New York Times, Thursday, August 25, 2016

This puzzle, like sushi, claims a very brief shelf life: it was accepted four weeks prior to publication, and was submitted probably only a week or two before then. "Visualizing" this proverb in a puzzle had been in the back of my head for much longer, though—I originally thought I might pair it with some counterbalancing expression related to "heaven."

You know how scuttlebutt has it how diagonal themers are exponentially more difficult to execute? All true. I think cruciverbalogy would tell me that otherwise ideal vowel-consonant patterns, once on a diagonal, are shifted over, forcing a potential concatenation of weird letter strings. This happens at the crossing of MEDDLES/EENIE, which was by far the hardest region to build.

Two important things about the theme execution: since the aphorism "The road to hell is paved with good intentions" is only obliquely referenced, it was important to make sure all the key words--namely ROAD and PAVED--be included (see my last bullet point for all sorts of variants). It was also important that PAVED ROAD be a real thing (i.e. something you'd like to find in bonus fill or a themeless). This way there was no ambiguity about the intended expression.

Some points:

• Spent New Year's 2015 in OSAKA, the mecca for takoyaki (octopus balls). Of course, they have their own museum about it too.
• I am imagining a dinner party in which ENESCU and RAPDUOS flank DRNO. George Enescu (aka Georges Enesco) was also a brilliant violinist, teacher to the great Yehudi Menuhin, and a national figure in Romania. For classical musicians, his later, more conservative works are better represented on stage, but I am much fonder of his more innovative compositions from a younger age. (Hip-hop trio Run–D.M.C., by the way, hails from HOLLIS.)
• This St. Bernard (b. 1091, not the same saint who lent his name to the canine breed) recorded a quite different aphorism from the one you see in this puzzle: "L'enfer est plein de bonnes volontés ou désirs" ("Hell is full of good wishes or desires"). For some beach reading, you can peruse the at times grotesque transformations of this saying in Cassell's Book of Quotations, which spares neither children nor scholars.

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions" interpreted literally. How cool that GOOD INTENTIONS is 14 letters long — the perfect length to have it run diagonally down the puzzle … leading to a HELL rebus square!

Strong gridwork. It's always a challenge to incorporate diagonal theme answers, so one going down an entire main diagonal of the grid is tough. It's even more difficult when you challenge yourself with 6x5 corners, as with the NW and SE. I was absolutely sure there would be compromises in one or the other, or they'd be filled with bizarre answers. It's just so hard to escape a corner that's so big AND constrained by a diagonal answer without any compromises.

I should have remembered how solid Andrew's gridwork is — NO FEAR indeed! Getting some RAISING HELL / SEASHELL + BOSNIA and COLOSSI in the SE is fantastic work. ANODIC isn't fantastic in the other corner, but everything else is so smooth. Tough not to love MAISIE Williams in her strong-girl-kick-butt GoT role.

The other corners are well-done, too. Love getting some stacked answers in a themed puzzle! Andrew could have easily put PAVED ROAD / ST BERNARD in row 3 / column 3, and then broken up some answers to make a 76 or even 78 word puzzle, so I love his drive to give us so much long fill. ROB REINER, OPEN RANGE, GREEN PEAS all added to the quality of my solve.

The only hesitation I had with the puzzle is that it felt kind of thin, theme-wise. The three themers are spaced out well, covering most of the grid, but with only a 15 / 9 / 9, that's much less than we usually see. So it felt half-themed, half-themeless to me; sort of trying to find its identity. Sure would have been great to get a SATAN around HELL or some other little bonus to flesh out the concept.

Overall though, a whimsical interpretation of the quote and a neat visual, with really strong grid execution.