New York Times, Wednesday, September 16, 2015

JOEL: I take the train from New York City out to Will's house in Pleasantville each day, so I'm very familiar with the "Watch the Gap" warning on every platform. This theme sprung from the realization that the "The Gap" doubled as a store. For a while, though, I couldn't get a full symmetrical set, so this sat around in my half-baked ideas notebook. When I pitched it to Finn, he came back with some great feedback about my existing examples and some new ones we might try. SUBWAY FARE was one of his, and I particularly like how both words change meaning in that one. Really elegant. Anyway, Finn was a great collaborator — hopefully this is the first of many from us!

FINN: It was a ton of fun to collaborate with Joel on this puzzle. Once we placed the theme answers and decided on a grid design that looked like it would work, it was surprisingly easy to split the grid in two. We only had to pre-determine two squares (the B at the end of CASHCAB and the E at the start of ENGRAVE) in order to be able to fill each half without the other one being there, since every other connecting entry between the two sides was a themer. I filled the left half and Joel took the right, and then I clued the acrosses and he clued the downs. Editing each other's work was a great exercise in understanding the other's style. To constructors looking to change things up: I highly recommend collaborating with a friend!

Fun theme, regular phrases interpreted in relation to a store that might be found in a mall — TARGET, SUBWAY, GAP, and APPLE are ubiquitous in malls and are ripe for wordplay. I've heard the SUBWAY FARE line before, but the others felt pretty fresh.

With just four themers, I'd expect some nice long fill from Joel and Finn, and they deliver. I didn't remember how close the name NORMA BATES was to Norman Bates. Fun to piece that one together.

They also give us two long acrosses, which are much less common than long downs. This can be tricky, as these long across slots can cause filling problems. Check out how much overlap there is between APPLE TURNOVER and BANNER ADS, for example. The good thing is that the BANNER ADS slot can be filled with just about anything, and Joel/Finn select a strong entry that facilitates easy crosses. I really like how they worked in UBER and T BONED in that section.

I wasn't much a fan of CAREERIST though. It does have dictionary support, but I can't remember ever hearing the term throughout my engineering or startup pharma careers. Or through business school. It does allow for CASH CAB to be worked in, but I'm undecided on how good an answer that is. I did catch some episodes while it was on, but I wonder if it will seem passe to some solvers even now.

I like how they pushed the word count to 74, allowing for more 6-letter words than usual. TOW CAR and TURRET are ones we don't see every day. I did feel like the fill strained slightly, at least more than what I'm used to seeing with Joel's work — it's unusual to see even a single ABAA or an EFTS in his puzzles.

This is a rare case where I thought the theme would have made for a better Sunday-size grid. I liked the idea, amusing in its store wordplay, but I got a sense for only a teenty-tiny mall. I would have enjoyed another three or four stores added into the mix, in order to set the scene more completely. Perhaps STAPLES, KAY (Jewelers), PAYLESS, SEES (Candies), etc.?