New York Times, Saturday, May 28, 2022

Thrilled to be back in the NYT for another Saturday! This was my first attempt at a triple stack, and I am pretty thrilled with how it turned out. As a solver, I don't like how most puzzles with stacks tend to sacrifice the more fun mid-length answers (7-10 letters), so I wanted to try to jam as many into this version as I could.

In retrospect, I would probably try to restructure to either improve or just cut off the two outer ones (MARVEL OVER and JOHN DRYDEN are not quite pulling their weight), but otherwise, I hope this puzzle provides some fun beyond just solving the stack.

Jim here, sitting in for Jeff who is rewinding his overdue Blockbuster tapes.

ASAP at 1-Across is an "Order with four periods." Really? Well, at the NYT it is. In fact, at the NYT, NYT is N.Y.T.

When I worked there, the style guide had a complicated section on the question of whether to include periods. It involved the length of the abbreviation and whether it was an acronym (pronounced as a single word like LASER) or an initialism (spelled out like A.S.A.P.) The oddest example (now finally abandoned) was that IBM had to be I.B.M., even though the official company name was IBM and the letters officially no longer stood for anything. Traditions evolve slowly.

PASTA SAUCE on bow ties is an amusing image. Obvious misdirects can still be humorous.

Saturday puzzles often include a category of clues I call "Fun facts you don't actually have to know." If you're not familiar with zardozi embroidery, the clue asking where to find it (48-Down) feels impossible. But it's probably a country name. Four letters, so that narrows it down. 47-Across gives you the starting I, so that leaves two options. Zardozi sounds, what? Persian maybe? IRAN is more likely than IRAQ anyway, so in it goes. Who was the British poet-laureate in 1668 (two years after the Great London Fire)? Who knows, but it's a better clue than "old-timey British poet you've heard of that fits the squares." Similarly, let's imagine you're the type of person unfamiliar with the exact percentage of the world's wood various companies use, but 1% is a lot, and that points to an easy answer. There. I've gone from complete ignorance of three important clue elements to learning three interesting facts.

Stacked grid spanners go in and out of style, and today we get three outstanding answer phrases dead center. The long answers throughout are excellent. Bravo.