New York Times, Thursday, December 28, 2017

They say you can't teach an old dog new tricks. That's not true. You can teach an old dog, it just takes a heck of a lot longer. You have to be patient. Thanks to Will's patience with me, I was able to finally get the hang of this puzzle thing.

This was my 42nd submission to The Times. My previous 41 attempts were rejected for one reason or another. (That's right — 41 rejections in a row — I don't know if that's a record, but it's a personal best!)

Having been a professional comedian for more than a third of a century, I'm no stranger to rejection. The rough and tumble nightclub business is capable of delivering its share of rejections — often accompanied by a flying shot glass and/or an invitation to have one's face rearranged in the parking lot — but 41 "no's" in a row was, to say the least, disappointing.

Will, being Will, was kind and considerate (never once threatening bodily harm) and offered constructive criticism and encouragement with each successive defeat. When he was finally able to respond with a "yes," the relief was palpable … on both our parts. But that relief was short-lived because the "yes" was conditional. I would need to make some revisions.

"Dings," a term I would come to know all-to-well during the 11 subsequent revisions, was not an easy concept for me to grasp. I struggled. And struggled. And struggled some more. Why EMU and not ULU? Or MOI but not TOI? Why was UMA Thurman okay but UTA Hagen not? What did the original Broadway star of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" do to fall from grace in the eyes of The New York Times?

I don't know. But I do know this. Even if that old dog seems completely clueless, hang in there. Who knows? He might just "roll over" by accident.

Debut, from a fellow Washingtonian! Gary wants us to UP THE ANTE, the letters A N T E popping up out of phrases. We've highlighted them below to make them pop, and corrected the answers in our database. (Although I kind of wish there really was something called a WAD POSTER!).

Great selection of themers, WANTED POSTER, DEBUTANTE BALL, and DANTES INFERNO sizzling. There are quite a few possibilities, like AS FAR AS I CAN TELL, CANTERBURY TALES, ELEPHANT EARS, THE GREEN LANTERN, etc. But I like the ones Gary picked.

Would have been nice to get one more themer, as three ANTEs felt a bit slim. Wouldn't have been easy though, as WANTED POSTER had to be pushed down into row 4 (usually it'd be in row 3) because it needed to fit in ETNA popping up.

Given how many phrases there are with A N T E — so much construction flexibility! — I wonder if somehow Gary could have made UP THE ANTE run vertically, with across themers intersecting it? Probably too tough, but a guy can wish.

Interesting choice to add some bonus fill in the across direction, ACADEMICS and TURNABOUT. They're decent entries, but they muddled up theme vs. fill for me — it's so common for themers to be in row 3 / 13 that I wondered for an embarrassingly long time how ACADEMICS could have UPped THE ANTE. Jeff, you silly Billy. Might have been better to break up ACADEMICS at the M, which would also have allowed for a little cleanup on aisle Short Fill.

Overall, not a novel idea — a lot of puzzles have made letter move like this, either up or down — but fun anyway. And pretty good execution for a debut! A bit of NIE, ONE PM (arbitrary), BEAME (outdated), HOC (hard to clue with any variety), etc. but that's not bad, considering how much extra real estate the three ANTEs took.