New York Times, Monday, December 16, 2013

I wasn't sure of the spelling of DO SVIDANIYA so I looked it up one day ... and one thing led to another. Two 11's and two 10's matched perfectly although the grid was shaky with all horizontal entries so I put a revealer in the center of a windmill. I wasn't a fan of the relatively closed grid but the 74 word count seemed to balance that. I wanted to include AU REVOIR and SAYONARA but settled for CIAO and TATA.

The W was problematic because INDUCES, REDUCES and INDUCTS brought partials and other nasty fill ... but I chanced on AC DUCTS after seeing an ad mailer and decided to run with it. I spent of lot of free time toying with this puzzle this past spring and I am pretty pleased overall.

The four main theme entries, at 17A, 50A, 11D, and 24D, are nice, but they're not what sold me on this puzzle. It was the bonus themers of CIAO, TA-TA, and GOODBYE that moved it into the special category for me. The nontheme entries I'M YOURS, YOU LOSE, and SKI SLOPES are handsome, too.

Nice work from Greg today, four common (warning, pun alert) bye-lines (groan), with two bonus ones in the north and south, and a revealer in the middle as the kicker. Impressive theme density for a debut puzzle.

DO SVIDANIYA: normally I grouse about tough/esoteric entries in a Monday puzzle, but I really liked this one (and it wouldn't keep me from giving this puzzle to a newbie to try). Bringing back images of Dolph Lundgren and his Cold War movie kin, DO SVIDANIYA was familiar enough I should have been able to get it right off the D. But DAS VEDANYA, DOS VEDANIA, DAS VIDALIA (I like onions, so sue me) later, I finally limped into the correct spelling. Thank goodness all the crosses were fair!

As Greg mentioned, one issue with the grid is its segmentation. Notice that by adding a single set of black squares, you could split the grid into three parts. It's not a big deal since the puzzle flowed reasonably well, but ideally grids are wide-open enough that they don't feel like separate mini-puzzles. It's a much bigger issue for a themeless or a hard Thursday, where it can be very frustrating if there's only one way into a closed-off area, and the solver can't manage to break in through the only possible route.

A nit to pick: for consistency's sake I would have liked each theme answer clued to a name associated with the specified nationality. Not sure what you'd use for SEE YA LATER (Jake? Bubba? Jeff is always good.) but TATA could have been "Cheerio, Wentworth Mortimer Biggleston the Third!" And because CIAO felt like a dupe of ARRIVEDERCI, it might have also been fun to just have one bonus answer, TATA, as (appropriately) the very last answer.

Mondays are so tough to create because the constructor can't depend on a couple of ugly entries to make his/her grid work. After all, it's not really fair to expect the Monday solver to know an ERNE or an OLEO or an AGHA outright, especially if they're crossed. So very nice work from Greg today, delivering a smooth grid with just a handful of the usual suspects plus some good stuff like SKI SLOPES and SINGLET. A nice debut.