New York Times, Friday, September 20, 2013

Mangesh:

Frankly, I have grown up solving Doug's puzzles. So it was a privilege when he accepted to collaborate. This is my first themeless. The best learning, when working on a themeless, is the stretch it gives to your imagination. Not just in filling the longest entries of 15, but others like DEAD ON (which Will appreciated in his "Yes" mail). I wanted to improve on BALINESE to something more exciting.

Doug and I divided (or rather halved) the cluing. He went for Across and I for Down. I prefer cluing over constructing. Again, imagination and creativity get a wide canvas. The thrill is multiplied when you can come up with a cute clue and it tickles Will enough to retain it in the published version.

Doug:

This is a grid pattern that I've found is good for themeless collaborations. One constructor fills the top (or bottom) and hands it off to the other constructor to complete. Sometimes it works, and sometimes you have to go back to square one (pun intended). If I remember correctly, I filled the top half and then sent it intercontinentally to Mangesh. It was a pleasure to finally meet him at the ACPT last year!

Mangesh Ghogre, of Mumbai, India, is making his debut with today's puzzle. How he and Doug divided up the construction job I don't know. The two pairs of stacked 15s are pretty nice, I think, although three of the four 15s have appeared in Times puzzles before (17A once, 48A twice, and 45A three times). But it's been awhile since they've appeared, and the clues for them are fresh, so I hope solvers will not remember them or at least not mind.

Debut for Mangesh! If you haven't read his 2012 ACPT letter you're missing out. Great story about the power of crosswords not only to delight but to educate. I had the pleasure to meet him at that ACPT and enjoyed swapping stories.

And how can you go wrong working with the venerable Doug Peterson, an expert constructor and a hilarious guy? I'm envious of the fun times they must have had. Doug and Mangesh incorporate double-stacked 15's, using a black square to break up rows 1 and 15. That pair of squares may seem insignificant, but this arrangement is so much more flexible to fill than a triple-stack of 15's. The top stack is very nice, both phrases being in the language and catchy. There are a couple of blemishes in OBS, EDD, and TER but overall it's pretty good. PENNON was a bit of a head-scratcher, but I enjoyed looking that up and reminiscing about The Tudors and Game of Thrones.

One issue with stacks of 15's is that they don't leave much room for other feature entries in the grid. Note how aside from the 15's, there are slots for only six 8's. It's relatively hard to find fresh 7-letter (or less) answers, so there's not a lot of room aside from the 15's to incorporate more marquee answers. TO DIE FOR is, well, to die for, but there aren't many other flashy entries.

To Will's point about reuse of 15's in stacks, some of us constructors have a running joke about SCARLET TANAGERS and A LOT ON ONES PLATE, which have been used many times in themeless stacks. Anytime a crossword has a 15-letter answer with any sort of bird clue, I automatically fill in SCARLET TANAGERS. And if I don't want to do something, I'll say "Sorry, I have a lot on one's plate."

Finally, a highlight of the puzzle is the clue for NINJAS. What a fun piece of information! Watch as I activate my ninja powers and turn invisib