New York Times, Monday, August 11, 2014

David:

Bernice sent me the idea for a H?LL vowel progression using the theme entries HALL OF FAME, HELLO DOLLY, HILLTOP, HOLLYHOCKS, and HULLABALOO as a possible Orange County Register submission in early March. I thought she was on to something, especially since a quick check through several puzzle databases didn't turn up any similar puzzles, but I felt the puzzle could be even better if all the theme entries were single words and if the one tougher entry, HOLLYHOCKS, were replaced with something more instantly recognizable, like HOLLANDAISE.

I came up with the current theme set and suggested turning this puzzle into a collaboration New York Times submission, which Bernice was enthused about. Bernice took first crack at the grid and fill but wasn't very happy with what she produced. As she put it, "The words are out of Google, and there are too many abbreviations which are my pet hate . . . It has words like El Nasi which of course nobody would know. Do you? How about the ballplayer Yao? Isn't that wild?" One of the things I love about working with Bernice is that we have such different knowledge bases — to me, YAO Ming is instantly recognizable, but I had to look up Jed Clampett (in the HILLBILLY clue), since he's from way before my time!

Anyway, since both of us had concerns about entries in her original grid, I went ahead and redesigned the puzzle from scratch; after many hours of tweaking the wide-open corners to make them as Mondayish as possible, I came up with the current fill. Bernice was much happier with the new version, though she sagely pointed out that having ATE IT and I MADE IT was slightly problematic.

We ultimately let this slide in the interest of keeping the fill as clean as possible, though, and Bernice went forward with writing a first draft of the clues. I edited some of the clues to make them slightly easier and/or more modern, though I left the Jed Clampett one alone. We submitted the puzzle a few months later, and the rest is history. It's always a pleasure to work with my "adopted grandmother" — I hope you enjoy solving our puzzle as much as we enjoyed constructing it!

Beautiful puzzle today, almost exactly what I hope for on a Monday. The theme is pretty straightforward — a "H?LL" vowel progression — but it's executed in an elegant way. As David noted, I appreciated the consistency of having each of the themers be a single word. Additionally, so many of them are snappy, words that I wouldn't hesitate to use as fill. HALLELUJAH and HULLABALOO in particular are fun.

Sometimes I wonder what might be considered offensive to certain populations. I had a slight hitch when I saw HILLBILLY — I use the term myself, but it'll be interesting to see if Will gets complaints from people in rural areas. It's been used in other papers before, but this will be the first instance in the NYT. I've had similar thoughts about COMMIE as well. Interesting to think about the seemingly harmless words that carry potentially derogatory meanings.

The grid is near flawless. I worried at first that there wouldn't be as much zing as I usually like to see, because there aren't many long spaces for fill. But David and Bernice take good advantage of the 7's, spreading CATCH ON, I MADE IT, OLD CHAP, and TEE SHOT into the four corners. I love that they didn't try to shoehorn too much into any one corner, because that's often why glue-y fill becomes necessary. This grid is so incredibly smooth. Perhaps the only entry that people might point to is... ELL? But even though I don't hear ELL in everyday usage, it's a real word, so I don't think that's a fair criticism.

It tickles me to see David and Bernice's photos together. So neat to see the different generations work together.