New York Times, Saturday, March 22, 2014

I've been constructing seriously now for about two years and this is one of my first themeless attempts. I learned a lot making this one ... which was done mostly on my cell phone during work breaks.

I like ZOO EXHIBIT and HOME PORT, and even though my favorite clues were rejected, I'm still pleased overall. The clue for GRAPE JELLY was originally about meatballs.

Thanks to Will and Jeff and everyone else in the cru community. The comments provided have been most helpful.

Good showing from Greg, only his second NYT puzzle. Some really nice debut entries plus a good number of tough clues made for a good hard Saturday workout. I loved seeing ZOO EXHIBITS along with its deceptive clue [One often behind bars], making me think about criminal repeat offenders. Gave me a nice smile when I finally uncovered it.

Greg brings us an unusual grid, in that the NW and SE are segmented off from the rest of the puzzle, only one entrance into those sections apiece. Typically I like to see more flow within a themeless grid — I was able to work my way into the SE fairly easily, but the difficulty of that NW section and its only entry, ZOO EXHIBIT, made it fell like a mini-puzzle I had to solve after the rest of the puzzle. Not ideal, but I'm sure many will have no problems getting into those closed-off sections.

But really, really nice job on those closed-off areas. A 6x6 region will by nature be tough to fill cleanly, as there's no short entries available to glue everything together. Greg had to work with a 6/6/6/6/5 crossing a 6/6/6/5/5 section, which is no small feat. And he comes out beautifully, nary a bad entry in either section. Some will point out YTD as not so hot, but being on two Finance Committees for local non-profits, I loved seeing it. The SE was even prettier, another Z worked smoothly in, along with SYDNEY and its good bit of trivia.

What, you thought Greenland was a continent? Ha ha ha! Only silly billys and uneducated boors and certain crossword analysts who sit on Finance Committees would think that. Ha ha ha!

Not a huge fan of certain entries like RENTABLE and ALTERANT which certainly are words, but feel like they just take up space in a themeless grid. But those parts of the grid (8x3 stack intersecting another 8x3 stack) makes it very difficult to fill both cleanly and with snazz. As with all themelesses, there are trade-off: the wide-open NE and SW corners make the beautiful NW and SE corners possible.