New York Times, Saturday, April 12, 2014

Anything can inspire a themed puzzle. My inspiration for an unthemed puzzle is usually an anchor word or two, and for this market fresh is better. I've enjoyed "The Colbert Report" since its debut, so COLBERT BUMP at 1-Across made a dandy debut entry. GEOCACHING at 27-Down is another debut entry. I've enjoyed the hunt several times. You can read about the activity on — what a shock — Wikipedia. MYCOLOGISTS in the SE corner is another debut item, and so are BACK BENCH, MAO SUIT, HEATHERY, and BINGHAM. DARK STARS is new, although DARK STAR has been used before clued using the racehorse or the sci-fi film. Likewise, the singular entry CONSULATE has appeared before.

I supplied two clues for every entry; Will kept many of them, tweaked some more while retaining the sense of my offering, and — what a shock — rewrote many.

Quite a lot of good stuff packed into the grid today. As always, a big part of themeless construction is the race to debut a nice entry. I'm surprised that GEOCACHING took so long to make its first appearance, especially considering its popularity among the puzzling crowd. I hadn't heard about it until a few years ago but really enjoyed my first time at it, finding something hidden in the local arboretum. I really like the entry and am guessing it's a keeper; something that will stand the test of time.

It's too bad that these newer entries aren't well-known enough across the country that a clever clue can be used. Too often, these freshies need to be clued with something like you'd see out of the dictionary, because being too clever would befuddle a large majority of Will's solvers. Similarly, the COLBERT BUMP is such a recent term that anything but the definitional [Popularity boost due to ...] would be way too tough. As it is, I could barely suss it out (I don't watch Colbert). Perhaps it will stand the test of time, but if I had to pick, I think GEOCACHING is the one people will still recognize 10 years from now. COLBERT will certainly be remembered, especially given his taking over for Letterman, but COLBERT BUMP... well, we'll see.

Mel does a great job packing in all sorts of stuff, my favorites being MR ROARKE (I snuck in episodes of Fantasy Island as a kid) and DARK STARS (the nerd in my shining through — or not (pun intended)). It's a combination of great stuff at the price of a few not-as-great entries, the usual sort of ATOI, ERAT, SSNS kind of stuff.

Stacked 11's (in the NW and SE) are very tough arrangements. The longer they are, the more likely there will be compromises. I like the 11's themselves (EVER SO SORRY is quite nice, and I personally really like MYCOLOGISTS) but it's tough to not get an URU or ACC or ASCI across those long stacks.

Additionally, using stacked 11's means blocks of 3's (in the NE and SW). Often that's no issue whatsoever, but a combination of random Roman numeral (LII) and ENG made that SW stick out a bit for me.

Finally, a beautiful Saturday clue which stood out today: [They often provide illumination in galleries]. I went through ARC LAMPS, LED LIGHTS, SPOTS, any sort of lighting options I could reel off. What a beautiful a-ha moment when I realized that the type of illumination (informational) was totally different than I had been thinking. I would love an entire Saturday puzzle full of these!