New York Times, Friday, August 22, 2014

The first time I ever saw the entry EZER in a grid, my mind was blown. I had no idea who this Israeli figure was, but all I knew was that his name, combined with SKY, made my last name. I liked that I could hide my last name amid two crossword entries. "Ezersky" doesn't exactly rhyme with anything, and Microsoft Word always wants to correct it to some random word like "deerskin" (?)…so this was kinda cool. Over three years ago, I monkeyed with themeless grids with adjacent entries SAMUEL/EZER/SKY and the like…but having short entries as seeds just wasn't exciting, especially when the middle bit was hardcore crosswordese. This latter realization led me to create a grid based around what you now see as 67-across. Two Z's! An entry never before seen in a mainstream crossword! A full name that isn't just the crosswordese portion ... I love it when constructors do that! So I was pretty happy this all pulled together, and I hope it doesn't cause too much trouble for solvers that don't know the guy! Enjoy, folks.

Some additional constructing notes:

• The top-left and bottom-right stacks were finalized before the rest of the grid was even designed; BBQ SANDWICH (which was originally clued as "Pit assembly, briefly?") was the genesis for the former.
• There are a bit more blah 3- and 4-letter entries than I would have allowed if I had constructed this today, but I guess they're tradeoffs for some of my other debuts.
• I'm pleased to see Will kept my clues for 43-across, 56-across, 7-down and 14-down, among others. Loved his new clues for 17-across, 21-across, 64-across, and 39-down.

Finally, I want to use this as an early opportunity for a promo, and say that I am in the process of creating a blog, where I will present a self-constructed weekly crossword much like several of the other indie websites out there. I'm still working on some of the basic setup procedures, but I have an arsenal of puzzles already created, mostly themelesses, that I am excited to share with the public—they may be a bit racy for NYT standards, and have some college-kid flair thrown in the mix. Anyway, look for me in the coming weeks as I move this blog forward; thanks in advance for the support!

As I may have mentioned once, SDI (4D) is an entry I'd like to ban from crosswords, as it's a long out-of-date initialism. But here, since it crosses the lovely stack of BBQ SANDWICH, SAUDI ARABIA, and TRAIN SIGNAL, I had to make an exception.

Some strong entries in today's puzzle, with BBQ SANDWICH and BLISTER PACK singing to me. The former makes my mouth water, and the latter is the focus of one of my product design projects during my first (engineering) career. You'd be amazed at how much work goes into foil thickness, adhesive selection, failure mode and effects analysis, etc. (amazed... or asleep, perhaps).

I like the variety today. Sam shortens up his NE and SW corners, putting more onus on the across entries to carry the puzzle's snazz. A nice example of a constructor experienced enough (how old is this kid, anyway?) to be able to create his own block patterns to fit the entries he wants. To get up to that point of construction skill is no mean feat.

I got a hint of choppiness during my solve, and I couldn't figure out why until I studied the grid. So many three-letter words — a whopping 18 of them. Typically Will prefers 12 or fewer, and there's a good reason for that: most have been used so frequently in crosswords that a super-hard clue is sometimes needed in order to keep the solver from blazing through the puzzle. I found myself stuck in the NE with nowhere to go, for example. Using so many three-letter words can allow for a higher number of headline entries (or longer ones), but there's a price to pay. And if you do need to lean on the heavier glue (LA-Z, SDI, INO), the effect can be less elegant than desired.

Still, there are a great number of strong 11-letter entries. That length occurs less frequently than 10's and 9's and 8's in themelesses, because using an 11 usually means pairing it with a three-letter word. So it's a treat to get EZER WEIZMAN's full name in there, as well as TRAIN SIGNAL and its nice clue, misdirecting the solver to a music conductor.