New York Times, Friday, December 18, 2015

I always want to include vocabulary that allows solvers to reflect on the contexts in which these words arose, and hence on what they say about society at large (or just about my current interests). Today, we have the conceptual PANOPTICON watching over the rest of the puzzle at 1A. UNLADYLIKE is such a loaded and interesting word to me: I mean, what does it mean nowadays to act like a "well-bred woman?"

When I constructed the final version of this in Sep. 2014, there had been a downtown beautification project going on outside my apartment whose completion date was delayed by over a year. Consider the inclusion of NOISE LEVEL as my personal vendetta against the awful din of a Caterpillar struggling to re-park every morning at 6:50 am! No such feelings toward SETH MEYERS, whose Weekend Update with Amy Poehler I thought was the highlight of SNL for several seasons.

Other bits: 1D breaks my personal rule of not including dictators or generally horrible individuals, but the stories of what Haiti has had to endure are really unknown here despite our geographic proximity, and worth investigating. 2D might be clued anew re the Chinese e-commerce company. And I like how the vertical spanner at 3D (which I conceived of as the Alice Cooper song) somehow anticipates the feeling of 12D and 33A. The clue for 49D comes from memories of my childhood in Canada, where in social science every event we studied was interrupted by a portage or the making of the scrumptious-sounding* pemmican.

And with that, I turn to WONDERBRAS, whose brilliantly straightforward clue is not mine (it originally echoed IRAS, both being sources of "support"). Reading up on it, the campaign in question enraged many, and a billboard that came out of it caused its share of traffic mishaps. Meanwhile, it launched the Czech model Eva Herzigová, who claims the campaign to have been more "empower[ing]" than offensive, into stardom.

I think I sometimes underestimate themelesses featuring grid-spanning entries. I tend to count an asset as one point, no matter if it's eight letters of 15. Today's GO INTO OVERDRIVE and NO MORE MR NICE GUY felt like they should count for more than just one point apiece — both gave me a burst of "hey, cool!" when I pieced them together. I'll have to rethink my internal scoring system.

There wasn't a lot of other long material, but NO LOVE LOST, ALOHA STATE, even PANOPTICON added to the quality of my solve.

I did hitch upon solving the duo of WONDERBRAS / UNLADYLIKE in a male constructor's puzzle. The latter especially — a debut to the NYT — gave me a strange vibe I couldn't quite explain. They're not crass in the way that I found PLAYBOY MANSION / TOPLESS DANCERS to be. So I was extremely glad to read Andrew's thoughtful commentary — nice to hear his take on the charged nature of UNLADYLIKE and how WONDERBRAS empowered Herzigová.

I like SETH MEYERS as a comedian, and he gets millions of Google hits due to his SNL and his Late Night gigs, so he seems worthy of being a feature entry in a themeless. But this puzzle had so many other proper names that all in all it felt like too much. INGA. CASS. KIROV. AILEY. ROREM. TSO. OHARE. LYLE. LE CID. HAYS. AGRA. I like some proper names in a puzzle, but too many and it starts to feel like a trivia match instead of a crossword. Most entries are significant enough that NYT solvers really ought to know them, but some seem debatable.

A couple of clues that are likely to stump some (they stumped me!):

• How is AGRA an [Indian drawer?]? Think about "drawer" as "something that draws … tourists" (and then groan)
• TOED apparently means "driven obliquely," as in a nail.
• "Tennie" is slang for a singular SNEAKER, as in "tennies" (aka "tennis shoes") for SNEAKERs.
• ITT Tech might not be as famous as Cal Tech, but Google shows it's quite a sprawling for-profit institute. Plus, Caltech is usually represented as one word.

Loved the clue for ASH — [Camel droppings?] as in "droppings from Camel cigarettes." Hilarious!