New York Times, Wednesday, August 29, 2018

I feel like I wrote this puzzle a long time ago, even though it was only last year. I only have vague memories of constructing it. I think I somehow noticed that DETROIT and I DOTTER (a meticulous person) were anagrams, so I went hunting for other major cities with some kind of consistent anagram to play off of. The challenge was finding a mix of cities that felt sufficiently well-known that would anagram in the same way. And then there was balancing them in the grid, coupled with finding some neat way of cluing the set...I remember there being some pain in coming up with a final set of entries, but I feel good about the set I managed. I'd be curious if anyone can think up others I missed!

Filling the puzzle was a bit of a challenge with this grid. Maybe I was too stubborn; I could have introduced a cheater square or two to make things smoother in some spots, but I like the long entries I was able to get in here despite the openness. Getting a final grid was complicated by having not one but two misspellings in the grid at different points in time (sorry about that Will and company)! My only major regret with the final grid, though, is with the three government agencies (NOAA, NASA, USDA). I would have certainly preferred for those three entries to be words rather than acronyms, but at least they are all well known.

I often wish Jim would comment with me a la Siskel and Ebert. We happened to meet up and chat about this week's puzzles, and I found my opinions shifting as we talked.

My first impression of this one was confusion, as I nearly missed the fact that the cities were anagrammed to form the kooky theme phrases. After I finally figured out that DIAGNOSE was SAN DIEGO scrambled, I wanted some revealer to help direct me to that conclusion. (Not that I could think of a good one! CITY MIX UP isn't a real thing, unfortunately.)

Jim had a different take. It also took him a bit to figure out the notion (shorter than me, I'm sure), but the fact that he had to work hard to figure it out enhanced his feeling of accomplishment.

Sure, some solvers won't grok the theme, and that's unfortunate. But those who do might appreciate not being spoon-fed.

I'm agreed with Alex; there were some parts of the grid I'd have asked to rework — there's way too much ASI ETTE ESTA ARTE NEBR STS etc. for this to be considered an elegant product. I'd have suggested adding a cheater square at the R of NEBR, and probably also breaking up BLACK SEA at the C. BLACK SEA and NESTLE UP aren't as awesome to me as ARCHENEMY, USED CAR LOT, CHEESECAKE — great stuff there! — so you'd gain a lot of grid flexibility with these suggestions, without losing much.

"Horne and Chen, At the Puzzles"! Any marketing folks have a better name? I appreciate having my opinions and positions challenged, forcing me to hone and tune my general philosophy on puzzles.