New York Times, Thursday, September 12, 2013

This puzzle was really, really easy to construct. All I had to do was go to xwordthemegenerator.com, select a preset grid, click autofill, et voila! Quality puzzle achieved! Or not.

I originally submitted this puzzle as an early-week offering, but Will asked if I could re-clue it as a Thursday puzzle. Since it's a 76-worder, the puzzle could be easy or hard, depending on the clues. I suspect JEFF KENT is the main reason it's a Thursday, not a Tuesday. Maybe it's the lack of Thursdays in the queue, too.

Since I wanted to put the three revealing phrases at the bottom of the puzzle (or stagger the theme answers as they currently appear), the Kent answer had to be 8 letters. That made KENT STATE unusable, and also forced the revealing words to the end of the phrase. I also assumed there weren't any famous people with the surname Kal-El. So that's why Jeff Kent is in the grid.

I am, however, a little torn on Jeff Kent as an answer. On one hand he's a relatively famous baseball player with a M.V.P. award. On the other hand, I could probably name hundreds of athletes more famous than Jeff Kent that aren't grid-worthy because they haven't won any awards. But since Kent won an M.V.P., he instantly becomes grid-worthy? I guess so, but that doesn't seem completely right. Kent is essentially the Jim Broadbent of the sports world. Broadbent, of course, won the 2001 Oscar for best supporting actor.

I laughed when I hit ITS SUPERMAN. Rare that I get a chuckle out of a Thursday crossword, so kudos to Ian for the clever idea.

Not only does Ian squeeze in six theme entries, a feat that should carry a "Kids, do not try this at home!" warning, but look at the parallel 9's at 2D/3D and 33D/34D. Ian could have easily put black squares in the middle of 2D and 34D (to increase his word count to the max of 78) and had a much easier time filling the grid, but he chooses to treat us with additional long fill. It's typically difficult to incorporate two adjacent long fillers because there's already the fact that they cross a fixed theme entry (ABOUT THAT and JUMP SUITS crossing ITS A BIRD), but Ian executes it well. So many levels of difficulty in this construction and lots of payoff. I had a hard time with UDALL but for a Thursday it's fair.

Almost every crossword contains trade-offs requiring value judgments. I love that Ian recognizes (and agonizes over) the fact that JEFF KENT will be somewhat controversial. Self-awareness is a mark of a great constructor. I tried to think of what other entries might have worked better, but as Ian already pointed out, only KENT STATE came to mind (and CLARK KENT of course). Due to crossword symmetry requirements, KENT STATE (9 letters) would have to be paired with ITS A PLANE (9 letters), which is possible but would throw the order of themers out of whack. So I think using JEFF KENT is a reasonable trade-off to make this concept work.

Someone invent a new phone and call it the KALEL PDA, will you?