Gabrielle Friedman author page
1 puzzle by Gabrielle Friedman
with Jeff Chen comments
See the 8 answer words debuted by Gabrielle Friedman.
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| L | I | N | E | A | B | Y | E | B | Y | E | B | Y | E | |
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| D | O | S | A | S | T | O | N | G | D | E | E | R |
If you haven't seen "Schitt's Creek," stop reading this post and go binge. David, the BI-CURIOUS owner of the town, is one of my favorite sitcom characters in recent memory. Stroke of genius to get Eugene Levy's son, Dan Levy, to play his son on the show.
BYE BYE BYE … sort of rings a bell. From 2000? Wow, nearly twenty years ago? It's a sadly appropriate title for those non-Justin Timberlake guys. Uh … Lance something or other? Wasn't there a Jason in there?
Fun concept, but the grid execution had problems. A Tuesday puzzle ought to be welcoming to newer solvers, and entries like ARTE, DII, EIN, XYLO, and a singular TONG are not.
Crossing PHILOMENA with DOSAS is problematic as well. One might argue that an educated NYT solver ought to at least recognize one of these, but it's not fair to expect people to know their exact spellings, especially since any of the five vowels could look fine in that square.
One glance at the gigantic SW and NE corners, and I was sure this was a low-word count grid; almost impossible to get smooth enough for an early-week experience. In the NE, I love OVEN MITTS and VIDEO CHAT as bonuses. Trying to work those around BUY AMERICAN — plus the other bonuses of RIPENESS and ENLISTEE — is way too ambitious.
There's a ton of sparkly fill — LOOT BAG, GO BANANAS, STAMP TAX, TURBAN — but the balance is tilted too far away from smoothness. For a simple theme like this, increasing the word count to 76 or 78 would have decreased the filling difficulty and thus a better solving experience for newbs.
Looking forward to seeing what Gabi and Jake can do next with a grid layout more appropriate for early-week puzzles.