New York Times, Wednesday, September 24, 2014

This was one of the first puzzles I ever constructed, almost three years ago. I'm surprisingly happy with it, though there are some places where my greenness as a constructor shows.

Firstly, the theme. It's a simple replace-a-letter theme, which I didn't know at the time was a theme type that has been used quite a lot. Specifically, my idea for this puzzle was to take movie titles and replace a letter with X, to humorous effect. I'm actually very pleased with the four theme entries in this puzzle (MARX ATTACKS, A BEAUTIFUL MINX, THE LOVELY BOXES [with Will's idea of a crossword-themed clue], and EAT X-RAY LOVE), since it was very difficult for me to even come up with four symmetrical entries of this type that weren't complete gibberish (for example, FOX A FEW DOLLARS MORE) or uninteresting (SIN CITY could become SIX CITY, but who cares?).

It's a bit inelegant, however, that there's no pattern for which letters get replaced with Xs. I tried to solve that problem by sneaking the revealer X-RATED into the southeast corner of the grid, but the fill turned irreparably sour very fast. In another venue, I might have titled this puzzle "X-Rated Remakes" or "Censored Movies" to make the theme more coherent. Overall, I think the result is funny enough to justify the lack of revealer, and I'm glad Will agreed.

Secondly, the fill. By and large, I think it's pretty clean, but there are some entries that would make me scowl as a solver (I'm looking at you, STAEL, NIM, and RECT). I'm letting myself off the hook for these transgressions since I don't see any obvious ways to improve the fill, and the crossings are all fair.

Finally, I'm pleased at how many of the clues in the final puzzle are mine. I'm especially proud of the clues for DALI [Collaborator with Disney on the film "Destino"] and BETTE DAVIS [Actress with the iconic line "What a dump!"]. There are couple of my clues I wish Will had kept — specifically, I liked my clues for UNFEMININE [Like burping loudly or sitting with one's legs splayed, stereotypically], OLDEST [Like Kevin, among the Jonas Brothers] and the clues for the adjacent TOFU and HAM, which were, respectively, [Vegetarian's source of protein] and [Carnivore's source of protein].

This puzzle, along with Monday's (plus the Tuesday and Thursday puzzles from next week), were used last weekend at the 18th Westchester Crossword Puzzle Tournament in my hometown of Pleasantville, NY. All the money raised went to a local charity. Andy Kravis took the train up from his home in Manhattan to watch. It's a great experience to watch 60+ people race to solve a puzzle you've constructed! It's also a pleasure for the solvers to meet the constructor in person.

Movie titles with a single letter changed to X. I kept on thinking I was missing something — the replaced letters spelling something, perhaps — so was glad to read Andy's comments. X-RATED would have been a fun revealer entry, but it would really take a title like he suggested to make it work.

Some fun, kooky resulting answers. I couldn't get through "Eat, Pray, Love" so it was fun to see it razzed with the hilarious wordplay in EAT XRAY LOVE. And how appropriate to change "The Lovely Bones" into THE LOVELY BOXES inside a crossword puzzle. Amusing material.

I like how Andy gives us four nice long downs. All of them are juicy, even the single word LEVITATE shining because 1.) it's a cool word and 2.) gets a great clue. "Get off the ground," i.e. start things up, gets repurposed in a clever way.

Check out the proximity between BETTE DAVIS and LEVITATE though. Generally it's better to stagger long downs to give them more space (like if LEVITATE had been levitated to the top of the grid somehow), as long entries near each other can be difficult to fill cleanly. Andy does well to find DALI to connect these two entries, being able to generally fill cleanly. The plural BRANDTS does stick out a bit in my head though. Even if it were more current, something like MERKELS would still not be super elegant.

I like what Andy did up in the NE corner better, TETHERS both fitting in well and containing common letters to facilitate good fill. Still, the confluence of the two long downs (MAKE SURE and UNFEMININE) and two themers is partially what's forcing the awkward RECT and arbitrary ONE AM. As always, trade-offs.

Nice wordplay today resulting in some fun, kooky movie titles.