New York Times, Friday, May 15, 2015
| Author: | David Phillips |
| Editor: | Will Shortz |
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To be frank, I was fairly shocked when Will accepted this puzzle in May 2014. (I sent it off in January of the same year for those curious about the publication timeline.)
After Will had accepted three of my first seven themeless attempts — two of which [the MTV.../GRAND... and WIISPORTS themelesses] have already published — I tried experimenting with different ways to build themeless puzzles. In my last NYT themeless, I locked the black squares in place first and then scrambled to find nice fill for the center that would also enable clean corners; however, with this puzzle, I started with the NW stack and tried moving a few black squares around until some goodies (GIGAHERTZ, ERUDITE, K.C. JONES, RAM INTO [with the vague clue]) locked in place.
This technique produced a pretty nice, albeit proper, NW section but eventually led to a more difficult time in the South — STRASSE, ATTIRER, IN SCALE, NTS, and AD-AWARE standing out as particularly irksome entries.
As always, Will and Joel did an awesome job spiffing up the clues. My favorites among their edits are [Goes one step too far?] for TRESPASSES, [Class for model students?] for ART, [200 at a 500] for LAPS, and [Grp. of 300 people?] for PBA. I'm also glad my clues for NAP, MAWS, DATA PLANS, and OLIVE TREE could stick around for publication. Unfortunately, my original clue for KIM JONG-UN, [Whom Dennis Rodman called "a friend for life" in 2013] didn't make the cut.
On a completely unrelated note, I really hope North Korea doesn't hack NYTimes.com today.
For anyone who's curious, David's original clue for KIM JONG-UN was "Whom Dennis Rodman called 'a friend for life' in 2013." The reason I didn't keep the clue is ... it's not quite accurate. What Rodman actually said was that he, Rodman, was Kim's "friend for life." I didn't see a good way to reword the clue to make it correct, and it wouldn't have been as interesting the correct way anyway.
KIM JONG UN tied right to "The Interview," love it! I also love KIM JONG UN's accomplishments, like learning to drive at age three. Did you know he also beat Dan Feyer in this year's World Crossword Puzzle Tournament by three hundred minutes, taking his fortieth straight crown?
Loved seeing OLIVE TREE featured as [Athena's gift to Athens]. So cool how she out-thought Poseidon, who gave the people on that island a river of … sea water.
And a great clue in TOUPEES, [Top-secret disguises?] repurposing the term "top-secret." In most cases, it's really not much of a secret. (Sorry, fellas.)
David wades into tough territory today in his NE and SW corners. Any 4x7 or bigger space is usually difficult to fill both cleanly and with color. I like David's execution in his lower left, GQ MAGAZINE along with MISS USA and G STRING. There's an amazing amount of testosterone there, but I appreciated how David kept the glue to just NISEI. And that's actually a fine term, a Japanese family friend using it to describe herself.
The opposite corner is more typical of the trade-offs seen with these 4x7s. Standard & Poor's upgrades / downgrades issues all the time. RERATES does technically describe it, but it's not really used. And CHEMO … what happened to the "no cancer references"? In some ways it's great to see the topic broached, but what a downer for someone in the hospital doing the crossword.
I loved CHO referenced to Harry Potter, as I've read the books five or six times. I can see how that would make some solvers grumble though, if they knew CHO Chang as much as I knew DARK ANGEL. Either-you-know-it-or-you-don't entries are tough, playing strongly to uberfans but potentially irritating to others.
If you're going to need gluey bits of the same type, probably best to not draw attention to them with clue echoes (SES / A TOI, NTS linked to SUITES).
The 68 word construction is tough. David goes to one end of the spectrum today, giving us some very fresh feeling entries like GIGAHERTZ and DATA PLANS and ADD TO CART, while requiring a relatively high count of liability entries to hold them together.
1 D | 2 A | 3 R | 4 K | 5 A | 6 N | 7 G | 8 E | 9 L | 10 T | 11 R | 12 A | 13 P |
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14 I | N | A | C | L | A | I | R | E | 15 C | H | E | M | O |
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16 K | I | M | J | O | N | G | U | N | 17 H | E | R | B | S |
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18 S | I | O | N | 19 A | D | D | 20 T | O | C | A | R | T |
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21 P | E | N | N | E | 22 H | I | L | O | 23 A | T | O | I |
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24 B | E | T | E | 25 S | E | T | 26 U | 27 N | R | E | S | T |
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28 A | D | O | S | 29 T | R | E | 30 S | P | A | S | S | E | S |
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31 A | R | T | 32 Y | E | P | |||||||||
33 G | 34 Q | 35 M | 36 A | G | A | Z | 37 I | N | E | 38 L | 39 A | 40 P | 41 S |
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42 S | U | I | T | E | S | 43 N | T | S | 44 O | D | I | N |
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45 T | E | S | T | 46 S | 47 A | S | H | 48 I | C | A | L | L |
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49 R | E | S | I | 50 D | E | N | C | E | 51 M | A | W | S | ||
52 I | N | U | R | E | 53 D | A | T | 54 A | P | L | A | N | 55 S |
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56 N | I | S | E | I | 57 O | L | I | V | E | T | R | E | E |
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58 G | E | A | R | 59 R | E | C | E | I | V | E | R | S |
| Across | Down | |
| 1. 2000s James Cameron cyberpunk/sci-fi series : DARKANGEL 10. Sting : TRAP 14. Co-star of Greta Garbo in "Ninotchka" : INACLAIRE 15. Difficult treatment, informally : CHEMO 16. Interviewee in 2014's "The Interview" : KIMJONGUN 17. Catnip and others : HERBS 18. "The Da Vinci Code" priory : SION 19. Online shopping button : ADDTOCART 21. Trattoria order : PENNE 22. Variety of poker, briefly : HILO 23. French possessive : ATOI 24. Émile Zola's "La ___ humaine" : BETE 25. Financially secure : SET 26. Rioting, e.g. : UNREST 28. Troubles : ADOS 29. Goes one step too far? : TRESPASSES 31. Class for model students? : ART 32. "For sure" : YEP 33. "Look Sharp. Live Smart" sloganeer : GQMAGAZINE 38. 200 at a 500 : LAPS 42. Some Windows products : SUITES 43. Some Windows systems : NTS 44. Two-time mythological role for Anthony Hopkins : ODIN 45. Final, e.g. : TEST 46. It's an honor to wear : SASH 48. Poker declaration : ICALL 49. Home : RESIDENCE 51. Mouths to feed? : MAWS 52. Temper : INURE 53. Families often share them : DATAPLANS 56. Second-generation Japanese-American : NISEI 57. Athena's gift to Athens : OLIVETREE 58. It's got teeth : GEAR 59. Ones getting passes : RECEIVERS |
1. Hägar creator Browne : DIK 2. Ouzo flavorer : ANISEED 3. Bash : RAMINTO 4. Hall-of-Famer from the 1950s-'60s Celtics : KCJONES 5. Forever ___ (Internet meme) : ALONE 6. Photographer Goldin : NAN 7. One billion cycles per second : GIGAHERTZ 8. Learned : ERUDITE 9. Three-time U.S. Open champ in the 1980s : LENDL 10. "Let's Go" group, 1979 : THECARS 11. Changes at Standard & Poor's, say : RERATES 12. Eisenhower and Nixon biographer Stephen : AMBROSE 13. Some office notes : POSTITS 15. ___ Chang, Harry Potter's onetime crush : CHO 20. Top-secret disguises? : TOUPEES 21. Grp. of 300 people? : PBA 25. Bonn boulevard : STRASSE 27. Experience a minor crash? : NAP 30. Fake : SYNTHETIC 31. Golden ___ : AGE 33. Burlesque show wear : GSTRING 34. She's "too cute to be a minute over 17" in a Chuck Berry song : QUEENIE 35. 46-Across wearer since 1952 : MISSUSA 36. Dresser : ATTIRER 37. Commensurate : INSCALE 38. Public access channel, e.g. : LOCALTV 39. Computer program that blocks viruses : ADAWARE 40. Stella Artois or Beck's : PILSNER 41. ___ alum : SNL 47. Legalese conjunction : ANDOR 48. Noted Guangzhou-born architect : IMPEI 50. ___ gratia : DEI 54. GPS abbr. : AVE 55. French possessive : SES |
Answer summary: 5 unique to this puzzle, 1 debuted here and reused later, 1 unique to Shortz Era but used previously.
Found bugs or have suggestions?