New York Times, Thursday, November 14, 2013

Since cross-referential clues are a staple of crosswords, I liked the idea of clues that refer not to other clues but rather back to themselves. Some other theme answers that I considered were ENGLISH, ADJECTIVAL, and HORIZONTAL. My first act after adding the black squares and the theme answers was to find a place for a Q, since Q is the most intriguing letter to me. Strangely, when filling the grid, I had much more trouble in the NW and SE corners than in the more wide-open parts of the puzzle.

This is my crossword debut. Special thanks to the people who have fostered my interest in crosswords: my mom, who has helped me solve many, many crosswords over the years; my dad, who solves jumbles and cryptograms entirely in his head; Mike Boehnke, a family friend whose visits always bring about group crossword sessions; and Jason Mohr, my European History teacher who kindly pre-solved my earliest attempts at construction.

For some reason, this puzzle could have had a lot of cross-referenced clues, like REPS/DEM/ROMNEY, ALIAS/AKA, APPTS/TRYSTS, AGE/ERA, and others. But since the four theme clues "cross-referenced" themselves, I thought it would be distracting to have cross-references elsewhere, so I didn't use any.

Tough Thursday challenge. Any time the theme answers are largely unclued, it takes time to uncover letters one by one through the down crossings. Today's theme is an interesting one, entries than can describe themselves. I had a hard time figuring out how they all related to each other, but generally appreciated the fact that each answer was self-referential.

Outside of the theme, nice construction. Fairly standard grid layout, with a couple of long downs and solid fill throughout. QUESTING tickled me, thinking about Sir Pellinore (of The Once and Future King) pursuing the Questing Beast and its fewmets. I love it when a single clue or answer can bring to mind such pleasant images. Very nice work in the overall construction, painstakingly executed. When REL, ALEE, APPTS are your worst entries, that's pretty good. And given that this is Tom's debut, it's doubly impressive.

After finishing the solve, I sat back to figure out why I felt a little unsatisfied with the theme. It was pretty neat that the four themers described themselves, but I would have loved to see them tie together somehow, as the universe of self-descriptors seems large, especially when you throw in possibilities like PRONOUNCEABLE (SPELLED CORRECTLY, TWO WORDS, LEFT TO RIGHT, etc.). Not every theme has to neatly tie together with an elegant bow, but I would have liked a little more specificity out of this one.

Good Thursday workout, cleanly constructed, especially for a debut.