New York Times, Thursday, September 17, 2015

I can't think of too much to say about this one. The concept grew out of a vague idea of using my initials and the word TEPEE to make a sort of self-referential theme, as others have done.

David Steinberg got there first, however, so I tried to come up with a new way to exploit words that could be spelled phonetically with letters.

One word I regret not being able to include is XQQQ (EXCUSE). XQQQ YOU and WELL XQQQ ME would have been fun entries. The first wouldn't work in this layout though, because it would've had to go at 36A, and it takes a stouter heart than I've got to try to fill an open, double-themed area around three adjacent Qs.

My original grid actually had WELL XQQQ ME at the top. As you can imagine, the patch around those Qs was a little compromised, but it wouldn't have been anything to make solvers gnash their teeth over. Maybe just some light grinding. But after realizing I could, and probably should, set up the themers symmetrically so that there'd be a discernible pattern to the replaced words, I backed down and went for EXCISE instead.

I hope you enjoyed the puzzle. It's always nice when you're not nauseated and altogether strung out in the days before publication. As this one left me just slightly queasy, and only so on Tuesday night, it feels like progress. I await the torches and pitchforks!

Great idea here, a single letter + a trio of another phonetically replacing a word. JESSE ONNN (Jesse Owens) was my favorite, and PUBLIC IVVV (public Ivies) was neat too.

They're actually all super fun, but those two stuck out for me, since they're ones that I didn't think of when I brainstormed this exact theme a few months ago. Luckily, it's already been accepted at another venue, but man oh man I started to sweat with that "dang, I got scooped!" feeling after uncovering SAAA OF ELIA ("Essays of Elia"). I thought I had gone through every one of the 26*26 combinations, so it's impressive that Tim caught two that I glossed right over.

Serves me right for trying to brainstorm crosswords while feeding my 10-month old.

Very impressive execution, especially given that there are six themers. Okay, two of them are relatively short — XIII TAX and THE EMM (excise tax and the Emmys) — but still, it's hard to work around so many themers. Tim does an outstanding job of working with parallel downs in his upper right and lower left corners. They're all great answers, LION TAMER and SOUR NOTES wonderful answers. And best yet, Tim gets those worked in with nary a gluey entry.

Well okay, AGE TEN is pretty arbitrary, so that does stick out for me as inelegant. I suppose there's a case to be made that it's a big milestone for kids to turn double digits. Hmm. Otherwise, a SNO here and an EXT there is inconsequential.

Something really cool about all those Vs in the lower right corner, too. Three extra Vs worked smoothly in was quite a bonus, making a total of six Vs elegantly packed into a tiny space.

Really strong work and a fun solve.