New York Times, Tuesday, April 29, 2014

This puzzle was one of two that I constructed with this theme. The original idea of NEWSPAPER COLUMN as the reveal came while I was thinking about vertically themed puzzles, which unlike horizontal themes almost always have their verticality as an integral part of the theme. The other version included "THE" in its three 15-letter themers, as in: THE SUN ALSO RISES; THE GLOBE THEATER; and THE POST EXCHANGE, the latter of which did not pass muster with Will. Readers usually refer to their papers as "the Post", "the Times" etc., so I did like that version, however I had a difficult time coming up with enough suitable theme entries, thus I went with the version you see today.

I like the published version for its four theme entries, several of which are debuts. TIMES TABLE CHART might be a bit weaker than the others, however I think most people are familiar with the term from their elementary school days, or their children's. The rest of the fill is fairly clean, so all in all I'm happy with the result, as I hope you are too.

Finally, thanks to Will for accepting this puzzle and improving some of my underwhelming clues, although I think my clue for 42-Across is a nice bit of misdirection.

NEWSPAPER COLUMN, how meta! Today's puzzle gives us four "literal" (quasi-literal?) themers, each of which starts with a stereotypical name of a newspaper (TIMES, GLOBE, POST, SUN). I'm not sure if I'm missing an added layer? The revealer refers to the entirety of each of the four themers, so perhaps TABLE, CHART, OFFICE, etc. are also the names of famous papers?

Anyway, a nice construction, given the high constraints. Not many people are brave enough to try a 15/12/15/12/15 skeleton, because it's a bear to tackle. (Excuse me, it's an OSA!) As would be expected, there are signs of stress due to all the across entries which span two or more themers: EMERGENTS felt off as a "real thing," and hints of OSA, OSE, ESTER, HIERO, etc. crop up. It's the typical trade-off of more theme / more corresponding crossword glue vs. a less ambitious approach with cleaner fill.

Laying out a grid like this is tough. I bet Jules spent a lot of time considering his crossings even before starting to fill. The only two places I might have tinkered further with: where ORAL B and IRREG sit. The ??A?B and I?R?? sequences are unfriendly letter patterns, so perhaps a little more playing around with black squares could have been beneficial. That IRREG / HIERO section is about the best it could be with the given skeleton, but it did give me a little hitch as I solved. It's so tricky to work with five long themers — it's almost inevitable to have one or more trouble spots in the crossings.

Finally, a beautiful clue, especially nice to see on an early-week puzzle: [Places to put ones dough] for OVENS is fantastic. I thought through SAFES, VAULTS, MATTRESSES, etc. before head-slapping myself. Perfect, absolutely perfect; awesome that the clue didn't need a giveaway question mark which would have foiled all the cleverness.