New York Times, Tuesday, June 7, 2016

This one went through six iterations before it was ready for prime time. The editors even asked me to consider ripping out my NEEDLEPOINT. It certainly constrains the fill near the apex of the SLATE ROOF. I begged and pleaded, and eventually Will and Joel allowed NEEDLEPOINT to stay.

In order to keep SWEET, NEEDLEPOINT, and the angled SLATE ROOF down the center column, I had to fill ??W?LT and ??E?PR. For the first one, the solution I came up with was Patton OSWALT — perhaps not a household name in a lot of households. Joel and I had to twist Will's arm to get OSWALT to stay — and just for the record, we twisted his left arm so as not to impede his table tennis career. For the second, I needed to pull FREE PR out of thin air. I was quite proud of that entry until Byron Walden stole some of my thunder. He debuted BAD PR while my puzzle sat in the queue. Is there a grumbly-faced, fist-shaking emoticon? If so, insert one here.

Overall, I hope the grid has a COMFY, cross stitch vibe to it (IDI AMIN notwithstanding).

Very pretty graphic, with a THREE / STORY / HOUSE and its SLATE ROOF memorialized in NEEDLEPOINT. HOME / SWEET / HOME indeed!

I was amazed by how much Pete packed in today, especially THREE / STORY / HOUSE right atop each other. It's very hard to stack three specific answers when you have no flexibility. Then you throw in SLATE ROOF to further constrain things. I was worried at how many compromises Pete would have to make — and that was before I realized NEEDLEPOINT was part of the theme!

Pete did a nice job of deploying his black squares to separate the themers. You absolutely have to use some so THREE / STORY / HOUSE doesn't interact much with the SLATE ROOF. Then, the NEEDLEPOINT intersecting the SLATE ROOF has to be separated from HOME / SWEET / HOME as best as possible, otherwise you're forced to make a ton of compromises.

What with the enormous level of inflexibility — I can't remember when I've seen a puzzle constrained to this level — I like Pete's result. Sure, I hit RUHR / OTOE, SHERE, MEECE (ugh), ISERE right off the bat, but none of them are horrendous. And throughout the puzzle we get some of the usual suspects like ESSO, OPEL, DER, MAI, STE, but there's not a major offender in there. Some would even argue that ESSO is perfectly fine, since it's a major Canadian gas brand.

PHOEBES … apparently it's a fairly common bird in the Americas? Even after piecing it together from the crosses, I stared at the word in DISbelief. Some poor older solvers might choke on the OTOH crossing, four letters that will look random to non-texters. Even knowing that one, somehow PLOEBES seemed more plausible to me.

ASHTONS is a more clear-cut case. Not only is it a pluralized name, inelegant to start with, but it takes up a valuable 7-letter slot. Missed potential; could have been something as fun as CEDILLA.

All in all though, it's actually MUCH less crossword glue than I had expected, given the off-the-charts level of constraints. It's such a fun and pretty image; well worth the trade-offs to me.