New York Times, Friday, September 27, 2013

I think Pete intended this puzzle as a Thursday, but as much as I liked the theme, I didn't think it was powerful enough to devote an entire puzzle to. For this to be a "themeless" puzzle, though, my rule is that the grid has to have 72 or fewer entries, and Pete's original grid had 74. So my colleague Frank Longo revised the construction. The last black square in the sixth row used to be one square higher, and its symmetrical mate in the lower left was one square lower.

This shift lowered the word count by the necessary two words. Then Frank reworked the upper-right and lower-left corners accordingly. The result turned out great, I think — a themeless puzzle with a mini-theme!

Well, this is a surprise. The puzzle I submitted was a 74-worder. Because of the theme, I thought it would be used on a Thursday — or even on a Friday, if conventions could be broken. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that some major reengineering took place. Two black squares were shifted, which resulted in a 72-worder. That necessitated the NE and SW corners being completely reworked. I feel like someone else should get co-constructor credit. As a result, I don't have the same sense of ownership, I suppose, but I still think it turned out quite well. I am glad, that NATALIA made the cut, as that's my second oldest daughter's name.

What a cool idea to have the first across answer = GERMINATE and the last one = TERMINATE! Themeless puzzles are usually, well, themeless (that sounded smarter in my head), so I love seeing a change-up, especially when it's a neat mini-theme.

The skeleton of the puzzle (TERMINATE/GERMINATE/CHANGE ONE LETTER) is quite clever but I agree with Will that those entries alone are a bit thin to hold their own as a full-blown theme (here's an artist's rendition of what the original skeleton might have looked like; note the shifted pair of black squares in the NE and SW corners). I liked this puzzle as a mini-themed themeless, especially since there's enough good fill so that the puzzle can stand as a 72-word themeless in its own right. The bottom TAG TEAM/AREA CODES/ARMPIT section is snazzy in particular, especially given the clever clues for those entries. Excellent work in the two 15's, both in clues and answers.

Interesting interplay between Will and Pete today. Will and/or Frank changed a small corner of one of my early puzzles and it was jarring at first to see an unexpected change in the grid. I wondered, why not kick it back to me and ask me to jazz it up? It took me a while to realize that Will carries an enormous workload and has a proportional quantity of associated communication. Selecting, cleaning up, and finalizing 365+ puzzles a year (plus variety puzzles) is a monumental task, and going back and forth with hundreds of constructors for small changes would be a bear (he does kick grids back when he likes the concept but there are major issues). It would be great for us constructors to have a say in every step of the process, but that can't always happen.

Frank, by the way, is one of the nicest crossword people you'll meet, and very unassuming. Plus, he did a nice job on my previously mentioned puzzle, adding some needed spice to my SW corner, inserting such goodness as DR EVIL and WOOKIEES.