New York Times, Friday, January 8, 2021

It's always an honor to get to share a themeless crossword with you. A freestyle grid is a blank canvas for a fireworks display, and my goal is to pack as many novel/interesting entries into it as possible without compromising fill quality. My favorite crossword entries tend to be common, evocative, yet cruciverbally overlooked casual/spoken phrases, and this puzzle accommodated several I'd been itching to unveil.

I was pleased to reference several accomplished women in this puzzle, including Edna Lewis and Zaha Hadid, the first woman to win architecture's Pritzker Prize. (I love architecture.) I hope the crossing between LAHTI and HADID was manageable if you weren't familiar with either name.

Thanks to the editors for several of the fun clues, including 16-Across and 11- and 34-Down. And who doesn't love a Baby Yoda reference? Hope you enjoyed the puzzle!

Two amazing entry/clue pairings:

• BIENVENUE is a delightful word. Not as delightful as the misdirect in [Welcome abroad], leading me to ask myself, what's a word to take in a foreign exchange student?
• [Digital filing service?] needed a telltale question mark, but that didn't stop me from enjoying the wordplay. Fingers and toes = digits!

In our weekly puzzle chat, Jim Horne and I shared a laugh about YEAHAND. We rarely agree fully on anything, but neither of us could wrap our brains around this one. The YEAHAND is the opposite of the NAYHAND? Perhaps it's a cousin to YAHEARD with Perd?

(It's YEAH ... AND? A solid entry, albeit strange-looking without that ellipsis.)

I used to think all weird-looking entries were cool, but I've heard enough solver feedback on things like SANDP, EINK, and MESAAZ to adjust my scoring principles.

Jim and I appropriately agreed on another entry; WOULDN'T YOU AGREE? Yes, we would!

Not so much on THIS GUY GETS IT, which this guy didn't. I do think it's a fine entry, but it feels oddly specific. I asked Jim to give me an example of the phrase in use, and twenty minutes later, Marie Antoinette pointed to Marc Anthony (the Shakespeare character, not the singer, of course) and said CE GARS, L'OBTIENT.

(It appears that Jimmy Fallon uses this phrase a lot, so the issue is more my obtuse refusal to acknowledge things that make me feel old.)

ESCOOTER … I have seen these littered about my neighborhood, people zooming by on sidewalks, eliciting fist-shaking from a grumpy old man spying at intruders from my doorstep. It's a curious entry, one part modern, and one part head-shaking-at-yet-another-e-addition-phrase.

(This, from someone who says E-TAILER and E-COMMERCE all the time.)

Only vaguely recognizing HADID and EGAN nearly hadid me in, but thankfully I recognized Christine LAHTI. Less fortunate was Jim, to whom I had to explain what a NOOGIE was. My phone literally swayed from the breeze generated by Jim shaking his head at us crazy Yanks.

Overall, some head-cocking moments, but enough strong entries and clever wordplay to make the solve worth it.

I was surprised to see ["The Gray Lady": Abbr.] as a clue for NYT.

When I started Wordplay years ago, I was given two rules to follow about the Times:

1. Never call it the Newspaper of Record. The NYT isn't. One reason it isn't is that there's no such thing as the Newspaper of Record.
2. Never call it "The Gray Lady" because people there hate that.