New York Times, Thursday, July 5, 2018

The idea for this puzzle was inspired when Donald Trump made the unfounded charges that he was being wiretapped by President Obama at Trump Tower. It got me to thinking what government agencies might go undercover to listen in on our conversations. Four came to mind: FBI, DEA, NSA, and CIA. Since each of these three-letter agencies hide themselves I thought I could hide them in a crossword and "wiretap" the puzzle solver.

Of course, with NY Times solvers being as smart as they are, they would figure who was spying on them as soon as the theme clicked in. I provided a "helper" by including the entry WIRETAP in the lower right of the puzzle (this clearly made the puzzle easier to solve — I wonder if most solvers want that kind of help or not).

Rebus puzzles with multiple unique rebuses are more challenging to solve than ones with the same rebus throughout. It's nice when you can connect them with a theme, especially one that is also related to how they appear "undercover" in the grid.

The entry ILL LIVE, which is making its debut in the NY Times, came to mind when my grandson banged his knee and went into full histrionics. I said to him "Don't worry, you'll live."

Have a great summer.

Secretive orgs rebusized … WIRETAPped? It's fun to see those rebus bugs planted into the grid, but I didn't get why WIRETAP would mean that those trigrams would be shoved into a single box.

Still, it was fun to uncover the four special boxes. Great find in DATE OF BIRTH — which felt quasi-semi-sorta-kinda-theme-related! (Something that a secretive org might secretly record?) Not easy to work with the *FBI* string of letters, and this is the way to do it.

BAY OF BISCAY wasn't as interesting to me, personally. If this weren't the NYT, I'd be intrigued to see SONS OF BITCHES — no commentary on the FBI, please don't wiretap me! — but perhaps PAIR OF BINOCULARS or WAD OF BILLS?

MARCIA CLARK also didn't resonate with me. I remember watching the Trial of the Century, and of course, I remember Johnny Cochran. Brilliant self-promoter. The lead prosecutor though … sadly, fewer people remember the loser. Or were we all losers in that one? I'd have preferred maybe SOCIAL WORKER or ARTIFICIAL KNEE.

Don't get me wrong, I think BAY OF BISCAY and MARCIA CLARK are both crossworthy. But unless the name is uber-famous, known by almost anyone, I prefer theme phrases that have more universal appeal.

It's tough to achieve long rebus entries in both directions, so props to Randy for crossings like MADE A SCENE / ART DEALER. Beautiful stuff! Also beautiful: DNA TEST, ALI BABA, ILL LIVE. That kind of bonus fill sparkles up a grid.

Not so sparkly: SNEERY. THE MOST? And I gave the side-eye to GLAD EYE. I don't mind one or even two of these in a grid, but all of them left me with an unready discomfort.

It's tough. With so many constraints, Randy had to make some trade-offs. On the plus side, he did well to keep the short crossword glue limited to ALERO, SMEE, RANDD (curiously similar to RANDY!). So although some of that mid-length fill did leave me sneery, I thought he struck a decent balance in grid fill.

Something interesting about those secretive orgs rebusized. WIRETAP didn't serve me up a sharp a-ha moment, but the solving experience was still entertaining.