New York Times, Thursday, September 18, 2014

Years ago my friend Evie Eysenburg, one of the New York Times crossword testers, was at Bloomingdale's buying something. The clerk had to call the credit department to verify Evie's information. For clarification the clerk spelled Evie's last name "E as in 'eye," Y as in 'you,' "S as in 'sea' ..." — which left the person in the credit department going "Wha-a-a-at??!" She and I have been laughing about this ever since.

After I told this story to Joel, he and I tried to think of a name in which every letter could have a confusing "clarification." He cleverly turned the result into a Thursday theme.

As Will explained in his note, this theme came from a story he told me one day while we were editing a puzzle. My constructor brain, always whirring in the background, quickly went to work on how this could become a theme.

As for the fill, I have mixed feelings about including answers like KIMYE and YOLO. On the one hand, they're fresh four and five-letter entries, which are pretty difficult to find. Also, they reflect a bit of my personality — they skew young and I'm a young constructor. On the other hand, they might not stand the test of time (slang from the early 2000's that may have seemed hip to include then, like DA BOMB, seem sort of silly in a puzzle now). And they sort of hint at a fascination my generation has with including ephemeral pop culture in puzzles that I don't particularly ascribe to. Working for Will, I've seen a couple puzzles recently with themes built around Candy Crush, the popular app. My feeling is, this might be a fun reference for some current solvers, but someone doing this in a book years from now will most likely have forgotten about/never heard of this game, and it won't be a satisfying solve. Overall, I think it's about finding a balance between entertaining today's solvers with modern references but still crafting a puzzle that will be enjoyable 10 years from now.

Loved this concept. I could totally see the confusion on the poor person's face as CASEY unhelpfully spelled his name. Reading Will's comment made it even funnier. Big thumbs up.

And the execution is incredibly well done. With five themers plus two short reveals, I'd normally expect some compromises in the fill. It would have been nice to get one pair of long themers in, but I appreciate that he's taken advantage of the 6's and 7's, filling them with such good stuff as ANY DAY, MISSUS, and my favorite, EPSILON with its microeconomics clue. One of my old MBA profs (also a crossword fan) frequents the same coffee shop as me, and I'm going to have to admit that I needed the E to drop it in. Sigh, all the stuff I've forgotten.

Another notable feature of this puzzle is the "fresh fill." As a younger constructor (Joel recently graduated from Pomona), I really appreciate his restraint in tossing in stuff I've never heard of. When it's just KIMYE and YOLO (according to a kid I work with, it stands for "Yo oaf, love ouchies!" — something said before punching the receiver in the arm as hard as possible), I enjoy learning these things. Although sometimes they kind of hurt.

Great clues, too. The one for ALLEYS is fantastic.

I always try to point out stuff I loved as well as stuff I thought could use improvement. Hmm. It would have been nice if CASEY and QRCIU were in more elegant locations. Perhaps pushed all the way to the top and bottom? But that's awfully minor. Those two answers are symmetrically placed, and I bet Joel did this so that the Q in IQS wouldn't be something awkward. ??Q is a tough pattern to fill, after all. Perhaps a touch more puzzle flow? Taking out the black square below NYT would have made the puzzle slightly less partitioned (and closer to the usual 78-word maximum). Would have also allowed for one pair of longer fill entries, but it would have also made the puzzle harder to fill cleanly.

So overall, a great idea, nearly impeccable execution, just nits to pick if I look hard. One of my favorite Thursdays in recent memory.