New York Times, Thursday, January 12, 2017

Today's crossword originated with a study of rebus setups involving word fragments in some relative position. It just so happened that the first three examples I generated involved two side-by-side words rather than word fragments, so those words could be clued independently. Next, it occurred to me that each rebus needed added words to complete — or reveal — the rebus thought, and it turned out to be rather convenient to tag on these revealers immediately after the rebus words. So, the three-consecutive-entry layout was shaping up nicely from the start. Not long after that, I realized that the revealer words themselves were synonyms suggesting a rift — well, duh! — so I imposed that long rift of black squares upon the grid as an additional novelty.

For a while, I pondered whether any further theme embellishments were possible. Clearly TED, ANA and KEN have the name connection, but nothing elegant emerged from that observation. I also noticed that BUS and BAN could act as imperative verb forms, and I might have pursued that if BRO were the same … but alas, that was another potential connection which didn't pan out. In the end, not all ideas could be exploited, but those that were, made for a pretty decent theme on their own.

Finally, some solvers may know the "Rebus" category of crosswords and will recognize that this puzzle is not within that classification; I generally cannot solve crosswords requiring more than one letter per square, so — after 84 crossword contributions — I still refuse to construct anything like that. Instead, I decided I would produce an "anti-Rebus" rebus.

For my money, Joe Krozel is one of the most innovative, interesting constructors out there. Some of my friends have grumbled that pushing the envelope doesn't always lead to great solving experiences, and I can see their point. But I felt that today's puzzle not only broke (pun intended) new ground, but it was an immense pleasure to solve.

Several constructor friends and I have brainstormed concepts with a grid separated in two, but none of us have ever thought of this cool idea. Joe found three solid phrases relating to a separated grid — and separated those phrases! Not only that, but each piece of each broken phrase makes a fine word in itself. BUSTED APART = BUS / TED + APART, BANANA SPLIT = BAN / ANA + SPLIT, BROKEN IN TWO = BRO / KEN + IN TWO. Just genius.

Will has rejected every one of my attempts to use this "up-down" style of symmetry, saying that it just looks odd, and I can usually see his point. But Joe uses a set of heavy black lines that evokes left-right symmetry, maintaining a pleasing visual effect.

And the fill! With some trick puzzles, fill necessarily shows strain to make the trick work. Joe does so well, giving us some excellent IKEBANA, TRANSISTOR RADIO, RAGTIME, THE NORM, SANGRIA, etc., flowing all the way down the right side. Okay, UNTAME isn't very good, but all the great entries overwhelmed that one for me.

The left side isn't quite as snazzy, but it does have a nice TAXICAB, PLANETS, NITWITS, ARMHOLE, without much crossword glue holding it together — just an UNA and a TELE made for a silky solve.

It's not often that I'm green with envy, wishing that it had been my name on the byline, but that was the case today. If I did a Crossword of the Month like Matt Gaffney, this one would be sure to be on it. Loved it.