New York Times, Thursday, September 13, 2018

I suspect Will and crew have a backlog of rebus puzzles in their Thursday inventory. This one took nearly as long to go from acceptance to publication (17 months) as my first 5 Thursday puzzles combined (3+1.5+3+5+5 = 17.5 months).

Since I created this puzzle so long ago, I see it now through a very different set of eyes. When I wrote it, I was really into creating pangrammatic grids (i.e., using all the letters of the alphabet at least once). While scrabbly letters can be great since they're generally rarer in crosswords, if I were making this puzzle today, I would prioritize smoother fill over including the last few letters of the alphabet. For example, QED, UTE, and ETRE seem like a high price to pay for the Q in the upper-left corner.

On the other hand, I still agree with my decision to deploy the Utah block (i.e., the Utah-shaped clump of 5 contiguous black squares) in the lower right. Once THIN OUT, INBOX, and OUTBOX were in place, if I hadn't deployed the Utah block (i.e., if I had put a black square where the S in SHELL is and removed the 3 black squares to the left), then there would have been only one entry into that corner (THIN OUT). To create good grid flow, you want at least two words to connect any isolated section with the rest of the grid.

Two other things I like about this puzzle: (1) the symmetry between CARPING ABOUT and RAINBOW TROUT; and (2) the image of a stacked INBOX/OUTBOX sitting on someone's desk. My original cluing for the INBOX/OUTBOX revealer was to treat them as a unit (thereby emphasizing the visual nature of the stacking), but hopefully, solvers will still get the picture (hah!) in the puzzle's current incarnation.

Jim and Jeff at the Puzzles continues through to Sunday.

We expect to get fooled on Thursdays. When we get a Thursday without gimmicks, are we, then, fooled? No need to contemplate this deep philosophy because today we get the standard ins and outs of a regular rebus.

There are hundreds of possible entries that include IN somewhere followed by OUT somewhere, but if you restrict your search to entries where IN doesn't mean "in" and OUT doesn't mean "out" (not possible with our software; you need to do this by hand, I mean eye) you end up with a much smaller set. The non-revealer theme entries today all pass that test. Ponce de León gave the trick away, so I wish it had appeared further down, but the puzzle was still fun. IN BOX and OUT BOX are solid rebus justifications.

I didn't know about KEFIR. Does the Wikipedia comment that "Fermentation of the lactose yields a sour, carbonated, slightly alcoholic beverage, with a consistency and taste similar to thin yogurt" make you more, or less, intrigued?

YOU AGAIN first appeared in 2011 with a more positive clue: "Well, look who's back." I like today's snarkier "Question to a returning pest." AFRO tip-toes around controversy by giving it a music clue. RAINBOW TROUT is delicious. I've lived in America for years, but I still find the LITER spelling jarring. LXX is a cheap entry, but IN BOX stacked over OUT BOX makes it well worthwhile.

Let's see what Jeff has to say. In my experience, if you give him three barleycorns, he'll take 1.60934 kilometres.

I liked the visual of INBOX stacked atop the OUTBOX, too. But HEES and especially LXX gave me major pause. I wonder if shifting those guys all the way to the left would have helped.

Jim brings up a good point about restricting themers to only those with OUT embedded within a word. And given those constraints, RAINBOW TROUT is no doubt a colorful (ha ha) choice.

There are still a good number of options, however — enough to make me want better than CARPING ABOUT and FROTHING AT THE MOUTH. I think the former is decent, but nothing to write home about. And for the latter, I so badly wanted FOAMING AT THE MOUTH. Both are dictionary supported, but FOAMING resonates much more strongly for me.

Given the need for some HEES LXX and OST URSI (yikes!), I would have preferred to remove ZEES from the grid. As much as I like the Q and Z in QUIZ, needing ETRE and DEKED (tough for non-hockey players) added to the grid's feeling of not being as smooth as I like. I was glad to hear that Alex changed his mind about this over time!

The Venn diagram of what Jim knows and what I know has surprisingly little overlap. (His circle is about eleventy-thousand barleycorns bigger than mine, though.) I love Trader Joe's KEFIR — it lets me think that I'm doing healthy for myself (I squint so I never notice the massive amount of added sugar). We've had this dissonance so many times now that I've come to appreciate the subjectivity of it all.

One person's weird is another's deliciousness. Just as long as the crossings are fair, why not learn something from your crossword?

I did have some qualms about execution, but overall, I enjoyed uncovering the rebus squares, and the stacked INBOX/OUTBOX made for a nice visual.