New York Times, Wednesday, November 11, 2020

This puzzle is a blast from my past — I wrote and submitted this puzzle back in Summer 2013! Why it's running so long after the fact is something hardcore fans of the puzzle might be able to suss out... How I came up with the theme is a bit of a blur now, as you might imagine, but I *think* the revealer came up in some trivia thing I was doing at the time, and then the center answer became the germ around which the rest of the theme quickly emerged.

Because the puzzle has been resting for so long, I asked Will and the gang for permission to refill and reclue it since my skills have improved since then. Still, it was hard to find a good new shape for the grid — this one still feels a little inelegant to me somehow, especially in the SE, but I like the lack of three-letter words despite the expanded grid size, and answers like 6-D, 66-A, and 35-Down feel gratifying to have gotten in here.

At 18-Across, I originally had GREEN FLAG, but upon revisiting the puzzle, I felt that GREEN DAY was too unlike the other themers to pass muster — I really like HOLYFIELD as a nice last-minute save for that spot! Incidentally, I had a very different clue for 1-Across that I'm not surprised to see didn't make it to press!

FWIW, I also didn't know that 32-A was an alternate spelling, or I'd have replaced it... oh well.

"Both words can precede X" themes largely fell by the wayside about three years ago, not long after Will called a moratorium on simpler "words that can precede X" ones. All established theme types go through this life cycle — they start with a bang, grow mature, wane in popularity, feel overdone, and die out. However, it's nice to see a throwback to the past every once in a while.

DOUBLEDAY is as reasonable a rationale as any. While it's not exciting — there are a ton of words that can precede DAY, so there should be an ample number of possible themers — it does the trick. HOLYFIELD = holy day, field day, etc.

I did hitch on VETERANS MEMORIAL — it's no surprise that this is a debut phrase. It Googles well, pointing to dozens of different memorials honoring vets. It's not something I'd strive to use in another crossword as fill, though, since it feels too general of a term. VIETNAM VETERANS MEMORIAL evokes much more vivid and specific imagery, for example.

As a constructor, I often hear the siren song of long across bonuses, particularly where ABILITIES and OUR SAVIOR are today. Usually, you'd have a black square at the S of OUR SAVIOR, but you can sometimes do without it, thus adding in more pizzazz. Why not? Let's do it!

When it forces something rough like XIE XIE crossing XFL and EXO, though … it's not quite a FELONY, but you're usually better off putting that black square back in.

Among crossword makers, variant entries are one of the most hated types of crossword glue. ANTEED looks so horrible, so desperate, that there's no way I'd let it through. It's a tough call, though — it is something solvers can reason out, much less so than XIE XIE. Does it look better or worse than HOBS or GYRE? Hard to say.

I enjoyed reviewing some crossword history today. Although this theme type doesn't (and shouldn't) show up much, an exemplary instance once every few years can be fine.