New York Times, Thursday, January 6, 2022

So excited to make my NYT debut! I grew up in Pittsburgh, PA, and recently moved to Oakland, CA, where I work in healthcare analytics. Outside of crosswords, my passions include board games, basketball, and public staircases.

This idea was inspired by this cool 2015 puzzle by Jacob Stulberg. My main construction challenge was to squeeze in three sets of animals that have relatively recognizable group names. I considered an ESCAPE POD of SEALs for some versions, but ultimately CROW, LION, and ANT proved the easiest to work with. For the revealer, I also considered HERD MENTALITY and the pop band ANIMAL COLLECTIVE.

The PRIDE MONTH of LIONs is my favorite theme answer and I had fun bringing in some longer rebus entries like CROWD NOISE and DOMINANT HAND. Meanwhile, I wish I could've avoided PENAL COLONY, MICROWATT, and ANIM.

A big thank you to Sarah, Mike, and Avery for their great guidance on early versions of this puzzle.

Hope everyone's having a good Thursday!

PS: I also want to shout out this similar Fireball puzzle by Paolo Pasco, which I learned about in the lead-up to publication. It's disappointing to know I wasn't the first to this idea! It also seems highly fitting that the theme for both puzzles is GROUPTHINK (and an honor to be in any kind of group with a legend like Paolo).

Mind-bending concept, three animals replaced by their collective noun. Three CROWs equal a MURDER, three LIONs a PRIDE, and three ANTs a COLONY. I love the innovation within the old-hat rebus genre, making for a memorable debut.

Memorable gridwork, too. Consider how many themers Andrew had to work with. It's not simply four Acrosses, but nine crossing Downs — triplets crammed together! There are so few possibilities containing LION, it's miraculous that any arrangement of SCALLION, PAVILION, A MILLION BUCKS worked.

I especially appreciated the gridwork in the BOLO TIE region, where so many themers interacted. With PRIDE MONTH lacing through CROWD NOISE and MICROWATT, I'd expect globs of crossword epoxy holding it all together. Such smooth results — with so few black squares in that area, allowing for not just BOLO TIE but also BRUNEI. Brilliant!

My frustratingly obsessive brain held me back from giving this an auto-POW!, as it raised a yellow flag, immediately recalling Paolo's Fireball. There are so many similarities. First reaction: ugh.

However, this is almost surely a product of constraints. So many of the themers have so few options, that if you asked 100 experienced constructors to work up this concept, I bet that out of the 10 who didn't stab their eyes out, 8 or 9 would arrive at something approaching this northwest corner.

Should Paolo's prior art take away from Andrew's debut? Paolo's isn't easy to find, the themers not even showing up on Matt Ginsberg's extensive database, and it ran in a different publication with a different target audience. Given the fact that constructors come up with identical ideas independently all the time — just like scientists — I shook off my hesitations.

This is the type of envelope-pushing I love to see in Thursday puzzles. It's a shame that Andrew got there much later than Paolo, but hopefully NYT tricksy Thursdays will continue to push boundaries in even more creative ways.

"Cup holder, usually" — I love it! Two clues are different in print:

• 55-Down : "Language written as اردو in its script" : URDU
• 62-Down : "Language written as ລາວ in its script" : LAO

Speaking of collective nouns, William Shakespeare is credited with coining two good ones. One is the name of a play. The other is from his most famous soliloquy. You'll know when you get them.