New York Times, Saturday, November 19, 2022

Hi Crossworld! It's just MAGICAL to be making my NYT debut and even more so to be back-to-back with Robyn Weintraub, a constructor whose puzzles I've admired for years.

I'm a composer and musician based in NYC and I owe my interest in puzzles to both my grandmother, with whom I regularly solved puzzles when I was a child, and my father Richard, my most dedicated test solver (he said this one flowed nicely for him — hopefully it does for you too!).

I'm excited that I was able to squeeze in a bunch of debuts here, especially MOUSEKETEER (As a child of the 90s whose first two CDs were In The Zone and No Strings Attached, I'm glad I could honor Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake with that clue!).

I'll leave you with one fun fact about the edit: I submitted the puzzle with the clue for LAS being [Much of "Deck the Hall"], which is the original title and lyric of the carol, as opposed to the now-ubiquitous "Deck the Halls." The editing team went with the latter, and I certainly can't argue with the change, but for the purists out there, know that I tried!

I love seeing innovative themeless grid patterns. This one not only has striking visual appeal — sort of an hourglass with vampire teeth — but those strategic black squares in the middle make this layout much easier to fill than many traditional themeless layouts. Note that the "racetrack" is only four or even three squares wide most everywhere, simplifying the task.

Themelesses like this focus heavily on the limited number of long entries, and Benji did a great job creating vivid imagery. What kind of cowardly themeless constructor DIALS IT BACK and still hopes for an acceptance, right? Check out the stories of the top and bottom stacks:

• CREATES A MONSTER crossing GOES MAD, near OK SHOOT — such MAGICAL imagery! Funny to juxtapose all that with AT ONE WITH NATURE.
• I've been transitioning into more plant-based eating over the past year. Hopefully it's not a DIET FAD, and if the next new thing is a RATLIKE MEAT ALTERNATIVE, I'm out.

Given that the "racetrack" is only four squares wide most everywhere, I'd have liked fewer dabs of INI HTS SYR. CETE is an oddball, too, though I'm sure zoologists would disagree. Although the racetrack is narrow, it still has to mesh into itself in the end, which can be surprisingly challenging, requiring many more iterations that one might think.

It's tough to make your NYT debut with a themeless, because the competition is much more fierce than for any other day of the week. Kudos to Benji for coming up with something eye-catching and evocative.