New York Times, Saturday, February 22, 2014

It's probably a blessing and a curse to have to follow Patrick Berry, but someone has to do it, so today it might as well be me.

I wrote this puzzle in March 2013 and it was just my fourth attempt at a themeless grid. At the time I hadn't been having much success with themed puzzles, so I turned to themeless construction. Now, I enjoy creating themeless grids the most since they give you the freedom to experiment with fresh, fun phrases in a way that themed puzzles don't.

DOMINATRIX was my seed entry and I built upwards. I like many of the long phrases I got in there, but this puzzle shows my impatience to submit it since it has more short, less-than-stellar entries than I would normally prefer today (things like RESOW, AREAR, SALMI, DE ORO, I SHOT, and SNEE). If I could rework the grid now I might try putting DOMINATRIX in a different position just to see if the fill would be cleaner. It's probably a little strange seeing her on the bottom rather than on top, no?

The gentleman whose puzzle will appear in tomorrow's Sunday Times (Victor Fleming) was my mentor on themeless construction. He was critical of my first couple of attempts, but his criticism ended up helping me a lot. It gave me the focus to keep striving to create the best grid possible. So while I have my own qualms about this puzzle, I still think it's good, and my themeless grids have gotten progressively better since I made it.

I'd also like to take a second to plug my brand new, independent crossword website Devil Cross. I release a new puzzle every other Saturday, and though I ran one last week, I decided to drop a new one on Friday, and it's a contest puzzle! (Fair warning: Devil Cross puzzles may contain some R-rated language that you won't see in a Times puzzle)

One great thing about Evan is the raw enthusiasm he brings to the crossword game. Everyone is excited about their debut, but the energy he brought to his NYT debut was above and beyond, totally infectious.

And now he debuts a NYT themeless! A traditional 72-word puzzle with four triple-stacks of 10's (one in each corner), this one features some beautiful entries. My favorite was actually one of the shorter ones, SHOW DOG, especially given its neat clue, "Well-trained boxer, maybe." I think I've been doing crosswords too long, because my first instinct was to fill the last two letters in with ER, thinking it would be PUNCHER or POUNDER or something. Great surprise to find out I had been bamboozled.

The themeless game is so much harder these days, given how many people are submitting to Will (I understand he gets proportionally many more themelesses than other types). In just a few years, the expectations have risen quite a bit, as everyone has upped their games. Having a small handful of ERNS, RESOW, DE ORO, I SHOT, etc. used to be the norm a few years ago, even desirable given the lesser state of the art back then.

But these days, it seems to me like there are more and more sparkly themeless puzzles with virtually no crosswordese. I do really like the raw amount of nice stuff Evan has in the puzzle, but for a 72-worder, I would hope for slightly less of the usual crosswordy suspects. I really appreciate his sentiments in his Constructor's Note — it's great to observe when a constructor humbly acknowledges he's working on his game. Looking forward to see how his career blossoms; I think we'll see greatness.

Finally, as with most Saturdays, the tricky wordplay clues make me smile. My favorite is "High spirits?", repurposing a common phrase to perfectly describe ARCHANGELS. A really good workout today; congrats on a very nice themeless debut, Evan!