New York Times, Friday, January 31, 2014

Obviously, LETS DO THIS THING was the seed for this themeless puzzle. For the best impact I felt it had to reside in the 1-Across position and, of course, if 1-Across is fifteen letters in length, a triple stack is required at the top and bottom (in a symmetrical grid).

Finding the appropriate block formation to allow those stacks and an interesting fill was the trick. I prefer grids that have eye-appeal, and this block arrangement provided that for me. It also allowed quite a bit of flexibility in the filling process.

I'm always intrigued by Will's changes to my clues and I continue to try to up my game in the cluing department. This is one of my better efforts with about 2/3 of my clues remaining unchanged. My favorite clue from Will is "Practice test?" for BAR EXAM, and of my own I particularly like "Marker's mark maker" for FELT TIP.

I hope all found the filling-in to be fun-filled and fulfilling.

Beautiful set of triple-stacks today. Typically I groan a little when I see 'em because of the tortured crossings that usually occur, but I really enjoyed today's. If it hadn't been for a small handful of questionable entries, I would have given it the POW. Extremely difficult to execute a perfect set of triple stacks, but this comes close.

Making it even more difficult, Chris's grid only uses 64 words. Typically puzzles with triple-stacks have more like 68 or 70 words, which makes the crossings easier to produce (typically, shorter words = more options available). But look at what Chris uses for crosses: long stuff like HOG TIED, IN WANT OF, TIDIES UP. Wow! The top stack is particularly nice, with the glaring exception of LA HABANA, which felt a bit like a "glue" entry to hold the stack together. Perhaps not to native Cubans?

Entries like LA HABANA which alternate consonant-vowel-repeat are very helpful in long constructions (because so many words and phrases exhibit this pattern). The use of all those As felt a little unsightly though, given that so many glue-y entries used them: LA HABANA, ANANAS, NATAL, A RAIL. A couple of lesser entries are fine to hold a nice construction together, but having them all be of the same pattern felt conspicuous. Sort of like if a single puzzle was stellar except for it had SSW, SST, SSS, and SSA — you'd notice that and think it a bit unsightly, yeah?

Beautiful cluing today. I was convinced "Marker's mark maker" had a typo until I realized that FELT TIP fit in perfectly (and that I might be drinking too much bourbon). "Bottom line?" was a fantastic wordplay-type clue for X-AXIS, and "Practice test?" for BAR EXAM also tickled me. But my favorite was the unassuming-looking "Square things", which misdirected "square" as an adjective, not a verb. Brilliant! It's this type of cluing that often makes a puzzle stand out for me, sometimes even more than the entries themselves.

While the top stack totally impressed me, the bottom gave me a slight hitch. I CANNOT TELL A LIE is fantastic, no doubt, especially with its fantastic clue. And CAST A SPELL ON is a great entry, but CAST ONES SPELL ON feels... rickety. Having the extra common letters of ONES (in alternating vowel-consonant pattern!) definitely helps in stacked constructions, but many times those phrases involving ONES feel a bit made-for-crosswords. And I would like BANDED ANTEATER if it were less a definitional entry (one that's difficult to clue without using the dictionary), but that plus its generally alternating v-c-v-c- pattern made it conspicuous to my eye. Ah well, you can't have it all.

Overall, an extremely impressive construction, the top half in particular, and a ton of great cluing.