New York Times, Monday, February 26, 2018

MARK: I sent Andrea a congratulatory e-mail on her celeb-paired Monday puzzle with NdGT (03/20/17) and floated the idea of a collaborative Monday puzzle based on the old adage "still waters run deep" — four words that felt like strong candidates when used individually. Andrea liked the idea, and I liked the possibility that, with her help, I might finally score a Monday puzzle in the NYT. We batted around phrases beginning and ending with each of those four words for a day or so until Andrea lit upon the possible combo of:

STILLKICKING 12
WATERSDOWN 10 (which was the only WATERS... we could think of)
RUNONEMPTY 10 or RUNINPLACE 10
DEEPTHOUGHTS 12

Since the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament was now in a couple of days and my dear wife, Lee Ann, and I had decided to try and attend as helpers/judges every year possible — I stuck a pin in the project from my end. Then, while helping to organize registration packets on Thursday for the tourney we found that Andrea was entered to compete! That spurred me on — so I sketched out a couple of workable grids on slips from a complementary Stamford Marriott notepad and presented them to Andrea at the registration table the next day. Some more enjoyable back-and-forth followed, Andrea clued it all up, and I changed only the clue for SAW to make it a revealer before mailing our opus off to Will.

ANDREA: Mark was so easy to work with and such a delight that we did a second one immediately after Will accepted this one.

I've definitely heard the phrase STILL WATERS RUN DEEP before ... but I embarrassingly had to look up what it exactly meant. Apparently "a quiet or placid manner may conceal a more passionate nature." Huh!

To me, a "maxim hidden at the starts of theme phrases" puzzle is best when there's a revealer that describes the maxim in a snazzy way. SAW is too generic for my taste. Problem is, I can't think of a colorful phrase that describes STILL WATERS RUN DEEP.

Heck, I can't even think of a non-snazzy way of describing it, besides just saying STILL WATERS RUN DEEP! Perhaps MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE?

(Doubly embarrassed that I just quoted the "Transformers" theme song.)

Anyhoo, good choices for theme answers. Funny to imagine older people say I'm STILL KICKING! And DEEP THOUGHTS was one of my favorite segments back when I watched SNL.

WATERS DOWN and RUN ERRANDS didn't pop as much — about as exciting as RUNning errands. But they work fine. There's not much you can do with WATERS as a starting word.

I'm curious if switching the maxim to final words would have been better? That would have put ETHEL WATERS into play. AND ... if you ran the themers vertically, you could bury the maxim at the bottoms of the theme phrases … making them RUN DEEP!

Okay, maybe I still don't totally get what the maxim means.

Good gridwork for a Monday. ORLON is a toughie, but I think it's worth the price of SMOLDERS next to an AIR KISS.

I wasn't as much a fan of STOOD IN intersecting ALL IN — feels inelegant to have the crossing dupe — and I didn't care for ESSES … I wonder if black squares at the end of AMASS and the start of ESSES could have cleaned things up.

All in all, a cleanly-executed maxim theme, the saying well-hidden at the start of the themers until the revealer told me what was going on. I just wish the revealer had more pop … perhaps not the best maxim to build a puzzle around.