New York Times, Tuesday, May 10, 2016
This puzzle:
Rows: 15, Columns: 15 Words: 76, Blocks: 38 Missing: {QXZ} This is puzzle # 15 for Mr. Kwong. NYT links: Across Lite PDFMy frequent collaborator Kevan Choset had a similar theme back in 2006, so I have to give a shoutout to him. But after BIRDMAN won the Oscar for Best Picture I couldn't resist. Sorry Kevan!
I wanted to stay away from his entries and put in new ones. Had to overlap with FINCH, but 5 new ones ain't bad. Was pleased that I got 7 themers in there, but at the expense of some fill.
Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed it!
BIRDMAN hinting at "men with last names that are birds." I've seen this type of theme before, but I like the freshness of using the 2014 movie as a revealer.
Most of the guys I had seen before in this last name = bird capacity, although EARL WEAVER made me scratch my head. I sort of follow baseball, just like I sort of follow most everything to keep up (sort of), but this one was a mystery to me — not only his name, but that a WEAVER is a bird. Apparently it is!
David finds an amazing six examples, which is pretty cool. I did find it odd that BIRDMAN wasn't the last themer though — its placement as number six out of seven is curious. It is true that using a seven-letter theme revealer in row 13 is tough — that creates big corners, hard to fill — but it would have avoided the inelegance of hitting the revealer … and then getting one single more themer.
Seven themers is tough to work with. Gluey fill in almost inevitable where themers overlap. David does quite well in the center of the puzzle, with STUF being the only even slightly wonky answer (it can only be clued one way, really). But he does this by using a ton of black squares to section it off, which chokes down puzzle flow.
Given that the theme quickly became apparent, I appreciated David's efforts to include bonus fill to hold my interest. There's not much room to work in long fill, but SEESAWS, EARDRUMS, SAVANNAH, even BALCONY adds to the feeling of a satisfying solve.
This is a prime example of trade-offs in construction. Seven themers can be hugely impactful and impressive, but it's so difficult to avoid a slew of IN SO, SADO, ILEA, INANER, ROI, ANO/DIAS, etc. All minor, nothing glaring, but as a whole, it's quite a bit.
1 A | 2 B | 3 C | 4 S | 5 C | 6 L | 7 O | 8 W | 9 N | 10 I | 11 N | 12 S | 13 O |
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14 H | A | H | A | 15 A | E | G | I | S | 16 S | E | E | R |
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17 S | L | A | V | 18 E | A | R | L | W | 19 E | A | V | E | R |
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20 C | T | A | 21 S | K | E | D | 22 D | I | A | S | ||||
23 J | O | H | N | 24 J | A | Y | 25 D | A | D | A | 26 S |
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27 I | N | A | N | E | R | 28 T | 29 O | 30 N | Y | H | A | W | K |
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31 M | Y | M | A | N | 32 S | A | A | B | 33 N | S | A |
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34 H | A | 35 R | T | C | R | A | 36 N | 37 E | ||||||
38 E | 39 N | 40 S | 41 O | U | I | S | 42 O | A | 43 S | 44 E | 45 S |
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46 T | O | M | 47 S | 48 W | I | F | T | 49 M | O | R | A | L | E |
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50 C | R | E | P | E | 51 B | I | R | D | M | A | N |
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52 I | L | E | A | 53 M | 54 O | O | G | 55 R | A | P | ||||
56 P | E | T | E | R | 57 F | I | N | C | H | 58 U | R | S | 59 A |
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60 A | G | E | D | 61 E | L | E | C | T | 62 M | I | E | N |
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63 W | A | D | S | 64 N | O | S | E | Y | 65 S | A | D | O |
Answer summary: 1 unique to this puzzle, 1 unique to Shortz Era but used previously.
Found bugs or have suggestions?