New York Times, Wednesday, October 25, 2017

The idea for this puzzle came during the election season of 2016, the revealer was heard and seen quite often at many campaign rallies, and it's 15 letters long! It was quite natural then to try to turn it into a puzzle theme.

I first thought to use the names of some banks in phrases but found that really wasn't working so I quickly settled on types of banks instead. What you see are the theme entries I first came up with, I'm pretty happy with the 4-1; 1-2-1; 1-4; 1-2-1 break patterns.

After acceptance I sent Will a version with all the theme entries spanning the grid, but he felt the fill had been too compromised, so he stayed with this version. Thanks to Will, Joel and team for polishing it up. I hope it was a pleasurable solve.

Such a horrible time, back in 2008 during the financial crisis. I only vaguely remember the BREAK UP THE BANKS movement, but I do recall thinking how pointless it was — finance people always tend to find ways around whatever new regulation is introduced. Sigh.

Anyhoo, Jules "breaks up" four banks today across words in phrases: RIVER bank across DRIVE RECKLESSLY, SNOW bank across ITS NO WONDER, etc. Amusing that DATA bank got split across SOLD AT A LOSS, a stock-related phrase all too common during 2008.

Well, amusing if you didn't sell at a loss back then.

DRIVE RECKLESSLY didn't feel as in-the-language as "reckless driving." And GIVES PERMISSION … it works, but it's a little dull, not something I'd strive to work into another puzzle.

Jules had to work with high theme density, difficult to fill around themers of length 15 / 11 / 15 / 11 / 15. ITS NO WONDER there was some AGA, KAN, SST, ILIA kind of crossword glue necessary to hold everything together, but that's less than I was expecting. Solid gridwork, especially considering he went out of his way to incorporate CRIME WAVE (nice dig at the finance people behind CDOs!) and FIRE DANCE, some great bonuses.

Overall, I enjoyed the puzzle despite BREAK UP THE BANKS being only vaguely familiar to this finance wonk — granted, I try to ignore politics these days — and it hearkens back to a dark time in recent history.

Maybe still a little too soon, Jules and Will …