New York Times, Friday, May 6, 2016

NYT crossword fanatics may recall that I had a puzzle in February last year that used a similar figure-8 grid. While I was constructing that one, I was forced to add cheaters to the 7th and 9th rows to get clean fill, which ended up leaving me vaguely dissatisfied with the shape of the puzzle. This ended up nagging at me so much that I thought I'd have another go at filling the grid I really wanted to use, and this time managed to succeed. Happily, Will liked the second puzzle too, and I got to sleep well at night again after it was accepted.

It will come as no surprise that 12-Across was my seed entry at the top. Given that the current constructing community skews young and geeky, it's a little strange that the entry is only making its NYT debut at the start of Season 6 of the show — might be the awkward 13-letter length.

Played around a lot with the middle of the grid, going through about 4 or 5 versions before I was finally happy with what I had. I especially wanted everything going through CJ CREGG (another seed) to be unambiguous — you're out of luck with that name if you weren't a West Wing fan.

Clue I was saddest to lose: I originally had 41-Across as {Fry in England}, but Mr. Colbert took his place. Apologies to all my QI-loving friends.

Fun to get a change of pace in a figure-eight grid. Solving it was a bit like completing a lap on a racing track.

Given that Julian only left himself six long slots to work with, it was important to use those to his best advantage. Great triple in CARD CATALOG/GAME OF THRONES/GOT INTO HOT WATER. And MAKE THE BEST OF IT/DO A GOOD TURN were nice too. RECRIMINATION isn't bad, but I wouldn't classify it as an asset — it feels a bit less interesting than the other five. Still, five out of six is pretty darn good.

There are a ton of 7-letter entries to work with, and Julian does pull some extra bonuses out of those slots. I particularly liked the hard to parse ones, like CAT SCAN, US STATE, SUNDOWN (which I was sure was ___NOON). I also enjoyed learning more about NOGUCHI, whose name (but not work) I recognized.

I wasn't as big a fan of CJ CREGG. I'm sure "The West Wing" fans will enjoy seeing her name in the NYT crossword, but it was a lot of work to piece together ([Tally] = AGREE, in the form of "make sure the votes tally up") with little payoff for this non-viewer. I do like the crazy CJCR start though, and I really appreciate Julian's efforts to make every crossing very gettable. Made me want to read up on the character — turns out she's quite a complex person.

It's tough to make any triple-stack both snazzy and clean, and the longer the entries get, the harder that task is. Julian does end up with some ATH, ON AT and OTRA, but that's not too shabby considering he's working with very long entries. Those sets of three black squares in each of the four corners makes the task hugely easier — wise choice to employ them. They also give the puzzle a really pretty aesthetic, without making it look like too much of the grid was eaten away.