New York Times, Friday, March 26, 2021

I've always wanted to try my hand at a triple stack. As I was fooling around with layouts, I noticed that you tend to get a pretty enclosed center when you place black squares around triple stacks in a natural way.

For this puzzle, I wanted to keep the middle as open as possible (which hopefully is more satisfying for the solver). As a trade-off (in terms of construction difficulty), I put in some cheater squares in the corners. It's nice because when you arrange them in threes like that, it's more aesthetically pleasing than if you use two blocks, and it's also considerably easier to fill.

When I began the actual construction, I found I could fill in either stack fairly easily. Connecting the two, however, was proving impossible. I was wondering if maybe I'd bitten off more than I could chew in terms of the open middle. So I bailed and added another cheater square. The result is the grid pattern is a bit chunky. The good news was that it was now quite easy to fill in, and I could be selective in choosing words.

Thanks as always to the editorial team for improving the clues.

Daniel has upped his cluing game in a big way. I'd previously noted his technical excellence but a dullness in his cluing, and it's clear that he's spent a lot of time working on that deficiency. I ticked off eight entertaining clues, more than average for a Friday, and that elevated my solving experience a ton.

CAULKED is a perfect example of fantastic misdirection. [Filled in some gaps] immediately made me think about telling the full story about something. Not needing a telltale question mark makes it so devious! It's referring to a literal process of CAULKING in some gaps.

Repurposed phrases that require a question mark can also be effective. DESERT OASIS as a [Place for a hot date?] and MOAT as [Water under the bridge?] are so fun, using literal interpretations of these phrases. The a-ha isn't as strong because the question mark lets you know right away that something's up, but these two clues are excellent.

Love the clue for SAD FACE, using the emoticon. I wonder when the NYT will start using emoji in crosswords?

INBOX is often clued in a straightforward way. I love the fresh take — even if you don't know "INBOX zero," what an easy introduction to a fun, recent term.

The "erudite words in clue" category can be tricky since you risk making solvers feel dumb. I vaguely know what "provenance" means, but I do know my superheroes! I figured it had to refer to origin stories, thus had to be radiation or mutation. Ah, STAN LEE, the creator of many superheroes! Clever.

Great grid execution, as I've come to expect from Daniel. Such technical skill, filling out this tough 66-worder so cleanly. It's easy to create triple-stacks when you nibble away the corners with black squares, but connecting them with a central spanner (THESIS STATEMENT) ups the difficulty tremendously. I don't mind all the cheaters, not when it allows for such grid-filling flexibility.

If I'd connected more with SERGEANT BILKO or RED OAKS — I bet there will be some folks who love these entries — this would have been my POW! pick for sure.