New York Times, Thursday, June 19, 2014

There are a couple of embarrassing truths about this one.

The first is that there was a grid design long before any theme concept materialized. Most of my ideas for puzzles are directly inspired by other constructors' creativity and execution, and in this case I wanted to try to construct an asymmetrical themeless puzzle with subtle thematic content, much like Joe Krozel's CREVE/COEUR (July 10, 2009) and Elizabeth Gorski's JOHNNY ONE-NOTE (December 10, 2010). Lacking any kind of plan, I just played around with blocks, hoping to stumble upon something that could be a viable backbone. The question mark design was simply the first grid that gave me pause, and the TWENTY QUESTIONS concept only surfaced after I'd already tried and dismissed several other ideas.

The second is that the cluing concept of the published version is radically different from the concept of the submitted one. My very inferior — and probably semantically incorrect — idea was that 20 of the entries would be clued with a wordplay-style clue ending in a question mark. You can still bear witness to my legion of awful puns in the clues for TIARA, EAU, CUE STICKS and DEF.

Be thankful for editors. Mr. Shortz saw my vision more clearly than I ever did, and with his lambent touch effortlessly improved the puzzle to the point at which I'm not even sure I should receive full authorship. In my limited constructing experience, nothing else begins to approach how truly confounding and humbling it was to open the preview puzzle a week ago and see my middling concept eviscerated, transformed and then rebuilt into the polished product you see today.

In the end it's fitting that this puzzle is running today, the sixth anniversary of Joe Krozel's LIES puzzle (June 19, 2008) — a puzzle which wasn't on my mind while making this one, but is perhaps the puzzle that this one ended up most closely resembling.

Man oh man do I love visual grid elements! Such a beautiful question mark made out of black squares; what a cool graphic. This grid doesn't display normal crossword symmetry (or any, for that matter) but I don't give a hoot about that, because the visual is so stunning. Well done!

TWENTY QUESTIONS is a really nice entry for the theme. And I believe there are twenty question, although I got a little tired of counting at around three, so I'll trust that it adds up. As Bill Clinton said, it's just arithmetic. All that counting made me TOO TIRED TO THINK. So I suppose that's kind of thematic?

Generally it played like a themeless, which was a nice change of pace for a Thursday. I typically seek out the crazy, twisty type of puzzle on Thursdays, the ones that break your brain as you struggle to figure out what the heck is going on (and then gasp when you find out the insanity in the creator's head). But I know that's not everyone's preference, and lots of people love themelesses, so this will be especially good for them.

Like with most themeless puzzles, there's a huge amount of solid long stuff. EROTIC ART, SPIT AND POLISH, CONTORTIONIST, and my favorite, CUE STICKS. That last one was made even better with a brilliant clue, referring to the opening break of a pool game. Love, love, love that kind of cluing!

And also as with most themeless puzzles, there are such big open white spaces that there will be some compromises. Inside the question mark was my first guess as to where we'd see a little crunchiness, but Tim actually does amazingly well there. NEAPS isn't pretty, but it's a single glue entry that enables the snazz of GRANDPARENTS, THIN AS A RAIL, CAN IT BE, etc. Really impressed with the care he put into that section.

I was a little surprised to see the blips pop up in the NW and NE corners. There was enough of the APER / ALAR, ISSA, PREX kind of stuff that I almost wish Tim had broken up POWER LINE and MONETIZES to give us a net of two more words with a cleaner overall fill. Tough though — it is a treat for the eyes to see such big open areas on the sides of the puzzle. And I do love the word MONETIZES. It's so "Shark Tank," my favorite show on TV.

Overall, I love the amazing visual spectacle of the grid. Perhaps some untapped potential, although I'm not sure how more thematic material could have been incorporated. A memorable piece of grid art, to be sure.