New York Times, Saturday, July 1, 2017

With this themeless, I will admit that overambition might have gotten the better of me—but not by much IMO!

In an effort to go big, I set out to fill a dreaded quad stack and its symmetrical neighbor. If I remember correctly (it's been two years since construction, so give my cortex a break), I think I chose to put these quad stacks in the NE/SW, because, in my constructing experience, I've had the most difficulty filling wide open areas in those sections. In my mind, if I were to force many of the constraints to those sections and come out alive without too many blah entries, I might give myself a fighting chance to cross the finish line and perhaps add some nice entries in the less constrained NW/SE sections.

The central stairstep arrangement of black squares—going diagonally up from left to right—also helped by producing what I call a double coincidence of wants. In this case, those black squares make it so that, for example, the end letter of 6D is also an end letter for 32A, the first letter 37D is also a first letter for 37A, etc.

As for actually filling the grid, I started in the NE by placing I THINK I CAN in the second row, usually the most constrained row in a top stack. The result was bupkis. I then tried it in the third row and got a mostly good fill. EARNS A NAME sounded awkward when compared to the more common "makes a name (for oneself)," but I compromised for the stack. As you can tell from MADERA, CO-SET, and SAES, the other quad stack proved more difficult to fill cleanly. As I predicted before filling, the NW/SE wasn't overly difficult to fill.

At first, the clues looked unfamiliar. "Did Will and the team really rewrite that much?" I thought. In actuality, most of the clues were in my original submission ... except that a lot of the clues in the print version were my second or third picks. "Did I really write a fragrance clue for ARAMIS?! [looks at original submission] Huh! ... apparently, I did."

Overall, I'd rate this puzzle a B+. The grid design proved a bit too ambitious for my skill level at the time. However, I do think I'm getting very close to hitting my personal sweet spot.

Four by tens! Check out that big chunk of white space in the upper right. A stack of four long answers is so tough to do well.

I think David's results are pretty good; the bottom left singing for me more than the upper right. There's a SAES (self-addressed envelopes) and a MADERA (I grew up in the Bay Area but hadn't heard of it). But some great answers stacked atop each other, not a one just taking up space. SENATE RACE and TRASH TALKS are beauties.

The opposite corners run into problems I'm more used to seeing in quad-stacks. INKA isn't great, and LITA FORD was a toughie for this pop culture idiot. The biggest problem for me, though, was what David pointed out: EARNS A NAME felt off, like it was only in there to hold things together. "Make a name for oneself," yeah? I can see what it's trying for, but it doesn't feel like a crossworthy phrase to me.

For me, if it's a decision between using it to make a quad-stack, or just dropping down to a triple-stack, I'd take the latter.

Some other nice features in the other two corners, BEN STEIN and YEAH, SURE the highlights for me. I hitched in the lower right, though. AEROLOGY … that's a thing? (The dictionary says yes.) SOLARIS is a classic sci-fi novel? (This sci-fi fanatic says no.) Along with AGRI, that corner didn't leave me very satisfied.

I know that this is a Saturday puzzle, hardest of the week, but I thought some of the clues tried too hard to be tricky. STEREOS attempted to misdirect with a different usage of CDs, but I don't think many people would call STEREOS "investments." And [What seeds often have] tried to throw you on the scent of fruit seeds, instead of tournament seeds. But that clue felt inaccurate — some top seeds do get byes, but "often" isn't a great descriptor.

I like the effort to do something different, to attempt a notoriously difficult themeless style. Some strong results, like in the lower left, but with a couple of normal-for-quad-stacks blips.