ALADDIN

I'm thrilled to have my first Sunday published! The larger size presented a whole new world of difficulty to fill, but it was extremely satisfying to get a completed grid.

This puzzle began with a theme exactly opposite the current one. I planned for the revealer to be WITHDRAWAL, with theme answers that were common phrases missing the letters AL, such as ICE IN WONDERLAND, FLOUT BOYS, or FAT ATTRACTION. I had just finished a course in computer science, so after I made a list of themers, I wrote a program to make sure I was not missing any juicy potential theme phrases. The program was designed to output a list of all English words that became different English words when the string "al" was removed, and my plan was to look over the list to see if it contained anything interesting that I had not thought of on my own. At the top of the list was the pair "Aladdin" and "add-in," and I realized that ALADDIN would make a great title for a puzzle that involved inserting "al" rather than deleting it, so I decided to change from WITHDRAWAL to ALADDIN.

There were a couple of reasons for the switch. First, ALADDIN makes a better title than WITHDRAWAL because ALADDIN is unrelated etymologically to ADD-IN whereas WITHDRAW and WITHDRAWAL have the same stem. Secondly, subtracting letters can make it difficult to tell what the base phrase is, but this is less of a problem when letters are added because then the base phrase is still present in its entirety. Therefore, I turned the theme on its head, and the result is what you see. (By the way, thanks to Mrs. Prosser and Lori Levin for teaching me the requisite programming skills!)

I always struggle to balance cleanliness with liveliness. In this grid, I was especially happy to fit HIPSTER, PUSSYFOOT, and APLOMB, but there are also a few entries I would rather have done without; if I'm ever brave enough to attempt another Sunday, I would like to include more interesting non-theme answers. In addition, my favorite Sundays usually have extra theme layers (for an example, see pretty much any Sunday by Elizabeth C. Gorski), so I would also love to try my hand at adding extra elements to the theme.

Straightforward "add a letter(s)" theme today, ALADDIN parsing as AL ADD IN = add AL to phrases to produce wacky results. As with these types of puzzles, the keys are 1.) whether or not the base phrases are snappy and 2.) if the resulting phrases make the solver smile or laugh. I think Tom did a nice job in picking strong base phrases; all of them very solid. The resulting phrases generally didn't do a lot for me — humor is so subjective — but A FAREWELL TO ALARMS gave me a nice image of that kooky alarm clock programmed to roll away when it goes off, thus making the owner chase it a la Benny Hill. (cue Yakety Sax music here)

For just his second NYT puzzle, Tom does a nice job. The leap from weekday to Sunday puzzle is dramatic — I remember staring at a blank 21x grid for the first time, wondering if I could actually do it. It was a simple "add an R" puzzle so wasn't accepted (hey, you gotta start somewhere), but it was a giant step for me to realize that a Sunday NYT was within my grasp (well, with a LOT of additional practice and training). Congrats on the Sunday debut, Tom.

Ah, big corners. Check out the NE and the SW, 6x6 chunks of white appearing almost themeless in quality. These are tough to fill, especially when bordered by two long answers. I appreciate the care Tom took with the SW corner — it turned out beautiful. LONG PANTS is a nice enough answer, and Tom puts in PINKIES / RAN DRY / PLANAR with a great Flatland clue. Not even one tenuous answer! That's the way to care and feed for a subsection.

Moving to the NE though, once you throw down IDEALS OF MARCH and PUSSYFOOT (great entry, BTW!), filling that subsection can be brutal. So often they require glue like UNIATE and SO MUCH, which seems to me a six-letter partial, not something that's generally acceptable. I wonder if PUSSYFOOT was just too enticing to leave in the grid. It's one of my favorite entries in the grid, but for me personally, it's not worth the price of UNIATE and SO MUCH.

These big corners are tricky. They can be hard to avoid when your first entry (CHANGE OF PALACE) leaves exactly six white squares to its right. Might have been nicer to break that chunk into a much more easily fillable 6x3 or a 6x4, by shifting black squares around.

Finally, a nice clue to end this post. I was pretty stuck in the SW corner, and I stared at [Lines at a theater?] for the longest time. Turns out putting an "S" at the end wasn't so smart! I liked the a-ha moment of figuring out that it wasn't talking about QUEUES but a SCRIPT. I find these types of clever clues are essential for holding my interest when a Sunday theme is straightforward. Brought a smile to my face.