New York Times, Friday, July 17, 2020

There was a time when I would see a crossword puzzle, and think "Oh, fun, a crossword puzzle!" All too often now, when beginning a crossword, my mental temperament turns fierce. I pause for a moment to appreciate that the speed in which the puzzle is completed somehow identifies the victor in today's battle of wits. Then, I'll bash my brain against the puzzle until it's done.

My hope is that solvers like me will see this grid and be struck by the whimsy — before digging in for intellectual battle.

This puzzle was a rare success from my experimentations with grids with interesting layouts of black squares and low-word counts. I appreciated the challenge of building a puzzle around interlocking spanners. Although AUTOPARTSTORES isn't the most vibrant entry, fun cluing options increased its appeal. My favorite clue was by Will & the NYT crew: [One who might grade on the curve].

Look at all those crossing long entries! I'm a big fan of mirror symmetry in general, and one of its advantages is that it gives the constructor flexibility to pack lengthy phrases in unconventional ways. Typically, skeletons of intersecting long entries seem like they should space things out nicely, but they often come with unforeseen problems in one or more regions. Worse yet, it's maddeningly unpredictable as to which regions.

For a grid like this, if you can make the toughest area work — in this case, the bottom (triple-stack intersecting two long entries), the rest of the puzzle is more tractable. INITMATE APPAREL / SOLO PERFORMER are great, and REPUTATIONS has potential for a clever clue to enhance its effect. Additionally, the -TOR and -RES endings for 1-Down and 8-Down give welcome flexibility.

INITIMATE APPAREL is an evocative entry in its own right, and I enjoyed the clue's misdirect; "slips" making me think of errors or boat docks. As Rich mentioned, AUTO PARTS STORES is more workmanlike, but it becomes a sizzler when given a wicked wordplay clue … that links to INTIMATE APPAREL! I was already thinking about slips, etc. when I read "hose and belt sellers." I love getting duped like that.

Plenty of constructors have used happy faces in the past, a recent one coming to mind. Since I've seen a lot of them, they have to be spot on to make an impact. For instance, one brilliant PANDA picture managed to outshine another. Today's was recognizable as a face, but all the black squares around the edges detracted from the overall impact. Those "helper squares" are so key to making something like this work, but I'd rather blow up the face image and focus solely on optimizing for fill that's overall a bit juicier than STARLITERS, STENOS, AEOLUS, LATENTS, TILT MECHANISM (pretty niche piece of equipment), etc.

Solid execution, and a great example of how a themeless can feature a ton of super-long entries, while still keeping short fill clean. Not enough pizzazz to get POW! consideration, though.