New York Times, Saturday, July 9, 2016

A few notes that comes to mind:

• I planned to submit this puzzle to Peter Gordon's Washington Post Puzzler guest constructor contest back in 2014. It had a different NE corner that I wasn't completely satisfied with, so ended up submitting another puzzle instead.
• I was reluctant to give up USAINBOLT (had a fun clue for him), but TREEHOLE was iffy and IRR/TUTTED no fun, so eventually rebuilt that corner.
• Spent a lot of time on the clues, since Peter judged the puzzles by solving them instead of looking at the finished grids.

Glad most of my clues survived. A few that Will/Joel changed:

• BLACK EYE: Hard-hitting evidence, maybe?
• OLD MASTERS: Martini and Bellini, e.g.
• HAIRCUT: It might result in a blowout
• IT GIRL: Magnetic young star

This puzzle exemplifies why I think Josh is possibly the best themeless constructor out there. I've always been impressed with his puzzles, but this one sizzles. I can't remember the last time I did a themeless where nearly everything I turned up was pure gold. From PIRATE SHIP to FAT SUITS to OLD MASTERS, to TESLA COIL to NOSEGAYS to DO YOU MIND! Not only were almost all the long entries fantastic, but there was a little something for everyone, making it accessible and enjoyable for a huge range of solvers.

Josh goes big by working with 18 (!) long slots of 8+ letters. I've found that it's nearly impossible to convert so many slots into stellar material, because once you start fixing a few in place, you get less and less flexibility as you go. Josh does a great job of spreading his long slots around, but it's impossible to isolate any one of them — each must interact with a ton more.

And what results! I'm usually happy to get 10 colorful answers in a themeless, but I count roughly 17 here (things like ERRONEOUS feel more neutral to me). During my solve, it seemed like Josh was pulling some sort of magic trick. When I went back and studied the grid, what he did made more sense — by staying at a relatively high word count (70), he was able to use a lot of short words to stick his longer ones together. And by never packing too many long slots together, he was able to avoid any one area that had too much white space. It still seems a little magical even after I study it, though.

All this, without using much crossword glue. There's an ELL and an SYST, but those are so minor. Dabs of crossword glue tend to drag down my solving experience when there are more than about five (or one is egregious), but these two little guys were negligible.

And so many amazing clues! I won't point them all out, but if you're an aspiring constructor, go back and study the clues for HURL, GREEN ALGAE, HINGE, HOP, BLACK EYE. Brilliant wordplay in there.

My favorite themeless so far this year. Standing O for Josh.