New York Times, Thursday, June 10, 2021

Hi everyone! I'm a pediatrician in Cincinnati by day. I'm into movies, painting, origami, literature, and theatre, as well as science and medicine, so I hope I bring an eclectic vibe to my puzzles. I've been a crossword puzzle lover as long as I can remember, but mostly solved cryptics and only discovered the joy of standard crosswords a year and a half ago when I started religiously doing the New York Times puzzles. When I found out they took open submissions, I thought, "I'm a smart guy, I can do that, how hard can it be?" After more rejections than I'd care to relate (including this puzzle initially) I discovered the answer was, "pretty darn hard".

It was a humbling experience, and gave me a new-found respect for the folks who do this on a consistent basis. Luckily, with some patience, perseverance, and practice, I got this one to clear the bar after a resubmission and some tweaks. Coincidentally, I also had my first puzzle published in the Wall Street Journal a week ago Saturday. Many thanks to Will Shortz and the editorial team for giving this one a second look, and especially to Joel Fagliano for his support and suggestions.

And, of course, thank you to my wonderful wife who put up with all those hours of me sitting on the couch solving and building crosswords with a glazed look on my face, occasionally looking up and grunting when I discovered she had been talking to me for ten minutes. Love you!

The inspiration for this puzzle came when I was trying to build a puzzle with a "musical chairs" theme. I didn't come up with anything, but the pun "musical chores" stuck in my head, which ultimately led to the rest of the theme.

As expected, lots of my original clue hints were edited. Two that I was sorry to see go were "Source of income for early Amazon entrepeneurs" (RUBBERTREE) and "People who don't do things by the book?" (NONREADERS). Hope you enjoy the puzzle!

I dearly want tricky, rule-bending puzzles on Thursdays, but many solvers vociferously disagree. Will Shortz has a tough job, trying to cater to such a wide range of tastes. He did a fine job straddling the line today, with a theme that seemed easy enough on paper, but one that put up an enjoyable fight.

It didn't take long to uncover RENAISSANCE FOUR, given how familiar my son has forced me to become with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. FOUR from "fair" felt easy enough, too, so I worried that this would be yet another Thursday that disappointed.

Not so! That "air" to "or" sound change wasn't as simple as I thought. Even after solving MUSICAL CHORES, it took me a hot minute to figure out the CHORES from "chairs" change. And then I sat back to admire the neat transformation involving a big spelling change.

The huge winner for this sci-fi dork: aliens shouting there's NO TIME TO SPORE! Worth the price of admission all by itself.

Sheldon didn't go down to 72 words like Byron and Chris earlier this week, but he did use some tough vocab that you might expect to see in a low-word-counter, ANTRUM in particular. However, for a Thursday puzzle — with a surprisingly difficult-to-grasp theme concept — it syncs well.

Yes, some solvers won't know what ANTRUM means, but it's (just as valid) as ZOYSIA, and given the day of the week, encountering something one doesn't know isn't uncommon.

I frequently ride Will about running Thursday puzzles boringly simple themes, making them not worth the Thursday effort of fighting with tough clues. On paper, I should have criticized him again today, but I enjoyed the crunchy solving experience, the themers more difficult to make sense of than I would have imagined. Well done to both Sheldon and Will!