New York Times, Thursday, November 22, 2018

This theme was inspired by the famous NY Post headline: "Headless Body Found in Topless Bar." I found four long entries for which I could create word rebuses. Both Headless body and Topless Bar were ineligible because of their unmatchable word lengths, so I substituted TOPLESS SWIMSUIT and HEADLESS CHICKEN - two offbeat entries that I wasn't sure would pass muster, but I'm glad they did. The latter was at least better than HEADLESS TURKEY — a "fowl" idea for a puzzle appearing on Thanksgiving.

When doing the fill here, as I like to do with many of my 15 x 15 themed puzzles, I try to include a lot of 7 or 8-letter entries. They lend themselves to better clues, IMO. So in this one my favorite entries are ITS A LIE ("Fake news!",) ONE UNIT (Blood drive donation,) LAKEBED (Superior floor,) DISARMED (Took the heat off?,) and PODESTA (first time this was clued in relation to the Clinton campaign's hacked campaign manager — it has always been clued as an Italian mayor).

Some of the other 7's and 8's were infrequently used in crosswords, as well — RAPPELS, YACHTER, and PASS AWAY. As a constructor, you have to balance the benefits of including a lot of 7+ entries with the inevitable crossing of 3 and 4-letter words, some of which are overused or not easy to clue in a fresh way. I think this puzzle has a little of that issue, but I think worth the payoff for some of the better clues of the longer fill.

_OWARD is such an interesting clue. It obviously is missing something, but what? COWARD, HOWARD, or TOWARD? Or maybe it's missing multiple letters, as in UNTOWARD? Delightful to finally uncover the jazzy phrase, HEADLESS CHICKEN, and realize that it's literally describing (C)OWARD.

BOTTOMLESS PIT is a great phrase too. QUARR_ was a bit too obvious of a clue for my taste though. I suppose it could have misdirected some to QUARREL, but how about CHAS_, which would have more easily misdirected to CHASE?

ENDLESS SUMMER wasn't as familiar to me. It's … an album? A movie?

Is a TOPLESS SWIMSUIT a thing? What is the term for the swimsuit bottom of a bikini set? Isn't it just a "swimsuit bottom"?

I like what Randy did in the west and east sections, which tend to be tricky in this sort of layout. Just an ALAR and an ESSO is a good result.

I hitched on the big corners, though. No doubt, going down to 70 words with giant corners makes for a tougher, more Thursday-ish solve. And I fully agree with Randy on RAPPELS and YACHTER. But entries like ONE UNIT (seems arbitrary), the odd partial AT A TIME, along with ENS, ITA, NUIT, STER — and that's just the bottom of the puzzle — made it not worth it for me.

It's a tough call. Will and Joel often nudge constructors to go lower in word count for later-week puzzles, a philosophy I generally agree with. I think some reining in would have helped this one, though. Breaking up the big corners by going to 74ish words might have produced better trade-offs.

I liked the concept a lot, strong notion for a tricky Thursday, making the work in solving worth the a-ha moment. If they had all been as great as _OWARD / HEADLESS CHICKEN, it could have easily garnered POW! consideration.