New York Times, Thursday, April 20, 2017

The theme of this puzzle arose in a manner that I suppose is common for many constructors — a word (or a word in a phrase) suddenly triggers a thought process that ultimately leads to a crossword. Here, I noticed the one-syllable word English word SAKE can be transformed simply by a variation in pronunciation into the two-syllable Japanese wine SAKE. When applied to FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE, the standard English phrase becomes re-defined into a rather amusing concept by using the Japanese meaning. With this revelation, the essence of a constructor's "aha moment" had taken place, and the hunt for other words that could offer parallel transformations began.

It turned out that there aren't many relevant choices. In the completed puzzle, the letter E is the consistent transformative focus, shifting in pronunciation, with the E changing from a silent to a voiced vowel in three of the entries. This is nice, although it is partially a side effect of the apparent dearth of options. In the end, three of the key words referred to food or drink. There is another edible option — PATE — but the English meaning of PATE (the top of the head) did not offer any common or reasonable phrases. Thus, LAME might be considered the outlier of the group, but I like the humor of LAME's altered meaning in the puzzle, so the thematic set seems OK to me.

The length of the theme entries was a bit awkward — two 14s and two 10s — with letter positions leading to the stepped wedges that bracket the grid. But the layout did allow symmetrical pairs of relatively long downs — 8s, 9s, and 10s — giving the opportunity for a few interesting entries.

Finally, when one submits a slightly lengthy quote as a clue, it's never certain that it will be retained through the editorial process. So I'm particularly gratified that the trenchant quote from Mark Twain is present.

Fun theme idea, one-syllable words interpreted as their two-syllable counterparts. I'm a big fan of MOLE sauce (spicy chocolatey goodness!), so WHACK A MO-LE made me laugh. FOR HEAVENS SA-KE and LA-ME EXCUSE felt more tortured grammatically, but I was still amused.

I did like RUN FOR THE RO-SES (pinkish wines), but it felt inconsistent with the rest of the themers, as the only plural. I don't mind a lack of tightness if the theme is ultra-constrained, but there are a lot of ROSE phrases out there.

I know, my OCD constructor's brain is so annoying!

I like that Jeffrey made an effort to give solvers some bonuses in the fill. Fun to have WHITE RICE and THE NATURAL, as well as YESHIVAS and SUM TOTAL.

There were prices to pay for this, though. WHITE RICE and THE NATURAL are made possible by not using the typical black squares which would break up the side of the puzzle — the RET of RETAIN would normally be black squares to facilitate better fill. This forces some crossword glue like A TALE, and the odd LAND AT. I don't mind add-a-preposition phrases when they sound natural, but LAND AT … hmm.

My immature brain giggled at LUDE and TOKE in the same puzzle.

My constructor's brain pointed out RECTO, TVA, ROUES, HMS. Nothing terrible, but all slightly iffy. Overall, I would have preferred a slightly cleaner puzzle with slightly fewer goodies.

Neat concept with some funny results. If 1.) this had been on a Wednesday or Tuesday, where I expect these simpler types of themes, 2.) the themers had all been singular, and 3.) the puzzle had been executed more smoothly, I would have given it the POW!