New York Times, Monday, October 19, 2015

Vic: Bruce and I have collaborated off and on for many years, starting back when he and Stella Zawistowski (then Daily) were a prolific team.

Bruce: That's right. And continuing on through the period that Vic and Bonnie Gentry were doing great work together. Every so often, we just think of something we'd both like. We've maybe done about 50 so far. So, late last year I sent Vic a grid with a theme inserted that I thought he'd go for. I like the challenge of interlocking theme entries, and I knew that Vic did, too. I already had it filled, but knew that Vic might very well improve on it.

Vic: That's right. Bruce had done a fill, and I tweaked it some, And then he tweaked my tweaking. But the grid, the theme, and the fill was excellent from the get-go, as always. You want to see some fine Venzke grid work, look at the 1/28/2007 Sunday Times puzzle, "Having Pull," and a 2007 Schrödinger we did for Simon & Schuster called "You Be the Judge" — I forget which volume it's in.

Bruce: Vic is far too generous in his compliments regarding my contribution. Especially on that Schrödinger—Vic had a great gimmick on that one. On this current puzzle, yes, I did the grid, but a puzzle — especially a NYT puzzle — without good clues is like a two-legged stool. And I enjoy consulting with Vic on clueing puzzles like this one. He recommended we clue it to a Tuesday, I think ...

Vic: Maybe even a Wednesday?

Bruce: ... and took the lead by drafting a first set of clues.

Vic: Which Bruce tweaked.

Bruce: I doubt if I changed diddly squat. Maybe three! Anyway, Will liked the puzzle and accepted it as a Monday, which he said would get it into print within a year. So, Vic wrote another set of "Monday clues" ...

Vic: And I sent those first to Bruce, and he tweaked ‘em ...

Bruce: This time I changed two!

Vic: ... and I sent ‘em to Will. And, true to form, it looks as though Will may have used a third of them or so.

Bruce: The long and short of it is that we are always glad to be on the right side of a New York Times byline.

Vic: Right, Bruce!

Synonyms of TIES: CABLE, WIRE, LINE, STRING, CHAIN, and ROPE. Impressive theme density, with not just six themers but a revealer in the last across slot.

With six themers, I usually expect a few of them to fall flat, since it's tough to pack so much in without a few compromises. I was pleasantly surprised that five of them were solid gold. ROPE A DOPE is such a great phrase, WIRE FRAUD cues colorful images, and CHAIN MAIL gets me smiling (there are a surprising number of secret Medieval cosplay fights in Seattle parks). I wasn't hot on CABLE OUTLET, which is a real and fine answer — to me, it pales in comparison to the others, though. Nice job of packing, Bruce!

The high density does come with a couple of compromises — check out where LINE DANCE and STRING BEANS overlap. The never-seen-in-real-life TER (I've only used TID in pharma dev; my doctor wife confirms this) is a big price to pay. I'm not sure why constructors/editors allow it.

The symmetrical spot exhibits similar strain. Having to resort to an old-timey SST is reasonable, but next to the arbitrary ONE MEG, it's harder for me to look past. Those two sections are tough to get perfectly smooth and clean as I like a Monday to be — so many black squares had to be deployed elsewhere around all the themers, that the north and south end up being relatively big, tough-to-cleanly-fill chunks of white space.

Overall, it would have been nice for the theme to be tighter, as there are all sorts of things that can TIE: twine, cord, ribbon, belt, etc. It'd be one thing if it were limited to direct synonyms for "string," but once you throw in CHAIN, it gets pretty loosey-goosey. This might have been a case for "less is more" for me.