New York Times, Thursday, December 8, 2016

My entire reason for making this puzzle was to use the entry MAGNUM PI — "Champagne bottle that holds 3.14159… liters?" But as I started thinking up other themers, I noticed that the livelier ones had the initials at the front of them, not at the back. So my next idea was to do a mix of front and back, but I couldn't get the symmetry right, and after struggling with it for *way* too long I gave in to the obvious solution: ditch my beloved MAGNUM PI. And once I did, everything came together quite nicely. So let that be a lesson when it comes to crossword puzzle constructing (and perhaps life in general): Be flexible. Don't cling so tightly to your "great" ideas. Things often work out better when you let them go, and, honestly, they probably aren't that great anyway.

Also, it took a failed submission to get this one accepted. My first version had the entry GI BILL — "Invoice for a karate uniform?" — but neither Will nor Joel had heard of a karate gi, so they nixed it. I had no problem with this (I had PO BOXES on the bench, ready to go, if need be), but I was a bit surprised, as I thought karate gis were common knowledge. Although being that I get a little red squiggly underlining "gi" and "gis" as I type this, it's quite possible that I'm wrong here.

My final comment about this puzzle is that I wish it had run on Wednesday instead of Thursday. In part this is because I need Wednesday to complete the "cycle" (i.e., a puzzle published on each day of the week), but also because solvers often expect something trickier on a Thursday. This one is pretty straightforward. Oh well, no biggie. I'm cool with it if you are.

Two-letter wordplay, with initials reinterpreted as whole words. The results amused me as a whole, LA DODGERS the best of the bunch. Funny to think about a singer who goes straight from sol to ti, avoiding the dreaded LA. Great choice to kick off the puzzle theme. IT SUPPORT (information technology) is a great phrase in itself, and I liked the idea of Stephen King getting a little help with his famous book, "It." And ID CARDS was another good one, making me think about Louis CK joking around about Freudian concepts.

PA ANNOUNCEMENTS felt stilted as a phrase — "overhead announcements" hits my ear better — but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do to make a grid work.

Speaking of making a grid work, seven-letter themers are often awkward, as it's tough to make them stand out naturally as part of the theme. Damon does a nice job — note that there are no other seven-letter (or longer) entries in the across direction. This helps, but I still lost ID CARDS and PO BOXES in the background, especially since they're entries you might see as fill in other crosswords.

I wonder if putting them across the middle, separated by a black square, would have helped? That means PA ANNOUNCEMENTS might have to become PA SYSTEMS or something, with another themer needed to match it. Never easy!

Damon did a great job of making his grid smooth. Just an INTRA and TRI (although I've done some triathlons, and TRI is commonly used for the event); that's beautiful execution on short fill.

I would have actually been fine with a bit more glue if it meant a little more long fill. I did like MOTLEY, DEAD ON, MESS UP, PHENOM, but IN THE ZONE and RADIOHEAD are such great entries. Maybe moving the black square between URLS and IPA over to the left, to create another set of eight-letter slots? That would also have opened up the upper left and lower right corners, both of which are slightly choked off from the rest of the puzzle.

Overall though, some fun results, if not as groundbreaking as I like Thursday puzzles to be.