New York Times, Thursday, October 24, 2013

This one started with ELEVATOR OPERATOR. First, I thought it was interesting that this 16-letter phrase alternates between vowels and consonants and that it splits evenly into two 8-letter words. That's enough to get a constructor's mind churning. Next I thought about an elevator going down and back up, and a puzzle idea was born. BOOMERANG EFFECT (fifteen letters — yes!) seemed like a good revealer, hinting at the back-and-forth nature of the themed entries.

The side-by-side themed answers made filling the grid a bit of a challenge, since I was locked into two consecutive letters on 28 occasions. I'll admit that a few of the entries are a little on the ugly side (the symmetric pair of abbreviations WRS and STK strike me as the worst offenders).

One thing I like about the grid is the way that two pairs of themed entries tie symmetrically into the theme-revealer — the extreme E and R of ELEVATOR OPERATOR and the middle E and F of NEGATIVE FEEDBACK lie on BOOMERANG EFFECT. I think "grid architecture" is an often unnoticed or undervalued feature of a puzzle. The likes of interlocking themed entries and (perhaps to a lesser extent) grid art are often subtle. They might not add much to the solving experience directly — especially if speed-solving — but at least for me they often make me sit back and say "Hey that's pretty cool!". Granted, grid architecture can't make up for a dull theme or lousy fill, but it can be the icing on the cake.

Neat idea for a Thursday puzzle. Tricky, with a wicked clue "Unwelcome reversal..." for the revealer, alluding to the fact that four theme pairs go out and back. And indeed, having two pairs of themers intersect the central BOOMERANG EFFECT grid-spanner is an impressive feat of construction. Even after Pete figured out that ELEVATOR OPERATOR could intersect BOOMERANG EFFECT as it does, he still needed to find a matching pair due to crossword symmetry rules. Consider how hard a task that would be: you have to find a strong phrase which 1.) splits up 8/8, 2.) relates to the BOOMERANG EFFECT theme, 3.) has a first word whose last letter is E, and 4.) has a second word whose first letter is F. Considering the constraints upon constraints, it's amazing that Pete found something that fits!

ELEVATOR OPERATOR worked very well for me, the visual of a worker going down then back up fitting perfectly with the layout of the pair of entries. But the theme consistency felt a little off, as TWO WAY STREET doesn't seem to quite fit (a two-way street doesn't itself go out and back, rather, cars on it might). In fact, the other three besides ELEVATOR OPERATOR seem to be internally consistent in that they allude to the out and back idea but don't directly represent it. So overall the theme works for me, just not in a perfectly elegant way.

No doubt, there are some entries that any constructor would try to avoid, but WRS and STK are more or less necessary given the paired theme entries they intersect. And with such an ambitious puzzle that undoubtedly would run on a Thursday, I appreciate Pete's consideration of the trade-offs. Is having FLOUTER and AFLARE worth having big, open corners which add to the challenge of the late-week solve? Pete could have gone a different way by breaking up INKPOTS and BOLEROS (by adding a pair of black squares, thus increasing his word count to 74). I really liked the NE corner, some great entries in there. The SW corner I wasn't as wild about. If it had been just one of FLOUTER or AFLARE...

Overall, I enjoyed the fact that even after uncovering the reversal trick, the rest of it played out like a themeless. Good challenge, and I always appreciate Pete's efforts to push the boundaries of puzzle-making.