New York Times, Saturday, May 27, 2017

I began this one while listening to an episode of "StarTalk", hosted by recently published constructor Neil deGrasse Tyson. His guest, planetary scientist Carolyn Porco, was discussing the famous "Pale Blue Dot" photograph, and it seemed like a good seed entry, so I put it in.

I'm mostly happy with how it turned out. I do wish I could have come up with a cleaner middle-bottom (Texas) section though. I broke two of my personal constructing rules here: (1) No pluralizing uncommon names; (2) No partials. I justified (1) by the fact that both ETTAS, James and Jones, were jazz singers. (I'm not sure why exactly this is a justification for me, but it is.) And my clue for I ATE was "Already had dinner," which would make it a full sentence, not a partial, but it was changed during edit. Does it not work?

"Want to order a pizza?"

"Nah, I ate."

Hmm… it does sound a bit awkward.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this one overall, and if you didn't, I'll thank you to not THROW SHADE in my direction.

Sometimes people ask me why certain themelesses run on Fridays and some on Saturdays. You can make a puzzle as hard or easy as you want by tweaking the cluing, right? That's mostly true, but there are some puzzles that just scream SUPER HARD VOCABULARY, I BELONG ON A SATURDAY! Today was one of them.

I like learning a thing or two from my crosswords, especially when the thing is a catchy as FLEXITARIAN. What a snazzy term! And it's something that solvers can suss out, even if it's unfamiliar. Fantastic choice to seed a themeless puzzle.

I'm a Carl Sagan fan — love "Cosmos" — but PALE BLUE DOT was new to me. As a former NASA intern, I'm embarrassed that I didn't know it until now. Ahem. Again, I like learning a thing or two from a puzzle. And although this one wasn't as easy to grok as FLEXITARIAN, it still makes sense (the Earth as a faint blue dot in the universe).

I wouldn't expect educated solvers to know details about Miss HAVISHAM (from "Great Expectations"), but the name ought to at least be familiar-sounding.

ANTENATAL … okay, NATAL should be figure-out-able, meaning "related to birth." And the ANTE- prefix means "before." But what an odd term compared to the much more well-known "pre-natal." Jill (my wife, a doctor), says it's not uncommon, but it's a bit odd in lay usage.

COLPORTEUR … whoa. It is a word in the dictionary. And it amusingly sounds like Cole Porter (no relation, unfortunately). Sure was tough to piece together though, requiring each and every crossing.

Overall, I think the puzzle was fair. The only crossing that gave me pause was COLPORTEUR / PALE BLUE DOT. GALE? HALE? MALE? The P seemed highly likely though.

Well, there was the CHARY (what the…!?) crossing ACE, which had a tough clue. [Crush] was right; the crossing nearly crushed me.

I think the best puzzles are the ones that 1.) teach me a thing or two (FLEXITARIAN!), and 2.) which give me a huge feeling of accomplishment, knowing that I beat it with 100% certainty. This one felt heavier on the former, lighter on the latter.

Still, a great mental workout, one that belonged on a Saturday.