New York Times, Tuesday, July 12, 2016

I sometimes worry that another constructor will beat me to print with the same theme idea. That happened here, when Jeff Chen published "Break a Leg" with the CrosSynergy syndicate last October (which was several months after this puzzle had been accepted). Jeff's theme entries all use leg bones, making his theme tighter than mine; the bones in my puzzle are from all over the place. Still, the ideas here are very much the same. I prefer to think of this as a case of "great minds thinking alike." Or more accurately, "feeble mind submitted first but great mind did it better."

I wasn't sure whether this would be a Tuesday or Wednesday theme when I clued it, so maybe that explains why just 30 of my clues (38%) made the final cut. Another 16 clues (21%) were modified slightly, meaning 32 (41%) clues in the puzzle are one for which I cannot take credit. Very likely, the ones solvers like best are from that last group.

Few people make me laugh like Sam. His self-deprecating humor makes him one of my very favorite people in the crossworld. I can't tell you how hard I laughed when Sam posted a series of comments from haters about one of his puzzles ... followed by "Sharpen your pencil and come see what all the accolades are about!" Dang, I love him.

Today, he gives us some BROKEN BONES after a SLIP AND FALL, using sets of diagonal black squares to represent breaks. I like how he used longish entries in which he hid his bones, TRUE LIFE and MURKIER making for a great pair to hide FE/MUR. Fun to get a few colorful entries right in the middle of the puzzle among all those theme answers, with GOTTI, RUMBA, BALDY. (One of my favorite moments at the ACPT this year was having breakfast with Sam and Doug Peterson, all three of us middle-aged (but young at heart) baldies.)

It was slightly confusing to see UL/NA/TI/BIA all "connected," but it was kind of cool how much themage Sam packed into the center of the puzzle. Four bones and eight answers is very tough to squeeze into just seven rows! Okay, I didn't like HAS AC as a theme answer — pretty arbitrary — but RESTFUL and NATTERED are fun.

Given how much Sam packed in — the eight central answers plus SLIP AND FALL and BROKEN BONES — it's a pretty smooth grid. Some NOM DE (inelegant partial), EIS (deep German), ACAD (abbr.), ROSAS (plural name or deep Spanish) is pretty good, given the constraints. And to get bonuses in CALCUTTA, SILENT I, BLABBER, GUNNER, SUN RA, is much appreciated.

I think there's something tying the four bones together — very common ones that break upon a SLIP AND FALL? — but that seemed a little macabre. Not sure that older people who've slipped and fallen want to be reminded of it. Still, a fun implementation, seeing those bones "break" across those sharp diagonal black lines.