New York Times, Friday, September 29, 2017

One Sunday afternoon, I went to a bar to watch football with some pals. Naturally, the conservation turned to poetry and trans rights. When I heard somebody mention PABLO NERUDA and say the term GENDER BINARY, I thought they would make interesting fill in a puzzle, so, noticing you could lay the former and top of the latter in a way that staggered the vowels and consonants nicely, I set out to build a grid with these two seed answers. This is the result.

Eleven-letter answers can be so problematic in themelesses. They aren't nearly as awkward as 12s, 13s, or 14s, but they're not nearly as friendly as 10s or 9s. Their relative rarity makes today's featured 11s feel that much more fresh and sparkly — PABLO NERUDA, TELEKINESIS, OVER THE HUMP, ITS NO BIGGIE, HOVERBOARDS = fantastic stuff.

Why are 11s tricky? Well, when you place an 11 in row three, as with PABLO NERUDA, it automatically creates six three-letter words (in the NW and SE). That's not a problem in itself, but too many three-letter words can make a themeless feel choppy, so you generally want to hold them to about 12 or fewer.

With today's grid, I kept on feeling like I was starting and stopping with all those short answers, so it was no surprise to count ‘em up to find a whopping 17 three-letter entries. Much appreciated that they were almost all fine (DMC the only dab of crossword glue), but hitting so many of them broke up my solving flow. Look how squished the four corners appear, too, not as wide open-feeling as I like in themelesses.

GENDER BINARY was an interesting feature entry. I wasn't aware of the term, but I did appreciate learning about this either/or bias that many cultures harbor. It didn't give me the same elation as JOLLY RANCHER, so I didn't enjoy it as much. (Although I appreciated it more after Damon pointed out the connection between it and PABLO NERUDA!) But it's good to learn something new from a crossword, just as long as the crossword doesn't come across as teachy.

Excellent use of long slots overall, with just GARY HART leaving me wondering if he's lost his crossworthiness. And with very little crossword glue — just DMC, POLIS, NATL — it's a solidly executed puzzle.