New York Times, Thursday, September 23, 2021

Looking at a friend's paper solution to some dastardly puzz with blots of inky cross-outs made me think:

1. there's so much ink that it looks like they've added blockers, and
2. there's gotta be a way to use that in a theme!

Filling in a row of black squares could be like "redacting," perhaps? The rest flowed from there: things that get "blacked out" could be private information... of the options, SSN, PIN, and DOB worked best. I was lucky to find a strong set of spanning themers with these three initialisms buried symmetrically inside.

The grid I originally submitted had white squares where the "personal info" would go, only 28 blockers, very un-Thursday like. But there was a huge catch: solvers on apps can't use a pen to "black out" anything! So, I was pleasantly surprised when the editing team accepted it... although I had no idea how they'd publish it.

Part of me hoped they'd come up with some coding trick, and use it to demonstrate a new feature of their app. Alas, it was not to be. The very patient Joel Fagliano pointed out that aside from the app problem, in my version the numbering scheme would give away the gimmick: a few numbered squares without black squares immediately above them would call attention to themselves. I think the [---] clues in the published version also call attention to themselves, but I agree it's the best way to publish this theme for app-solvers. Many thanks to the editors for making it work!

Apt to have SSN, PIN, and DOB "blacked out." We've added in the nine letters below for the sake of clarity. Don't hate us for dacting the redactions, we're only trying to make sure solvers understand what's going on.

I enjoyed a solid a-ha moment when figuring out SLEEPLE(SS N)IGHTS. It's unfortunately spot-on for these pandemic days.

GOING U(P IN) FLAMES, too? You wonder what inspired Simeon ...

I hitched on ___ SERVERS. On one hand, I love that SERVERS is a real word, obfuscating the trick, unlike IGHTS. I didn't get a strong click upon completing GROUND OBSERVERS, though. It's a fine phrase, albeit from a long time ago. I had to work extremely hard to uncover it, and the payoff didn't feel commensurate.

I was curious, what might have been fresher? The search string *???DOB???* (the question marks insure that there are at least three letters before and after DOB) turned up some neat entries, including ORLAN(DO B)LOOM and FRO(DO B)AGGINS — cool connection, though irrelevant). I also enjoyed SACRE(D OB)JECT(S), which has a feeling of secrecy to match the theme.

Interesting choice to go to such a low word count — 73 is close to themeless level. I loved getting so many bonuses in the NW and SE; HULA DANCE, YELLOW LAB, POT LEAVES are great.

Not wild about the middle. ESTERS to STYES to the slightly wonky AEROBATS to BANC … I'd have looked at adding a pair of black squares around the B of AEROBATS. Probably rejiggering the layout, too, to avoid bottlenecking into the NE corner.

Not the first time I've seen this concept, with Joanne Sullivan getting her second she-did-it-first moment in a week, and Joel Fagliano executing a similar concept back in 2017.

I like puzzles that break the rules, though, so I welcome a "letters in black squares" puzzles occasionally. Some solvers complain about having no way to write in those redacted letters, so I'm curious to see how the NYT app handles things. It would be so mind-blowing if for one day only, solvers could navigate onto black squares, so they could type right onto them.