New York Times, Saturday, May 5, 2018

The long seed entry, 37-A, was inspired by a scene near the end of the old Willy Wonka movie. Although, as I later learned watching the clip on YouTube, Gene Wilder never actually says this line — he only says, "Good day, sir!" It's one of those "Luke, I am you father," "Play it again, Sam" lines. Still a good entry though, in my opinion.

I might have set a personal record with this puzzle for "Most Submitted Clues Surviving Edit." Being 65% math nerd, I'm particularly proud of the clues for 24-Across and 26-Down.

Can't remember when I've loved so many feature entries so much. These flat-out delighted me:

• HODGEPODGE
• ENDLESS LOOP (programming term)
• I SAID GOOD DAY, SIR!
• HIGH FALUTIN
• GET UP AND GO
• GO HALFSIES
• WHY I OUGHTA

Every one of the seven 9+ letter entries wasn't just great — they were amazing. I don't think I've ever felt like that with a themeless. Just I SAID GOOD DAY SIR would have almost been enough, but to get seven ultra-colorful headliners in one puzzle? Whoa!

I had a long internal debate, part of me needing to give this one the POW! based on the snazz factor alone. So many memorable entries!

But I have this annoying constructor yin to my delighted solver's yang. I've learned to stomp it down to ignore the minor stuff like ENTR. And SOREHEAD … is that something people actually call each other?

But a single ADOZE makes that dark side tremble mightily.

Then MONAD?

And SPUMED?

HULK SMASH!

Note how each of those three uglies exhibits the alternative vowel-consonant pattern, so helpful to constructors. It's not a surprise that entries like this tend to make it into crosswords.

I know, I know, some of this was necessary to make all the goodness happen. SPUMED / MONAD is in a big region highly constrained by GO HALFSIES / ENDLESS LOOP. Maybe a cheater square at the S of SPUMED would have helped. But corner black squares can be unsightly.

Terrific clue for PARABOLA, although non-math types might not have appreciated its brilliance. PARABOLAs have a focus, i.e., the point where blah blah blah I don't remember exactly, but it's a great misdirect using the word "focus."

When I step back and look at the big picture, this puzzle contains so much greatness that it deserves a POW! It's a shame that just a few short entries sadly held me back.

(sounds of struggle) DIE, YIN! BWA HA HA HA YOU STUPID FLAW-POINTING-OUTER PEDANT, I'M GIVING OUT TWO POW!S THIS WEEK!

(Gotta keep all you readers on your toes every once in a while!)