New York Times, Wednesday, September 3, 2014

To be completely honest, themes like the one in this puzzle (where all the first or last words in various phrases are synonyms for a word in the revealer) have never really thrilled me too much. They just don't seem to have the level of wordplay I expect. I don't think I've ever had another one of these published.

So why did I write this one? There are a couple of reasons. First of all, about a year ago I saw a notice (I can't remember where) stating that Will Shortz was relatively low on Monday puzzles. I don't have very many Monday puzzles under my belt, and I really appreciate the skills of Lynn Lempel, Andrea Carla Michaels, and others who can make fun, interesting puzzles while working with the limited palette of Monday-friendly vocabulary. So this was my attempt at a Monday puzzle. I only missed by two days.

Second, about the same time I saw Will's message, I solved a Fireball contest puzzle by Peter Gordon with the title "Head Start." My immediate reaction upon seeing the title was to think that Peter's theme was similar to the theme of my puzzle. That idea didn't last long. If you know the Fireball at all, my kind of theme would be way too straight forward for Peter. Nonetheless, I thought it would make a good Monday theme, so I rounded up a few phrases with "head" starts, and went to work.

I do, however, like the sonic semblance of the symmetrically-placed ISAAC STERN and KAZAKHSTAN.

About the picture above: Will and Liane (Hansen) were on an NPR barnstorming tour — if you donated enough money to your local station, you could come and have a glass of wine with the Weekend Edition host and the Puzzlemaster. Even though this was from before my puzzle constructing days, I did slip Will a puzzle idea I had for the NPR Sunday Puzzle. I'm happy to report that he actually used it! That was the start of my puzzling career.

I guess you can take that last comment two ways.

This puzzle reminds me of a supposed "themeless" crossword that Will Weng once ran, in which each of the long answers contained a synonym for "rear end." After publication, when the hidden theme was pointed out to him, the proper-minded Weng embarrassedly expressed regret about publishing it. I wonder what he would have thought about today's theme?!

I've enjoyed getting to know Pete through these comments. Turns out that both of us are boys at heart, so I smiled at today's puzzle. I didn't know what was going on, and hitting HEAD STARTS made me laugh out loud. You'd think I'd be tired of potty humor by age 42, but no.

I'm impressed that Pete found such great theme phrases, given how constrained he must have been. Often you can find enough theme entries, but pairing them symmetrically can be another story. PRIVY COUNCIL is one of the few "PRIVY ___" phrases out there, and what can you make out of WC but WC HANDY and WC FIELDS? It is nice that CAN and JOHN both give good flexibility, but still, finding a theme set that follows crossword rules can often be problematic.

Does toilet humor belong in the NYT crossword? I'm not sure. As much as I enjoyed the theme, I was surprised to see it. Perhaps I'm being too much of a stickler — I'm sure there are many solvers who will have my heh-heh-heh boyish reaction as well — but there's something undignified about it appearing in the hallowed tradition of the NYT. I enjoyed the theme immensely and might have given this puzzle the POW! If it had been in a different venue.

I appreciate Pete's efforts to incorporate long fill. I was struggling to spell KAZAKHSTAN correctly during my solve, so I was amused when Pete spelled it KAZAHKSTAN too when he sent me his notes. There was a good amount of esoterica today, but I did enjoy learning LANTANA, a ROSCOE being a mob gun, and the mysterious (but what was probably many people's favorite show?) DAKTARI. Perhaps a tad much new info to glean out of one puzzle? Not sure.

BTW, hopefully people have noticed Pete's Benjamin Button act, his pictures gradually going back in time. By the time he hits his 100th puzzle, we'll need a baby pic. LOO-king sharp! (Sorry, I couldn't help myself.)