New York Times, Wednesday, July 9, 2014

Most of my few puzzle successes have involved lots of hard work and rewrites, but this little star-trek came together in a couple hours and (startlingly) was accepted by Will without changes a couple weeks after submission. While it sat in the queue I sent Will a couple ideas to smooth out some glitches, but he thought the ideas caused new problems and went with the original version. This was one of my early puzzles — back in the day when I thought five letter partials were sort of trendy and "cute" — now I would keep one only after a long hard battle. I would still keep AS WAS, but I would find a way to get rid of USE IN (and GIE). I only intended to have four theme entries but when ASTARTE came up out of the blue I looked for a star in the east. STARE is a pretty weak co-star that also just popped up during the fill. I like the way MOM and DAD are joined by MAD and run thru OBAMA — talk about your star-crossed lovers! Hope you enjoyed the stargazing!

A STAR-STUDDED puzzle indeed! It confused me a bit that this puzzle would run today rather than… well, whenever the Oscars are. But I liked the revealer a lot, pointing to the fact that the word STAR is hidden in entries throughout the puzzle. The "word hidden within themers" can be a bit hit or miss, and the big factor that makes this work for me is the quality of the revealer; such a red-carpet answer. Would have been very different if the last word had been STAR with a [Word that can follow X, Y, Z…] type answer.

Interesting layout today, Bruce working in a lot of long fill. I was confused where the themers were during my solve, so I highlighted them below. Now that I look at their clear placement, it makes me feel silly. Erp. Anyhoo, turns out there are seven of them — quite a feat. Many of the themers were strong, TOURIST AREA and COSTA RICA echoing each other nicely. JUST ARRIVED was my favorite, not only a great entry in itself but an uplifting one, which will likely evoke many strong memories for parents. Good stuff.

ASTARTE… such an interesting entry. A few years ago there was a STAR rebus puzzle which featured ASTARTE, and it completely baffled me. Even when I saw the answer, I was sure it had to be wrong, or perhaps it was an insider's joke, two pieces of crosswordese (ASTA and RTE) jammed together. Turns out I learned something, as today ASTARTE fell like a domino. As my wife always tells people, crossword solving is all about practice.

I wasn't wild about the fact that ASTARTE is the only themer where STAR isn't broken across two entries. (Someone correct me if it really ASTA RTE.) I often like seeing high theme density, but adding those two extra themers confused the picture for me because it felt like I kept on running into starred clues (how meta!); plus, the price of BAL / ETE / TOR felt high. I liked the SW corner better, only having RLS and EST as a relatively low cost, but uncovering ASTARTE was only fun for me in that it made me feel like maybe I do learn something from all these crosswords.

I like long fill. It typically adds a lot for my solving experience, affecting it positively if there's great bonus material. I love both MADAGASCAR and WISECRACKS. Great entries, both of them. But already having a little confusion on what was a themer and what was not, having two entries that were actually longer than several of the themers felt a bit inelegant. I totally see where Bruce is coming from though — as a constructor, there's a strong drive to get extra material in the fill. It's a huge bonus. And with his layout of themers, it would have been difficult to work in long downs more than the THAT'S A GO and CREATURE spots.

So perhaps I personally might have executed a little differently, but that's what's great about having such a wide range of constructors. I'm sure many people will read this and much prefer the way Bruce executed it. A great revealer and so much excellent material packed inside.

Finally some great clues for KEG, DOODLES, and BEER GUT. I especially liked how [Marginal things?] made me remember the story of Fermat doodling in his margin that he had an elegant solution to his theorem, but the margins weren't big enough to write it out. And he left the math world hanging.

I have one final note of unparalleled, elegant, clever, genius-inducing brilliance, which is