New York Times, Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Vic: "Do you remember this puzzle?" I asked Bonnie.

Bonnie: Not so much.

Vic: So Jeff sent us a copy. I solved it in under an hour. Bonnie and I concluded that some time back one of us said to the other, "We need to collaborate on another Times crossword." That's a statement each of us has made many times over the years. Since my name is listed first, we think it was I who then said, "I'm thinking of a theme with 2-unit ILSAs*, in which the first and last unit can be the first unit in 2-unit ILSAs with a common second unit." Or words to that effect.

*(An ILSA is an "in-the-language stand-alone." I hope no one coined this acronym before I did, about five years ago. Here's to its being admitted to the dictionary someday! But I digress.)

LINE being the second unit in many a two-unit ILSA, we made a list of those, then worked with the first units to find our theme answers. We wanted at least six, and we wanted two pairs to be crossing in the northwest and southeast corners. The puzzle was submitted in October 2010 and accepted in December that year. Perhaps not wanting to risk comments like "That's so 2010!," Will rewrote most of our clues, though a couple of dozen survived unscathed. As always, he made the puzzle better.

Bonnie: I approve this message.

"Word before" and "word after" sorts of themes have become overdone, I think. This one, though, I think is particularly pretty because the key word combines with both halves of the other theme entries ... and there are six of them, not four. Very impressive.

Nice example of the "both halves of the theme entries can follow a certain word" theme type. Judge Vic and Bonnie are seasoned constructors and pull off this ambitious grid. Not only do they utilize six long theme answers but they intersect them. And then to top it off, they leave wide-open corners in the NW and SE when they could have broken them up (going from 76 words to 78 words). Bravo!

This is a difficult genre in which to construct, because it's often tough to find snappy two-word theme answers where both halves fit the "word that can follow X word" criteria. HOT WATER (hotline, water line) is fantastic, as is HARD TIME and AIR SUPPLY — three beautiful entries I would gladly put in one of my own puzzles. DATE BREAD and BOTTOM LAND seem to be "things", all right (at least according to the Google), but neither feels like a great answer to me. BUS SERVICE is certainly familiar, but not nearly as snazzy as the first three.

I appreciate how the theme entries stand out just due to puzzle layout, especially relevant because I felt yesterday's puzzle suffered a bit from this issue. I've highlighted the theme entries as a point of reference but note how it's not really necessary, as there are no answers longer than the themers.

Nice clean construction with very few ugly entries; the mark of pros at work. I had to search to find answers that I didn't like, which is always a great sign. RECOOK feels like a "roll-your-own" and TABOOED...at first I groaned a little, but after verifying that it actually can be used as a verb, I think I like it. Maybe if enough of us use it, we can make it "a thing", like eating a candy bar with a knife and fork. Or has that been tabooed?