New York Times, Tuesday, May 5, 2015

ANDREA: Michael came up with this idea of adding -IE back in 2012 which I thought was super fun; it's the exact kind of puzzle I like. We generated a big list (so big that I wanted to make it a Sunday ... still might!) but MB talked me down, even though there was some hesitation over the ugliness of 14s and I feared some confusion starting 1A with both a theme answer and breaking it in two to fit in all of SWEETGEORGIABROWN.

When MB came up with the solution of matching first word SWEET with the last word's reveal of ADDIE, we were good to go! Lots of back and forth over whether we could use BREAKFASTNOOKIE and GODSWILLIE ... we toyed with the idea of making this X-rated!

Upon acceptance, there was a request to redo the NE corner to get rid of some dreck (FREI, TARE, ILO) so we swapped out PERIMETER for SWAPMEETS and it all came together.

MICHAEL: Coming up with a NYT-quality theme is about the hardest part of puzzle making these days, and yet every week I see a clever theme and think, "Why didn't I — or Andrea and I — think of THAT?" When this one came to mind, I felt sure it wasn't original. After all, ADDIE ("Tatum's 'Paper Moon' role") is almost a chestnut in crosswords, so I felt sure someone would have figured out a list of "plus IE" entries. There was one non-NYT puzzle from many years before in the database, but it didn't have the ADDIE kicker and there was no overlap in our theme entries.

We had a lot of giggles when generating our potential theme entries. Andrea is the one to think of BREAKFAST NOOKIE, and I thought of GOD'S WILLIE (my proposed clue was "Florida?" but Andrea didn't get it) and we thought it might be an Onion puzzle, but those were the only good "blue" entries, so we went with this. It was still fun, even if it was clean!

ADDIE parsed today to "add IE," with wacky results. BAR STOOLIE made me smile at the image of a guy drinking a Bud while ratting on his co-patrons. STOOLIE is such a colorful word, and the STOOL to STOOLIE transformation is fun. SHOCKING PINKIE also worked really well for me, for similar reasons.

It took me a while to figure out what the clue for ADDIE meant. "Two-part" to me implied that there was an extra layer of meaning; a second level of clever wordplay. But I think "two-part" simply means to separate ADDIE into two parts = ADD and IE. Drat.

Interesting start to the puzzle, SWEET linked to GEORGIA BROWNIE through a cross-reference. Many puzzles actually break crossword symmetry (sort of) by putting a revealer in the very last across answer, without a matching theme answer at the very first across answer. To Acme's point, seeing a themer at 1-Across today felt strange, even though technically that made the puzzle adhere to strict crossword symmetry.

Why strange? To me, it was partly the cross-referencing element, as it felt inelegant to kick the puzzle off with an entry that didn't stand alone on its own right. But another part of it was getting too immediately launched into themers. I've grown accustomed to getting eased into a puzzle; a warm-up before trying to crack the theme.

Loved the clue for TEARS. [Eye droppers?] made me grin. And learning a piece of trivia — that REEBOKS were named after RHEBOKS — was fun.

I liked the foreign touches, too. Getting two Asian brand names in AIWA and DAEWOO was fun, and although CASITA may not be in everyone's wheelhouse, it's inferable from the well-known "casa" and the Spanish diminutive "-ita." I also enjoyed MOLOTOV, but I did think it was slightly out of taste to make a joke about a MOLOTOV cocktail.

Finally, I liked that Andrea and Michael added in some long across fill. Usually that isn't done because it can muddy the theme, but today's theme is so apparent that it wasn't an issue. Adding SWAP MEETS and MILLSTONE did necessitate some glue, but I thought they were worth the price of ESSE and A MAD.