New York Times, Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Like any global climate change negotiations, this puzzle took shape with a lot of give and take. Once I came up with 5 theme answers I thought I was headed for a 76 or 78-word puzzle for sure, but with the relatively tame letters that made up my theme answers, I realized I could get more aggressive and ended up with a 72-word puzzle. This sacrificed some quality in the shorter answers (sorry), but I now have an even greater appreciation for those constructors out there that make 72-word themed puzzles look squeaky clean. Also, with a nine-month old in the house, who has time to write four to six extra clues?

I hope you were able to sit outside and bask in the warmth of an extra 1-2 degrees while enjoying this puzzle. And if you didn't enjoy it, please toss it in the recycling and not the trash. The planet thanks you.

CLIMATE CHANGE interpreted as "anagram the letters in CLIMATE within phrases." Normally I'm not a huge fan of this theme category, since placing a string of letters anywhere within a phrase is too easy for my taste. But a string of seven letters is no joke, especially when you throw that C in there. Plus, MEAL TICKET is a great entry, DIRECT MAIL isn't bad, and SATELLITE CAMPUS / CHEMICAL TESTING are pretty good.

I appreciated the extra layer Andrew worked in — did you notice that the shaded strings of letters are symmetrically placed? That's not necessary to do with this theme type, but I liked the extra effort.

This is a very theme-dense puzzle, with five long themers, two of them being grid-spanners. That causes all sorts of difficulty, because you have so many down entries that must run through at least two themers. So many highly-constrained sections! Check out the ends of CHEMICAL TESTING and MEAL TICKET, for example. You need a five-letter word to sandwich in between them, and then you have five vertical answers to incorporate. A tough task! I really liked what Andrew did in that corner, even working in a long answer, GUARANTEE, with just the price of ASSN. And KINDA and STINKO are both fun entries.

The center does get strained what with ALGERIA running through three themers. That's the only place I hitched a bit, with LAIC (which really is a perfectly fine word, so that's likely just my personal bias) and IER. Otherwise Andrew does a pretty good job spreading his glue around the grid, a CUL here, an SSE there. A very nice job given that it's a low word-count (72) puzzle.

I did wonder about his choice to work NORSEMEN and GRILL PAN next to each other; a difficult arrangement especially already having a theme-dense puzzle. I think LOC, UNI, and SSE could have been eliminated by breaking up GRILL PAN at its second L. But ultimately, I think GRILL PAN is an interesting entry, and it symmetrical partner, SKEE BALL, is really good. So I think that's a reasonable trade-off.