New York Times, Tuesday, April 7, 2020

I don't have much to say about today's puzzle. Except to say, I hope it provides you a few minutes of respite from the painful experience we are all going through together.

In addition to safeguarding your physical health, please remember to take care of your mental health during this time.

If you feel you need individualized help, mental health professionals are continuing to see clients through telehealth platforms. Please don't hesitate to seek assistance.

Taking the time to engage in activities you enjoy is a critical part of reducing stress. Since you're reading this, crossword puzzles are going to be one way you can do that. Matt Gritzmacher recently began offering a Daily Crossword Links website and email service, which lists every puzzle available to solve each day. Most of these crosswords are free, including many indie puzzles you may not be aware of.

I offer a free puzzle site called Grid Therapy. Puzzles go up about once a week, and you can sign up for email notification when new puzzles are posted. I'd love to see you there.

Take care of yourselves and each other. We're all in this together, and I wish you good health and resilience as all of us work toward getting to the other side of this painful time. Finally, I'd like to express my deepest gratitude to all of our medical personnel and first responders. It can't be said often enough that you are heroes.

(Body part) IN THE (place). Easy enough theme to explain! It's much tougher to figure out why it didn't work as well as I wanted, though.

Tightness is highly desirable in a theme. If you can't think of any other phrases that would work, that's a mark of success. It took me a long time to find others, and they weren't all great. HANDS IN THE AIR (like you don't care — word up!), FACE IN THE CROWD, EYE IN THE SKY.

Although Trent's three themers are fairly tight, they're missing something: an a-ha element. Tightness isn't enough, if the given pattern isn't that interesting. It needed some other layer, perhaps a progression of CLOUDS to GROUND to … HELL? GRAVE? Hmm. that doesn't work.

Ah! How about having all places up above? For instance, EYE IN THE SKY, HEAD IN THE CLOUDS … is NOSE IN THE AIR legit? Not sure, but that sort of extra layer makes a theme stand out.

With just three themers, I expect a sparkly and smooth grid. Trent did well with the former, treating us to WATCHDOG, NERDFEST, ODWALLA, and my favorite, OUTATIME. What can I say, I'm an 80's movie fanboy.

As for the latter, the grid would have been fine if this had been a later-week puzzle, where experienced solvers wouldn't even think once about HORA ROTI ONEL LOUPE. For newbs, though, these can make a puzzling experience … puzzling.

Even the cluing felt too tough. OSHA or the FDA are WATCHDOGs, yes, but why not a clever clue that's easier and more fun for newer solvers? You could play on "boxer" as a type of dog, for instance.

It's a fun start of a theme concept, but it could have used more brainstorming to help it evolve and flourish.