New York Times, Monday, March 23, 2015

"Much Ado About Something" was a working title I used for this puzzle. It had its germination last spring as I was watching the NCAA basketball tournament, a.k.a. MARCHMADNESS. As a sports fan, I decided to use the term in a puzzle and work "bracketology" into the clue. With that foundation, I thought about the crazy state of the human condition and the behaviors that demonstrate our passions and madness (said the cruciverbalist, knee deep in crossword puzzles). I considered lots of other possibilities during the theme development phase (Beatlemania had been used recently, e. g.), but eventually MEDIAFRENZY and KLEPTOMANIA paired up nicely as 11-letter entries, and FASHIONCRAZE matched up with MARCHMADNESS as 12-letter ones.

Those four terms were probably enough for a decent early-week puzzle, but I wanted a fifth to give it more clout. It was serendipitous when CATSCRATCHFEVER aired on a local radio station. Ted Nugent's rock euphemism provided an interesting 15-letter expression to sandwich in the middle of my puzzle. Longer, unique entries like BICKEROVER and ARTHISTORY added some depth beyond the theme as I began to fill the grid. I must be mad about geography, too, because my fill ended up containing a veritable world tour from RENO and the OZARKS in the USOFA to HAITI, TROY, and MECCA.

A year after its inception, I am pleased to have the puzzle published during the 2015 basketball tournament and in the week leading up to the other form of March Madness — the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament in Stamford, Connecticut.

Timely puzzle, right in the middle of MARCH MADNESS. "Bracketology" is such a cool term (as is "bracketologist") that I'm surprised neither has been used before in crosswords. When Warren Buffett was considering a one billion dollar prize for correctly picking every game in the NCAA brackets, I found it really interesting that his underwriters thought the risk of someone actually achieving it was negligible — but the risk of a hacker finding a way to dupe them was not.

Colorful phrases, FASHION CRAZE and MEDIA FRENZY singing. KLEPTOMANIA is a strong one too, but I found it slightly inelegant that it was the only single word themer. Something like RAILWAY MANIA or TULIP MANIA? As a kid, I was enthralled by severe displacements of supply and demand's actual equilibrium point.

Man, I was a weird kid.

I like the effort to incorporate two long downs, BICKER OVER and ART HISTORY. With five long themers, that's a tough task. I appreciate the care Mike took in filling in those areas. Nice and smooth; good deployment of black squares to facilitate filling those areas.

And overall the fill is pretty smooth, with just the north section sticking out with a concentration of A BATH / LAI / YMA. It'd be interesting to see if relocating the block below DENIM to the I of HAITI would have helped — using a five-letter word like HAITI to separate two themers often results in slight compromises.

Finally, ["Oh. My. God!"] for EEK amused me to no end. I like both the creativity in cluing and the colloquial tone.