New York Times, Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Though I've done crossword puzzles sporadically all my life, about four years ago I started doing them a bit more seriously than I had in the past. It didn't take me long to realize that I would never be very good unless I improved my knowledge of rap singers, American Idol winners and European rivers, to mention just a few of my areas of ignorance. Since I was unwilling to study these and diverse other topics, I resigned myself to remaining a mediocre (though slowly improving) solver.

But then, somehow, I discovered the world of crossword construction. This would be a new challenge. So I bought Patrick Berry's book on construction and got started. It wasn't long, feeling a bit discouraged, that I wrote to Patrick noting that he claimed anyone could learn to construct puzzles yet fewer than one hundred NY Times debuts occurred each year while 1000's of his book were selling. Despite my misgivings and rejections, I persisted and soon got some LA Times publications. Today is my NY Times debut. I thank Patrick Berry for his book, Nancy Salomon for her invaluable mentoring, Rick Norris for my first crossword publication, and Will Shortz for putting me in the NY Times.

Today's puzzle is actually the second of mine accepted by Will. The present version seems to have been edited sometime after its acceptance as much of the fill in the NE corner and adjacent areas looks new to me. One word I wish I had been allowed to use is "pgdns" (seldom used keys), which can be found in the singular on your keyboard.

Like almost all puzzles that contain triply-checked letters, like the shaded ones here, this puzzle includes some vocabulary that is not as crisp or clean as in puzzles with regular checking. That's just the nature of the beast. I thought this puzzle's theme was cool enough to justify the AAR, the LLD'S, the SSE, the ENS, etc. The grid really doesn't have anything awful, and overall it's about as clean as it can be given the constraints.

GOLD NUGGETS hidden in the grid today, a neat visual when seen in the print version and pdf. These types of graphics don't occur very frequently in the NYT crossword, partially because not that many people send things like this in, but also (and maybe more importantly), the NYT's syndication partners can have difficulties reprinting the specialized graphics. Tough business the NYT's in.

This is an audacious debut, not for the faint of heart. It may not look like it's that difficult, but to constrain your grid in six places with those 2x2 sections is a nightmare. Gerry does well to semi-segment them so that he could fill sections one by one, not having to worry too much about one influencing the next. Good use of black squares.

Even then though, each of the six sections carries a compromise. The NW is the closest to rock solid, the nice BOGEYING a real bonus. And I don't mind EWER at all. (Most people call it a pitcher, but an ewer by any other name…) It's a shame that NLERS was necessary to hold everything together. Similar issues arise in each of the six areas. I was especially glad to figure out the theme before hitting the SE, as I wasn't familiar with LLDS or ARLEDGE.

There's some debate whether having each GOLD nugget identically laid out (G in the same position every time, the word going the same way each time) or random orientations is better. The former can be elegant. The latter can be more fun though, especially if the concept is transparent — gives the solver an additional challenge. And from a construction standpoint, given the ultra-heavy constraints, being able to rotate and flip the G-O-L-D letters is a very good thing. I can only imagine how rough the fill might have gotten if each GOLD had been identically oriented.

All in all, a neat visual, forcing some compromises.