not sure we would ever love seeing it as a feature entry in a themeless.

Will Shortz doesn't take a lot of these types of "shapes puzzles," because they often require significant compromises in fill. Stacking ED atop EW, and then adding in three more permutations can get tricky. Luckily, there's enough flexibility in the W E E D letter placements that this particular challenge isn't so bad. Rebecca filled it well, keeping short fill super clean, and even incorporating mid-lengthers like EXPEDIA, OEDIPAL, and TAG TEAM.

The first time I tried to piece together SUHWEET, I was exclaiming anything but "sweet!" I like its slanginess more these days, though I wonder if some solvers will struggle with the SAHL crossing, given that there's no "correct" spelling of SUH-WEET.

Neat imagery, getting across the shapes and motions of TUMBLEWEEDs. I typically enjoy elegance in orderly progressions, but this is one case where more randomness of the W placement might have been cool, better expressing the unpredictable patterns of TUMBLEWEEDs blown at different speeds by varying winds.

Classic Jeff overthinking, too many ideas tumbling around in my head.

Jeff and I sometimes disagree. You've seen tumbleweeds on TV, if not in person, and they maintain their inner structure as they roll (tumble) along, so you don't want "more randomness of the W placement."