New York Times, Thursday, July 21, 2016

I am trying something different with this Thursday puzzle. Usually, I start with a grid gimmick, and then I identify theme answers that work with that specific gimmick. Here, I started with a theme category, and then I found different gimmicks to express theme answers that fit the specific category. I'm hoping this results in a fun solving experience in the sense that uncovering one gimmick doesn't necessarily give the whole game away. It was fortunate that each gimmick turned out to use exactly two entries, as this gives the puzzle a slightly more uniform feel than otherwise.

I had a lot of fun with this construction method. I hope you enjoy the results!

Is it Friday the 13^th? Today we get three literal omens of BAD LUCK: WALKING (under) A LADDER, having a BLACK CAT crossing ONES PATH, and breaking a MIR/ROR. I had always thought that it was crossing a black cat's path that was bad, not the other way around, but it appears that either one is no good.

With a light theme (just 42 squares), I'd expect a ton of snazzy fill, and Jason delivers some great stuff. It was fun to uncover FIREFLY, UNIBROW, Emeril "Bam!" LAGASSE, CORN MAZE, even HOME ICE peppered throughout the grid.

It wasn't as fun to uncover the deep crosswordese ETUI. It's so useful for those common letters, but boy does it evoke the old days where various editors delighted in stumping solvers with esoterica. And crossing it with Mikhail TAL … he definitely is crossworthy given he was a World Chess Champion, but that intersection strikes me as borderline unfair. What with more than a smattering of NSEC, SSRS, the odd plural NAANS, ENA next to RGS, REL, etc., I got bogged down by the inelegance.

At first I was bothered by the asymmetry of the theme answers, but it's really impossible to make them all symmetric. And it was sort of fun to see asymmetry — that's surely another indicator of BAD LUCK. Or it should be.

All in all, it would have been nice to get a little something more, maybe another themer like STEPPING on a CRACK, or even the LADDER oriented vertically (how often do you see a horizontal ladder, except when it's on the ground?), or maybe everything hidden as a mini-theme on a themeless Friday the 13^th.

Still, there was enough of a seed of an idea and some enjoyable bonus fill that it kept me entertained.