New York Times, Wednesday, January 16, 2019

My clearest memory from this puzzle construction is sitting in a hotel on a rainy day in Peru (March 2017) trying to think of theme entries. I had three, but the last two were just not coming. Compounding the problem was the fact that I was in Cusco, at over 11,000 feet elevation, and the reduced oxygen was crippling my 63-year-old brain. My Sudoku times were running 50% over normal.

I emailed pun zen master Erik Agard (gluttonforpun.blogspot.com) and begged him to come up with two more theme entries and co-construct it. He wrote back an hour later "Sorry, dude, my brain does not work that way, but good luck!" It took me several more hours (at sea level) to come up with those last two.

A big thanks to Will and his team for smoothing out the clues, and for leaving all my theme clues untouched when they HAD to have been tempted to change one or two of them. If I were asked to pick one puzzle that speaks to me as a constructor and puts out a vibe that I would like to be remembered for, this would probably be the one. Puns are not for everyone, but would I mind being labeled as an insufferable punster? Noh whey!

Hope solvers enjoy it.

"___, we can't do without lactose products for our Japanese theater production!"*rimshot* (see below for answer)

I enjoyed these. We've seen a ton of homophone puzzles, but there's something hilarious about taking a phrase, homophonizing both words, and then cluing it in a way that hints at both the base phrase and the resulting one.

But wait! Do these jeans make me look like I've put on BUTT WEIGHT?

*snicker*

You guys and that crazy EWE GUISE. I groaned hard at that one, but I think that's the sign of a successful pun.

All of them worked for me. Impressive that Bruce found five solid examples of common conversational phrases where both words have a sound-alike.

Solid gridwork, too. It's tough to get a lot out of 3x7 corners, but Bruce has worked so hard to develop his abilities in this arena, and it shows. So much goodness: LAB TECH, TOOLBAR, CHATEAU, HOT SEAT, HOW TRUE, EYE ROLL, THAT'S IT!

I had to laugh at SCREAMO. It's not something I would ever listen to, but it's amusingly self-descriptive.

It's hard to make a homophone theme stand out, but I gave this one some POW! consideration, especially considering the excellent craftsmanship.

*NOH WHEY