New York Times, Thursday, October 13, 2016

While doing a search, Don saw the phrase GARBAGE BAG, and noticed how the BAG was repeated in sequence and together in the preceding word. Having already seen a similar phrase, it gave him hope that there would be more examples. Don asked Zhouqin to help in the search, and both came up with enough phrases to make it work. This was all completed before a similar puzzle was published in the NYT in May.

Some fun finds, phrases where one word is contained in the other. I'd seen ALE in PALE ALE and AVERAGE AGE used in a similar way before, but GARBAGE BAG and especially WHOOPIE PIE gave me a smile. I've never had a WHOOPIE PIE before, and I don't even know what it is, but hoo boy do I want one. What a great name.

I liked that Don and C.C. found so many themers, packing the grid with interesting wordplay. I didn't care for some as much as others, though. INSTANT TAN feels a little off to my ear — SPRAY TAN or FAKE TAN sounds better — and MADE MAD doesn't seem quite like a crossworthy entry.

Then there was EARTH ART. The Wikipedia article is titled as "Land art" (not that Wikipedia is a definitive source), and all the pictures of show a type of art I've never seen before. It was fascinating though, to get exposed to something I'd never experienced. Some of the art is amazing!

Pretty darn smooth grid, considering how many long entries Don and C.C. had to use in their fill. Since so many of their themers appear short in the grid (PALE ALE only takes up four spaces, for example), they had to rely on much more long fill than usual to stay under the 78-word maximum.

So many 7-letter entries, all around the corners — and pretty much all of them are solid to excellent! RAW BARS / ORIGAMI / STAN LEE / DNA TEST are all lively. They do rely on a tiny amount of crossword glue — OCS = officer candidate school, TNN = channel of the past, OEO = Office of Economic Opportunity — but it's all pretty minor and inconsequential. Well done.

Neat idea and solid execution. If all the themers had been as strong as WHOOPIE PIE, this would have been the POW! As it was, having so many themers, some which were a bit blah, sort of watered down the impact for me.