New York Times, Tuesday, March 8, 2016

I constructed this puzzle just over a year ago. At the time, I was making almost all themelesses, so I decided to construct a themed puzzle for the sake of variety. I'm not sure where the inspiration for this puzzle came from, but I was fortunate to find just enough types of fur to scrape together a theme set. Interestingly, both OTTO PREMINGER and OTTO KLEMPERER would've worked for the center theme entry—I chose OTTO PREMINGER because I felt he would be more familiar to early-week solvers.

I settled on this grid pattern because I wanted to give solvers something a little different from the "several theme entries with a pair of long downs" structure used in most themed 15x15 crosswords these days. I personally use the traditional layout the majority of the time, but when I end up with a theme set that I could go a different direction with, I like to switch things up.

The 74-word grid with all the 7's was definitely a challenge, but I was pleased to work in MESHUGA, JUNIPER, and BLASTER. Keeping the less savory bits to a minimum was significantly harder, but I'm pleased with how the fill turned out overall (with the exception of NATALE, which the Tuesday solver in me is grumbling about!). I hope you enjoy my puzzle.

One of the RAs in my dorm just started solving the New York Times crossword—as of right now, he only attempts Mondays, so I'm hoping this puzzle will convince him to graduate to Tuesday!

FUR COATs today, various types of fur "wrapped" around theme answers. I couldn't decide if I like the visual or not — there's something macabre about seeing the old-fashioned dead fox pelt sitting on someone's shoulders, with the head flopped over. But I think it works well as a crossword theme.

I had no idea that OTTERs are used in furs. Man, people use just about anything! I think I would have preferred to see all types of furs which are super common — OTTER felt out of place compared to FOX, SABLE, and MINK — but there wasn't another type of animal that stood out as ultra-popular for furs. It might have been nice to give a shout-out to the anti-fur solvers out there with FAUX, perhaps "wrapped" around FRENCH CHATEAUX or something?

Some interesting fill today. MESHUGA was only vaguely familiar, and I liked getting the reminder of what a neat word it is. I enjoy Yiddishisms, and this one describing a crazy person is really fun. Very glad that David was careful to make all the crossing entries easy!

STALEMATE, BLASTER, JUNIPER, SHRINE, ST JOHN — David's skill with themelesses comes into play here, helping him give us a lot of good bonus fill without making us suffer through much (any?) crossword glue. Some might complain about THANE, but I think it's a perfectly valid entry. Most anything Shakespearean feels like fair game to me, and the THANE of Fife is no exception. I did appreciate David's care though, making all his crossing entries easy. That touch is much appreciated.

The only region that made me hitch included the HOPPERS / AHH entries. The former feels a bit made-up, and the second I usually think of as AAH. But Merriam-Webster does list "hopper" as ""someone or something that hops," and just like Yiddishisms, expressed sounds have many "correct" spellings. So overall, a well-executed grid.

It was a little creepy to see those FUR COATs wrapped around themers, but after I got over that, I enjoyed seeing the fruits of David's gridmaking skill.