New York Times, Wednesday, July 7, 2021

This puzzle had its start last spring. I was out for a run at my usual pace (imagine a snail dragging the anchor from the USS Constitution) when a much younger runner flew past me. The Tortoise & the Hare immediately came to mind. While still on the run, I realized that the 8-letter word TORTOISE could be spaced out perfectly, corner to corner, within the confines of a 15x15 grid. At that point, I was off to the races — so to speak.

TAKES A NAP and LOSES A BET are a bit loose as crossworthy phrases go. Where does it end? READS A BOOK? EATS A PEACH? TIES A BOW? But I hope that the fact that my two phrases are thematic will make it easier for solvers to afford me a little leeway.

I'm pleased that the terminal E in TORTOISE and SLOW AND STEADY/WINS/THE/RACE share the final square in the puzzle.

Anyway, I'd like to believe that maybe — just maybe — while out for that run, I reached my finish line before that young hare reached his. But alas, not all tales have fabulous endings.

I'm a huge fan of grid visuals, and Pete has given us some fantastic imagery over the years. One of my favorites, playing on Benjamin Franklin's kite, also focused on diagonals. Today, I enjoyed the picture of the TORTOISE plodding along, slowly but surely, his perseverance prevailing over the egotistical HARE. Clever idea to space out the TORTOISE letters, creating such an apt picture.

I wasn't as hot on how Pete portrayed the HARE. Having him without spaces is appropriate, but in the story, he gets halfway — or in some retellings, close to the finish line — before stopping for his break. Pete's execution makes it look like the HARE did a 100-meter sprint before he TAKES his NAP, which didn't mesh with the arc of the story.

What would have been better? I thought about that for hours. The best I came up with was to repeat HAREHARE on a diagonal below TORTOISE, then have him TAKE A NAP toward the bottom of the puzzle. Then, it would be perfect if the TORTOISE crossed TAKE A NAP, as if he were hopping over the HARE! However, solvers write in to Will Shortz with the kookiest "corrections," so that might have triggered THERE WAS ONLY ONE HARE IN THE STORY, SHORTZ YOU MORON! emails.

Diagonal entries cause so much inflexibility, and when you fix eight letters of TORTOISE in place — then add in other themers — the grid strains so much. Pete did well to place so many black squares around the center, but even then, ECTO STN kicking off the filling process isn't ideal. There's too much crossword glue everywhere, an unfortunate side effect of not having as many black squares to deploy around the perimeter.

I'd have been fine with only SLOW AND STEADY ... with "wins the race" implied.

I enjoy crossword art, and there's something mesmerizing about watching the TORTOISE make its way to the end. I rarely think about a puzzle for more than five minutes after finishing, so making me ruminate on this one for several hours is a testament to the creativity of the seed concept.