New York Times, Friday, February 20, 2015

First, a note on 1-Across. From reading many a crossword blog from the past year, I have become more aware of real and perceived gender biases that appear in crossword puzzles from time to time. When building this puzzle, I found the only entry that I could make work at 1-Across was BIG BREASTED, and feeling a little uncomfortable about it, decided to make the clue about chicken ("Like industrial broilers?"). Furthermore, I realized I had an opportunity to at least create some balance by cluing 13 Down as "Subject of the Seinfeld episode ‘The Hamptons.'"

To say the least, I was disappointed to see both clues changed in the ways that they were. I do not know if the effect of cold water on a man fails to pass the "breakfast test" or otherwise runs afoul of the NYT standards and practices, but it seems to me that crossword puzzles should be able to objectify men and women in equal measure. Now, onto the puzzle!

Finding interesting longish entries when starting with a concept that's a bit of a stunt like this can be a challenge, but in general I was happy with the trade-offs. I found that 60/64-Across stacked well, and then went searching for a symmetric pair and came up with 15/17-Across. The ?HT of 8-Down necessitated something longer, and so I started forming the grid shape around that.

I discovered STAYED LOOSE gave lots of options at the bottom, and could only make BIG BREASTED work at 1-Across (though I still ended up with the gluey LEHR and EOUS). APPLE ID at 45 Across allowed me to fill the middle cleanly, and the two black squares that were added before 48 Across COLONEL and after 25 Across Clayton did the same for the northeast and southwest.

I hope you enjoyed the result.

I always enjoy seeing something new. So to get three stacked pairs in a themeless was very cool — surprising that I can't remember something quite like this. It reminded me of Ashton Anderson's comments about trying for mini-themes within a themeless, using adjacent answers. TRUE CRIME and RAT POISON was especially pleasing to me, as both of them can stand alone as great phrases in themselves, and the link between them is strong.

IN ONE EAR AND / OUT THE OTHER was also nice, although half and half answers aren't as satisfying for me. With standalones, you can get one and then you still have the other one to uncover, whereas these half and halfs fall all at one time. Similarly, I SHOULD HAVE / KNOWN BETTER is colorful, but the reveal came all at once.

Speaking of I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER … BIG BREASTED? I appreciate Will's pushing the boundary of what the Gray Lady allows, but this to me stumbles outside of what makes the NYT crossword the NYT crossword. Readership and solvership is generally well-read, highly literate, and cultured to some extent (aside from me). Would we see BIG BREASTED featured inside the NYT Magazine or the Styles section? I'm okay seeing that entry featured in an independent crossword, especially but it's not my taste for the NYT. I very much appreciate David's comments and concerns about its usage. In my opinion though, it's tough to see it well-accepted with any clue.

That aside, I really liked the pairing of answers, and would have really like a fourth pair in the NE. Perhaps ACT NORMAL and SHRINKAGE could be linked via Seinfeld (the pool episode, as David mentioned above), but that's quite a shrink. Er, a stretch.

For those of you (us) who didn't understand how [Critical unit?] could be STAR, think of it as a ranking unit, i.e. four stars. And an awesome clue, nodding to one of my favorite STAR personalities, Andre the Giant. How appropriate that his name means "manly"!