New York Times, Friday, November 15, 2019

This puzzle began with IS THAT A THING and LEONARD COHEN. I like trying to find phrases that I've heard in real life, such as I CANT EVEN, and incorporating them into themeless puzzles. The phrase IS THAT A THING is what I often say to myself while constructing a puzzle. Also, I am a huge fan of the late, great LEONARD COHEN and have been trying to work him into a grid for a while, so I'm happy to debut this entry.

A few entries, like LISLE, GANESH, and GANTRY (as clued) are tough, but the crosses seem reasonable, so I think they're fair for a Friday. As always, I hope that the good outweighs the bad, and it's enjoyable to solve.

Thanks to Will Shortz and team for publishing this, especially on the weekend of my birthday — a nice birthday present!

IS THAT A THING? — ooh, what a fantastic entry! I use that notion so often in my critiques (attention Byron Walden!); why haven't I ever added it to our list? If someone had given me a list of potential seed entries to build a themeless around, it would have jumped right out.

DATA SCIENTIST is also a snappy entry, although on a list of potential seed entries, I'd have passed over it in favor of phrases like I CAN'T EVEN and SUSHI BAR. I do like that it has the potential for clever cluing, which I CAN'T EVEN doesn't have. The quotation marks around "miner" in the clue gave away the game, unfortunately.

Tough way to open up a themeless, with EL CHAPO headlining. No doubt he has a colorful name, but yikes, the violence still ongoing to the Sinaloa Cartel … not something I want to be reminded of in my day's travel to LALA LAND, escaping the ills of the world. I wouldn't have thought twice about it, except for it being the 1-Across entry and the echo in DONS.

It's usually a good idea to avoid giant corners like the SW and NE. Roughly 5x6 area? All right, break it up! Amp up the difficulty even more with long entries like LEONARD COHEN and I CAN'T EVEN, and you're begging for tough and/or gloopy fill. In the NE, OBEAH, LISLE, LATEN make for an undesirable trio. Any one of them is probably fine, but all three lined up makes for an unsatisfying effect. Not worth the strong entries in CREWCUT, RATHOLE, SCROLL and ARABIA.

Solid craftsmanship from Debbie, along with some fantastic marquee entries. Next time, avoiding such big corners, along with one or two more long feature entries, and I predict she enters POW! territory.