New York Times, Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Matt:

Initially, I had difficulty squeezing in all the theme entries (I think I had an initial number of eight plus the entry "toast"). I was going crazy thinking I couldn't get all eight in because I was just not good at construction — even after all the years I've been off-and-on constructing. I needed Vic to slap me in the face and let me know that eight themes plus a reveal is a daunting task, even for veterans. I think I was initially writing Vic about something else when I figured I should ask for help on that theme.

I so appreciate the help Vic offered and working with him. His style of collaborating is much more methodical and different (which is NOT a negative commentary) than others I have worked with or have tried to work with in collaborations and that number has been few anyway.

I have no idea where the TOAST theme came from; it has been a while. I'd say 90% of my themes, however, come from an idea that was originally something else but developed into the final puzzle. So, TOAST may likely have started out as anything referring to HATCHES or BURNT FOODS, but the final version is what came to fruition over the then-theme development progress. For another example, I once had a 21x21 (one about anniversaries published some time ago by Rich at LAT) come out of a 15x15 because I liked a theme entry that I came up with, but, of course, the entry was longer than 15 letters.

I do like the [Oktoberfest exclamation] repeat clue idea that Will decided on, especially since he chose it for an October puzzle.

Vic:

Matt, with whom I'd had the pleasure of collaborating back in 2009 or 2010 — we had a joint byline on a Sunday Los Angeles Times puzzle called "Where the Wild Things Are" — contacted me in November 2012 with an ambitious theme: eight theme answers, 58 letters, and every answer was a toast, except for TOAST, the designated reveal. I think Matt's message to me was two-fold: (1) Would you like to help? (2) If so, I'll share the credit.

The deal looked doable to me. We brainstormed back and forth for a few days. I constructed the grid; we contributed 50-50 to the fill and the cluing. The puzzle was submitted Dec. 9, 2012.

From the outset, we were of the mind that, with short and long theme answers, this theme needed to be 100% horizontal in the grid. I think I came up with the theme cluing scheme "Word/words after a shot," since I'd had some success with repeating-clue themes before (see Feb. 19, 2008; Aug. 13, 2008; Sept. 25, 2008; and Sept. 30, 2010). Clever of Will to change that to "Oktoberfest exclamation." But then, he's a clever guy.

Oktoberfest! Hard to argue with drinking ale while getting dressed up in neon-green lederhosen and frolicking like a Vegas leprechaun protecting his/her gold. What, you don't do that? Um. Me neither.

Seven festive themers today packing the grid chock full. How jovial is it to TOAST six themes in a single puzzle? Some beautiful entries, DOWN THE HATCH and BOTTOMS UP so bubbly. To me, TO YOUR HEALTH doesn't feel quite as juicy, but that might be a generational or a cultural thing? I've actually used all of the TOASTs except this one. To my ear it sounds stilted; a rare case for me where a foreign translation — A VOTRE SANTE! sounds so much better.

I did wonder why people were using these non-German toasting phrases (especially L'CHAIM!) during Oktoberfest, but sometimes I find it's best to drink, be merry, and put on glow-in-the-dark lederhosen.

People have to scratch their heads when constructors talk about the difficulty of certain arrangements. "OMG, they attempted a 5/12/6/9/6/12/5?" probably sounds not only like gibberish but also probably elicits a "why make such a big deal about entry lengths?" Today, two factors around this are huge. First of all, the central 9 splits the puzzle in half. Ratchet up difficulty level once. Then, the 12's are in rows 4 and 12, where they create not just six, but 12 little three-letter words (in the NE and SW).

"And this matters… why?" you ask. Generally, it's best to keep the three-letter word count to around 20, because they can chop up a solver's flow and feel inelegant. I had a bit of a hitch in my solve, and seeing that there were 28 three-letter words made me understand why. Plus, if you have so many of them, the ones which usually get glossed over become noticeable. AAR, AGT, DER, ESA, INA, NCO, REO, STA, TEL, UNE are all fine on their own, but when lumped together create an inelegance.

All in all, a fun theme with some cheery entries, with some compromises due to a very tricky theme arrangement.