New York Times, Tuesday, June 3, 2014

I began this crossword by coming up with the revealer, ALL THE TRIMMINGS. Initially, I intended to use words associated with a Thanksgiving Day feast such as turkey, dressing, etc. and to pair each of these words with one other word for the theme entries. However, that did not go too far. But all was not lost... I then changed course and started to focus on things that are used as decorative trim such as fringe, cord, etc. LUNATIC FRINGE was one of the first theme entries I came up with and I did what I could to make sure it ended up in the grid for a couple of reasons. First, there was not much else in two-word combinations that ended in fringe and secondly, I really liked it a lot. So there you have it, the inside scoop with all the trimmings.

Such strong theme answers today. LUNATIC FRINGE is one of my favorite answers in recent memory; a joy to uncover. And there's not much better than a cheap beer after a long run, so seeing PBR really did it for me. Everything is tied neatly together with ALL THE TRIMMINGS (RIBBON, CORD, FRINGE, and LACE all being types of trimming). Being the complete moron when it comes to all things decorative, I wasn't aware CORD could be anything besides what you tie around your pants to hold them up. Learn something new every day!

Ah, the central 13, bane of the constructor's existence. Those black squares on either side of the central answer cause all sorts of trouble. Anything that cuts down your flexibility means trouble, and fixing those two blacks squares may seem so minor, but they take away so many possibilities.

I like what Susan has done today with the black square pattern, forming a big "L" block on either side. Unusual to see such a big chunk of connected black squares. Visually it's a bit clunky, but it allows her to work in CYBERPUNK and ENCRYPTED as her long downs. When you have five theme answers, with the central one being an inconvenient length, sometimes you're just happy to escape with a fillable grid. I appreciate Susan's effort in giving us these two strong entries. To me, they're worth the price of REINE.

What with the high theme density and the central 13 difficulty, it's not surprising to see some blips in the fill quality. The NW and SE were bound to be difficult, given that a single word of five letters separates PABST BLUE RIBBON and SPINAL CORD. Trying to find something that works perfectly is not easy. I'm impressed that Susan only has NCR up top as a glue-y entry... unfortunately, it comes at 1-across. Not an ideal way to start a puzzle. The SE suffers a bit more, with LVI and CAGER (does anyone really use this term?) cropping up. I do love TV TRAY and BEEMER in the grid, but I'm not sure they're worth the hiccups in smoothness.

Standards have been ratcheting up over the years. When I first started a few years ago, I wouldn't have blinked at SSTAR or INT next to MCA. I suppose it's the curse of doing a daily puzzle, one's expectations always rising.

I'm a little mixed on whether I would have preferred to see this closer to Thanksgiving? On one hand it's overall a neat theme so I like getting it whenever I can. But it seems like a missed opportunity to run this nice Thanksgiving-ish-puzzle-which-really-isn't on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Anyway, a fun solving experience with a couple of rough spots.