New York Times, Thursday, May 17, 2018

My wife and I were vacationing in New Orleans last November and they were making plans to celebrate the 300th anniversary in May. Since the Big Easy often evokes colorful images, it seemed like a good theme for a puzzle. Then as dumb luck would have it, I found out that San Antonio was also celebrating its 300th anniversary in May and also has 10 letters … and I could also cross two other themed answers with the cities. The tricky part was fitting the May 1718 date in the middle of the grid.

An extra twist (and one I hadn't thought of when I wrote the puzzle) is how cool it is for this puzzle to be running today. Because if you look at May 1718 a little differently, you get today's date (which is also coincidentally the 20th anniversary of a Sunday NYT crossword I wrote with my daughter Hillary, "Green Eggs and Hamlet.")

Solid Thursday, using numbers as rebus squares. Who knew that NEW ORLEANS and SAN ANTONIO were founded in the same year … and in the same month! Curious discovery, and the fact that both cities are the same length makes for a constructor's dream.

Fine rebus entries, 8 BALL the best since it's often written using the numeral. I love me my MAGIC 8 BALL — it is decidedly so! 7 UP is solid, too.

NOT 1 BIT felt wonky, as no 1 writes it that way.

For me, 1LS finished in a solid last place. It does seem to be written most commonly with the numeral, 1L = first-year law student. But it feels like a niche piece of information. Scott Turow's book, One L, might have helped popularize the term, but darn you, Chicago Manual of Style and your insistence on writing out numbers ten or less!

I liked that David bulked up the theme a bit, the ALAMODOME one of SAN ANTONIO's landmarks, and many JAZZ CLUBS found in NEW ORLEANS. It was odd that these bonuses intersected the OTHER city, but what are you gonna do?

I'll tell you what you're gonna do! Give up the entry interlock. Yes, as a constructor, it's neat for that to happen. But this solver thought it would have been a lot nicer for JAZZ CLUBS to be next to NEW ORLEANS. Shifting JAZZ BANDS up, so it started at row 1, would have achieved that.

Well-constructed grid, just some SRTAS, DAZS (how else are you going to clue this but [Haagen-___], AWNS. The part that impressed me was the BULB region, as working with four rebus entries all squished together is no joke. So clean and smooth right there, not easy at all.

Interesting finding, the simultaneous founding of the two cities. For me, it was more a "huh" moment than an "a-ha!" one. Still, a theme worth working to uncover.

For the second day in a row, my note is about a puzzle from 20 years ago. Green Eggs and Hamlet is near the top of my most memorable puzzles list.

This is the third appearance of 8BALL in NYT puzzles. The first was back in 1956.