New York Times, Friday, April 3, 2015

Another beautiful Berry construction. He seems to be settling into a 66- or 68-word groove, a sweet (and challenging for mere mortals) spot that allows him to incorporate 15ish excellent answers into the grid while keeping gluey bits to near zero. Also appreciated is his continual testing out of new black square patterns, giving us a new experience every time.

The most impressive aspect of this one is that it features two 14-letter entries — squished together! As Doug Peterson once told me, 14-letter answers (and 13s too) are super difficult to build themelesses around, since they constrain your grid in weird ways. That one black square at the end of a 14 starts fixing your skeleton into place almost immediately, reducing much-prized flexibility.

And the way he does it — 1.) choosing to put minimal space in between the 14s and 2.) separating them with a long word. Daunting task! Typically that would result in either a bit of glue to hold it all together or only neutral word right in the middle. But AFRIKANER is sparkly, made even better by giving us interesting trivia about Charlize Theron's background. Very impressive.

The clever cluing is another of Patrick's hallmarks:

• [Impressive way to turn up?] is an impressive way to describe a figure skating jump.
• Trade secrets are played close to the chest. So is a UKULELE.
• [Magazine that's on the market?] refers to Forbes' coverage of the stock market. And crossing FORBES with STOCK EXCHANGES!

I vowed to try to spread the POWs around, but it's tough to do when Patrick consistently turns out such great work. I made some comments about him using few Scrabbly letters to avoid gluey entries, and now he comes back with three Xs, incorporated with silky smoothness? I'm running out of points to make to give a balanced review.

Hmm. Well, there aren't any "current" entries, i.e. this puzzle could have been equally enjoyed by NYT solvers from 10 years ago? As much as I disavow things that kids these days do (SNAPCHAT, BINGE WATCH, SELFIE STICK), perhaps a light touch of that might have been nice?

Ah, I'm stretching. Fantastic work.