New York Times, Monday, February 19, 2018

I did an anagrams +1 puzzle on 5/16/17 with state names, so I decided to try one with president's names. There are some sites online that do this kind of thing, but most of them only give you single word anagrams — it took me quite a bit of digging to find multiple word phrase options.

My submitted puzzle had IMPEL at 55-Down and LSTS at 72-Across. I think that latter entry did not sit well with the editors because they were willing to put I.M. PEI in there even on a Monday to get rid of it. I still think every entry in the puzzle is reasonable for a Monday.

I remember getting all done and realizing I had FORD in the grid — ouch — I found out that even when you know he needs to go, it's sometimes not that easy to remove a president!

Last time one of the reviewers (Jeff Chen) dinged me for not finding added letters that spelled something interesting. This time I went all out and came up with add-on letters (U,A,V,P,P) that anagram to "V.A. pup", which is of course closely related to a POLICE DOG. For some reason, Will left that piece of info out of the cluing...

It's the second time around for Bruce's "+letter then anagram" concept, and I still don't get it. I mean, I get it — toss in a random letter along with a word and anagram to form a valid phrase — but why? It feels related to "randomgramming," a term constructors use, meaning "jumble up the letters because REASONS, that's why." So, same qualms as last time.

How awesome would it have been for the extra letters to spell out US OF A! I think this might be a real possibility. But looking through combinations of 44 different presidents x 26 extra letters is not something I'm willing to do just to answer that question.

Anyhoo, one aspect of Bruce's gridwork I'm digging these days is his usage of seven-letter slots. Often, these get filled with neutral stuff, placeholders that solvers skim over as they go. But ME FIRST / EVIL EYE, LA SCALA / DREAM ON, HAN SOLO — that's a ton of great mid-length bonus material!

It does come at a small price, with a bit of AYS, BALDS (odd verb usage) to make those corners work. Totally worth the cost.

I wish there had at least been more time between Bruce's states + letter randomgramming puzzle and this one. The first time at least felt unique. To get another instance so quickly, with no real change in ideology, wasn't great.

Still, what is great is the phrase POLICE DOG. Love it. And I'll go ahead and choose to believe that GARFIELD (plus you, or U) were both LIFEGUARDs.

Or something like that.