New York Times, Thursday, June 2, 2022

I'm sorry that I put 34-Across in this grid. You won't see it in another puzzle of mine.

This theme was inspired by Sid's constructor notes, which sent me searching for crossword conventions I could violate in service of a tricky theme. I liked the idea of using fake cross-references because a) I generally don't like real cross-references, and b) I figured that people wouldn't suspect them as the culprits. I hope it kept you stumped for exactly the right amount of time.

One added difficulty in constructing this puzzle was that I needed 1-Across and 1-Down to both be words that could plausibly be part of multiple idioms/phrases, to keep solvers off the scent as long as possible. You would have known something was up right away if 1-Across was, like, AIDA or OLEO. That turned out to be more difficult than I expected, but I like the BACK/BEST combination. An earlier version (with a different theme set) had MAGIC/MATH, which doesn't work quite as well.

As I am typing this, I don't know whether the online solver or app will highlight 1-Across or 1-Down when your cursor is on the theme answers, but it sure would be extra tricky if it did...

A one-trick pony is still entertaining if it has enough horsepower. Fantastic idea today, "with 1 Across" (note that there's no hyphen, as per the usual "with 1-Across"!) sneakily indicating that you have to add ACROSS to SHOT THE BOW to form SHOT (ACROSS) THE BOW. Although it was too easy to fill in the rest of the themers once I figured out the trick, it was a strong enough deception to be memorable.

Also memorable: an amazing amount of grid color without resorting to much short glue. With four themers, I expect at least four great long bonuses, and Michael overdelivered. The adjacent Downs are fantastic, DISASTERS / I CAN'T EVEN worked in so smoothly. Way to use those mid-length slots, too, with NEW GIRL (I binge-watched it early in the pandemic) and MANHUNT.

And great cluing to boot?! I circled nine standout clues today, way more than average for a Thursday. The question mark ones were entertaining — [Stretch for the stars?] is not much of a stretch for LIMO — but [Places to find dishes of different cultures] nearly won this a POW! on its own. What a wickedly clever misdirect toward food, away from bio LABS.

Although the puzzle felt anticlimactic after the first minutes of solving, Michael did a fantastic job working in more than enough to keep me filling in squares.