New York Times, Tuesday, March 20, 2018

Did Will Shortz and co. decide to put this deliberately on the vernal equinox? Clever bunch! I think the favorite part of this puzzle for me is the progressively weirder look of the "season openers" as you go down the grid. Beyond that, I wonder if the unrelated span that is 7-down bothers anyone. I can attest that that made for the best fill, and it's kind of cool that it goes through all the themers. Plus, it's visually kind of like a binder, perhaps. But I won't push that reading too much...

Happy equinox, all!

So many crosswords have been built around the four seasons. A pleasant surprise to see an execution I've never encountered! I had fun trying to guess the theme during my solve, giving up before I allowed myself to read the revealer.

Then I had more fun, trying to guess what the revealer meant.

SPRINKER sort of sounds like "spring"? I can buy that. SOMER- = "summer," sure.

(OTTOM-) = "autumn"? Maybe if you cock your head and wince a bit.

(WIND TUR-) = "winter." (squinting, squinting, wincing)

So, a mixed bag. Still, an interesting concept that made me think.

I mostly liked Andrew's execution — super tough to work with five themers, the middle being an uncooperative 13 letters, the others also making trouble at the awkward lengths of 12 or 13. Check out how the themers ALL force black square placements on the edges of the grid. So unpleasant for constructors, taking away so much flexibility.

Interesting choice to run a 15-letter piece of fill down the center. I like THREE RING BINDER. I did wonder why it was thematic, though. (It isn't.) I'd have preferred placing a black square at the E of BIDE and first I of IBIS, which I think would have allow some cleanup on aisle ONEA STE SIG. But I can respect the decision.

The real sticking point for me was the ORU / TORII crossing. I learned ORU (Oral Roberts University) from crosswords. My wife, who is much, much, MUCH MUUUUUUUCH smarter than me (and better at crosswords, among many things), once asked me what the hell a TORII was. (I was surprised, since I've been to Japan a lot for work and seen many a TORII, but I think her reaction is probably more common than mine.)

An early-week crossword needs to be conquerable, to set up the solver to ultimately beat the puzzle. I think this type of crossing is ripe for feelings of defeat. That's a bad thing.

Overall though, I enjoyed the novelty of the concept as well as the execution — especially given the level of difficulty — albeit with a couple of reservations.