New York Times, Monday, August 17, 2015

I'm pleased to see I've reached a milestone with this being my 50th puzzle in the NY Times. It was fun in retrospect to see how personal this puzzle is for me in that 1.) it's a Monday, 2.) one of the clues is "Acme", 3.) it's a pangram, and 4.) it's about joy. I'm BEAMing at 1-Across and I'm LAUGHINGOUTLOUD at the reveal.

I wanted to do a puzzle with HARDY HAR HAR ... which is old-fashioned with something modern. Once I realized LAUGHINGOUTLOUD was 15 letters as was HARPERVALLEYPTA and HARDYBOYSSERIES, I was on my way.

The challenge was the second HAR. In my original submission I had HARLEMBOYSCHOIR but had failed to notice that I used BOYS twice (HARDYBOYS and HARLEMBOYS). So Will suggested he'd accept the puzzle IF I could substitute in a different phrase.

There aren't that many phrases in the language that start with HAR to begin with, much less exactly 15 letters, so it was a nice coincidence that I stumbled on HARVARDGRADUATE just as I was headed back East for my 35th reunion (OK, I threw in YALE at 18D for equal time).

Since the grid was pretty restricted in the order which things had to appear (I only had flexibility in swapping out the second and third HAR), Joel Fagliano helped me substantially lay out the grid so I could get as smooth a fill as possible. He deserves structural credit here!

I particularly like MADCAP and "So's YER old man!" My favorite corner is the Northeast, where SAIL crosses ALEE, and JESSE/ OZAWA/ EZRA and SWEE' pea all play together with EASE.

ALOHA!

HARDY HAR HAR! Amusing (pun intended) phrase hidden at the beginning of themers. I was more a "The Three Investigators" kind of kid, imagining myself to be the Jupiter Jones character. Terribly unathletic, too smart for his own good, so much so that no one liked him — what kid wouldn't want to be that?

Hmm.

Although I do like HARDY HAR HAR being opaque until the end of the puzzle, LAUGHING OUT LOUD didn't seem quite apt. Not that I ever say HARDY HAR HAR, but it seems to me a sarcastic phrase, akin to VERY FUNNY BUSTER. Perhaps kids these days have done something with LOL that I don't know of.

Some nice touches in the mid-length fill with MADCAP and TIPTOP (with its insidery clue … [Acme]!). I would have liked some longer fill too, which could have been made possible by removing the black squares in between EZRA/YER and IRV/UGLY (among other possibilities). Even one pair of 8+ letter entries peps up a grid so much for me.

Speaking of those two corners, Acme is a big fan of Scrabble and of Scrabbly letters. In the upper right, it does add spice to get a J and a Z. I personally wouldn't make the trade-off of having SWEE (partial-ish entry) and ALEE (esoteric term) to get the J and Z, but that's a judgment call — it was interesting to read her viewpoint, which is perfectly valid. I prefer when Monday grids are silky smooth, more like Acme's bottom left corner. Not as high-Scrabble value with just the K, but not a gluey bit down there.

For a 78-word grid, I'd expect there to be nary a gluey entries in the grid, and the old-timey SERE is a noticeable standout for me. This is totally subjective, I see SERE as one of the outliers from the bad old days of crosswords, the type of entry that turns people off from crosswords. It's one I'd like to see gone for good.

Congrats to Acme for NYT puzzle #50!