New York Times, Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Money talks. As I recall, seemingly out of nowhere, MONEY TALKS popped into my head. Instead of viewing it as the idiom it is — meaning money can have great influence — I looked at it literally as "the musician Eddie Money talks." I then thought it could be clued as MUSICIAN SPEAKS and it seemed to have possibilities as the start of a theme. From there, I compiled a list of other potential theme entries in which this same type of clueing would work. So although MONEY TALKS never made it into the grid, I guess you could say it was influential in its own way...

Normal phrases interpreted as "(famous person X) does Y." I like the consistency here, all the themers being two-word phrases where the second word is a present tense verb. I had seen BACON STRIPS somewhere before, but in the sense of [Philosopher's breakfast?], so it brought an amusing picture to my mind. Same with Leontyne PRICE tagging a wall with a spray can, her face covered bandito-style. Vivid imagery.

With PRICE TAGS separating the grid into a top and a bottom half, I like what Susie did with the four corners. It can be very tricky to get good material into three adjacent seven-letter slots. None of these 7s are an absolute stunner of an answer, but they all do the trick. OBELISK / MANATEE / ANSWERS in particular is pretty strong. It's tough to get zing out of one-word answers, but Susie worked in some good ones, without resorting to any real clunkers.

I like how she worked in her Scrabbly letters, too, choosing spots that can easily accept them without feeling forced. That 1-Across / 1-Down crossing spot is Scrabbly gold, with a J easily slotting in. And the X of WAX is perfect, smoothly sliding into place. Those intersections of two three-letter words often offer up this opportunity.

It felt to me like Susie took a lot of care to produce a smooth grid; much appreciated during my solve. This arrangement of five themers with a long middle one can often require globs of glue to hold everything in place. With only a few things like ARRS and NOI dotting the perimeter, I hardly noticed them.

Overall, I might have liked more tightness in the theme, given that there are so many celebs whose last name can double as a common noun. It would have been neat to see all comedians, or all sports figures, or even celebs starting with the same letter. But then again, having a hodge-podge — a comedian, a poet, an opera singer, an actress, and a philosopher — does provide nice variety. Something for everyone.