New York Times, Friday, July 2, 2021

ADA: I am so excited to be sharing a New York Times byline with THE Brooke Husic. She is one of my favourite themeless constructors in the game right now, she's co-hosting Lollapuzzoola 14, and she's a huge inspiration to me and to many other puzzlers. I'm so honoured for her to be my first NYT collab! The fifteen interlock was her idea, and being able to be a part of her construction process was super fun.

Also: If you liked this puzzle, I also run a themeless subscription service called luckystreak xwords+! I have an exclusive deal for NYT solvers (plus a free themeless!) so check it out! It means the world to me being able to consistently do something I love, and any support is much appreciated. Thank you!!

BROOKE: Ada consistently blows my mind with grid geometries and cluing angles, so when I asked her to collaborate it was 100% because I wanted to do something epic geometrically together (and also 100% because Ada is an awesome human — we made this puzzle over zoom on opposite sides of the Atlantic and it was extremely fun). All this is to say: if the last Ada Nicolle puzzle you solved was her NYT debut then you have been *missing* *out*. Luckily you can atone by checking out her blog and all-bangers-no-skips subscription service.

Six fantastic marquee entries, that's REALLY SOMETHING! I paused when I finally uncovered that one, wondering if it felt arbitrary or I liked it. Didn't take long to decide that I loved it.

With only four more long entries in the entire puzzle, you have to take full advantage of them, and Brooke and Ada did a reasonable job with that. I enjoyed both FIBONACCI and STEEL DRUM, especially with that curious "instrument played by a pannist" clue. That's a great way to generate an a-ha moment, turning a "how the #$@!? should I know what a pannist is?" feeling into a delightful head-slap. DIVING INTO, though ... add-preposition phrases are tough to make stand out.

I finished with an error, putting in CHIMA as the rapper with NIME as the daughter of Styx. I guessed CHIMA ... as in chime? Because she's a singer? Get it?

Fine, I didn't either.

I would have had a much more positive first impression of CHIKA if the NIKE clue had been eased up, allowing me to achieve a victorious solve. I'm big into Greek myths, my kids having listened to D'Aulaires book on audio roughly eight thousand times in the car, but NIKE's lineage escaped me, and NIME sounded familiar. It's a shame, because "Can't Explain It" is catchy!

INNU treated me much better. I didn't know the word — neither did XWI's resident Canuck, Jim Horne — but with unambiguous crossings, each one given a softball clue, I had a much friendlier first contact experience.

Entertaining to get a throwback LINsanity clue. He had his five minutes, played overseas, and is now trying to make another NBA run with the Warriors' G-League affiliate.

A peppering of great clues, with [Puts on the line, say] a standout — clever repurposing of a common phrase. I could have used more of these, though, since there wasn't as much juice in the grid's long entries as there typically is with themelesses featuring 14-16 long entries.

Beautiful set of six marquees. Next time, I'd love to see what Brooke can do with long marquees laid out with her trademark diagonal symmetry. Editors tend to adhere to their old ways, and I'd love to see them experiment more, allowing all sorts of different themeless layouts for variety's sake.