New York Times, Thursday, June 29, 2017

It is a humbling honor to make my debut today. For the past 15 years, I've been regularly traveling to Long Island to visit my in-laws. The mornings always begin with delicious bagels and a copy of the NYT puzzle for everyone. It's not a competitive affair . . . but let's just say you don't want to be the last person to complete the puzzle. I came home after Thanksgiving a couple of years ago and decided to give constructing a try. My mother-in-law remains one of my indispensable test solvers of new puzzles.

The inspiration for this puzzle came from a playdate my son was having. I overheard, "Jamaica me crazy!" which got me wondering. I printed out a list of countries and capitals, and put on my pun hat. I came up with more than could fit in this puzzle, such as "DO A ONE HAITI," "ACOUSTIC QATAR," and "Suggestion for a Mexican who can't stand the heat? - NORWAY JOSE." I still have the list of countries, and pull it out on long drives to quiz my kids on international geography. I'm sure by now I've completely squelched any desire they may have had to see the world.

One area I need to work on is gauging puzzle difficulty. I was surprised to see this puzzle pegged for a Thursday. When it was, I was expecting my clues to be made more difficult. Instead, they were made clearer/easier. For example, specific geographic hints were added to the themed clues. (e.g. The original clue was "Request for clean up in the Gulf.") Obscure allusions to the actual name of the "Theme from Rocky" and Henny Youngman's trademark one-liner were replaced with universally-understood references. Clearly, I owe flowers and a note of apology to my mother-in-law.

I'm terrible judging how good puns are since to be good, they sometimes must be bad. It's confusing. I liked GHANA FLY NOW as an amusing marketing slogan for a Ghanaian airline, but BAHRAIN WASH didn't make as much sense to me. But then again, are puns supposed to make sense?

It's no wonder that I've never gotten a pun theme accepted by any major crossword outlet.

Anyhoo, I like Rich's attempt to add in some good bonus fill in case the puns didn't tickle solvers' funny bones, or caused HEADSHAKES. A GLASS EYE, one of my favorite card games in EUCHRE, a TRANSITION, BY GOLLY! These all helped hold my attention.

And lil' ol' STAPLED usually would be a neutral element of the grid to me. But what a great clue, misdirecting to a "corner piece" of a brownie tray. Great fun.

Not fun was the crossword glue. I don't mind a few minor dings like ITE, EER, AGA. It's when they all pile up, with ESSE, MOL, ANGE, IRR, etc. ... nothing is terrible, but as a whole, it's over my threshold for elegance.

Since this was a straightforward theme type, tried and true, I would have preferred it to run on a Tues/Wed, and for the grid to be smoothed out at the cost of some of the nice long bonuses.

Still, I'm hoping that Air Ghana takes notice — Rich, trademark that gem already!