WHY NOT?

Like my NYT debut, this puzzle also has an Oppositeland twin, Patrick Berry's 5/15/2005 "Words to the Y's" Sunday NYT crossword. After (eventually) solving Mr. Berry's puzzle, I figured there had to be some words, like "hymn" or "sync," that used this same trick in reverse.

Before I began searching for specific theme phrases, I first brainstormed as many "y-less" homophone pairs as I could. Once I had amassed a good number of these pairs, I prioritized finding good entries for pairs with particularly odd/unique letter changes, e.g. SHAYS' --> CHAISE, SORRY --> SARI, or IDYLLS --> IDOLS. Using these "odd" entries as a starting point, I then attempted to find corresponding symmetric answers with as much variety, interest, and punniness as I could muster while also making sure to avoid letter changes that were too similar (e.g. DAYS --> DAZE, RAYS --> RAZE and/or [Willie] MAYS --> MAZE). If the theme entries evoke at least one or two chuckles, then I think they did their job.

Before and during the grid design process, I kept debating whether to use seven or nine theme entries. Since my theme entries were relatively short for a 21x21 puzzle, I wanted nine but also knew that attempting such might require some fancy gridwork or a sacrifice to the mighty crossword gods. Fortunately, there was no sacrifice necessary since SUNDAEBEST/DEVILRAISE intersected symmetrically with TRUSTEESIDEKICK/CHAISEREBELLION. Doing this really helped in spacing out the theme entries and creating some spots for 6's, 7's, and 8's in the fill. (Slight side note: Since the shortest theme entry was nine letters and since there were theme entries in the down direction, I tried to keep all fill shorter than nine letters to prevent "Is this theme or is this fill?" confusion.)

As for the fill, I particularly liked BUTTED (tehee), REDDIT, TOLKIEN, RICKROLL, SIZZLES, BADRAP, and BOOHISS.

If you were tripped up by or liked the clues for 1A, 72A, 116A, or the 11D/12D duo, you can blame/thank me. =) If this also happened for 65A (it's certainly convenient that ROWLING and TOLKIEN have the same number of letters), 15D, 19D, 41D, 56D, or 93D, you can blame/thank Will and his team.

An unusual theme today that took me awhile to wrap my head around — puns involving homophones of words containing the letter Y. The Y's are all gone. Usually themes are based on what's in the grid, not what's not. But once you get it, the result is nice, and the puzzle has a perfect, explanatory title. I also like David's elegant touch of avoiding Y's anywhere in the grid, not just in the theme answers.

Homonyms today, with an extra layer of theme complexity: each of the nine themers has a word including the letter Y, and that word gets replaced with a homonym not containing the letter Y. WHY NOT? indeed.

For a relatively simple theme, it's critical to choose themers that both 1.) have a snappy base phrase and 2.) entertaining results. This is always a challenge — so hard to stick 100% of your themers. I quite liked CHAISE REBELLION, for example. It took me a while to remember what SHAY'S REBELLION was, and the fact that I pulled it out of long-term storage gave me a "I won!" feeling. The amusing picture of a guy throwing a hissy-fit over the patio furniture more than satisfied the second.

NO RIME OR REASON was on the other end of my spectrum. I got confused as it seemed like it ought to be NO RHYME NOR REASON or NO RHYME NO REASON, plus the resulting themer fell flat for me. Perhaps there would be a way to improve that in my eyes, a more entertaining connection between RIME and REASON — something to do with Jack Frost, perhaps? As it was, it felt like two random things thrown together.

I like the shoot-for-the-moon approach David takes on his first Sunday NYT puzzle. Most first-timers adhere tightly to the 140-word maximum, pulling their hair out to do anything they possibly can to drop from 146 or 144 down to Will's threshold of 140. It's very, very hard to do. Going down to 138 words gives him the potential for a little more long fill, and I love seeing BOO HISS, UNITARD, TENDRILS with its brilliant clue, and RICKROLL. Mind you, I didn't know what being rickrolled meant until I encountered it in an earlier NYT puzzle, but I find it hilarious for some reason.

I do think there's some missed potential though, as ULTRAHIP and ALLEGER feel a little made up to me, and ALBANESE was one of those names I shrugged at after uncovering. With so few precious 7+ letter slots, I want to see them all filled with juicy material.

As Will mentioned, sometimes a perfect title pulls everything together, and today is a case in point.