New York Times, Thursday, February 5, 2015

I had the honor of being "Litzer of the Month" back in October 2013, probably because I had litzed a number of pre-Shortzian puzzles without making too many typos. In an interview, David Steinberg asked "Of all the puzzles you've litzed, do you have a favorite or one that was most memorable? If so, please describe it." My response:

"Anne Fox's Sunday puzzle of February 4, 1968, was memorable. She had six grid-spanning song titles, each 23 letters long, four of them intersecting the other two. I thought some of the songs were too obscure, probably because of the 39-year difference in our ages, but the interlock was elegant. I was inspired to construct a less ambitious version of my own with six 15-letter song titles, three across and three down. It was rejected with the words 'elegant interlock, but some of the songs are too obscure.' I must find an editor closer to my age." (Actually there was only a 29-year difference in our ages. I've been wondering where the last ten years went!)

I didn't give up. I scoured the Internet for lists of song titles, dumped them into a spread sheet and sorted out the 15-letter ones. I excluded any song that didn't have the word "hit" in its Wikipedia entry. Using a grid with standard symmetry, I blocked in three entries each way with the first Across entry intersecting the first Down entry at the third row and fourth column. In effect, I had constructed a 15x15 puzzle with only six entries, each of which had the same clue: "Hit song." I was surprised but pleased to discover that there was only one possible solution. My submission with this set of song titles was eventually accepted after some revisions.

Some stats: 13 months from final submission to publication; 15 clues mine; 25 clues mine but modified to some degree; 32 clues and 5 words new and improved by the editors. My favorite new clue: "They're just over two feet" for ANKLES. I was sorry to lose "Emulate Turing" for DECODE but I suppose just because a clue is timely doesn't make it timeless.

I hope you enjoyed the puzzle. If it gave you at least one serious earworm, then my work is done. For now.

Somehow over time, Thursday has gotten the reputation of being the "trickster" day for the Times crossword. This is when you're most likely to encounter a rebus, answers that read in unorthodox directions, letters getting entered onto black squares or outside the grid, etc.

In truth, though, at least to me, Thursday is just supposed to be harder than Wednesday and easier than Friday. That is all.

Today's puzzle has about as untricky a theme as you'll find — three 15-letter song titles Across intersecting three other 15-letter song titles Down. Amazing. How did Mike find this?! All are titles of truly big songs that are familar to me (although 4D, just barely — that's a little before my time). The construction is pretty damn clean, too.

What makes this a Thursday? Partly it's the puzzle's 72-word word count, which is low enough to meet themeless Friday/Saturday standards. And partly it's that not everyone may know all these titles, in which case they're not so easy to fill in. Naturally, the cluing level has been pitched to a Thursday level to keep everything in sync.

If you like your Thursday themes trickier than this, hang on for future weeks. I've got some doozies on the way. But sometimes a Thursday theme can come in a straightforward variety, too.

This particular arrangement of six intersecting grid-spanners (highlighted below) is notoriously hard to execute in a 72-word grid. The problem with all these criss-crossing answers is that you create constraints in every single part of the grid.

There really is no one area where the constructor gets full flexibility to work with a wide-open area, because every nook and cranny has at least two entries already fixed in place. And the center has sections where FOUR fixed entries completely border an area to be filled. Check out the SHERRI / UKR / EGAL region for example — that sits right in the middle of FOR YOUR EYES ONLY, LONELY TEARDROPS, ANYWHERE I WANDER, and I BELIEVE I CAN FLY. Rough task.

So I was impressed that Mike was able to keep the number of gluey entries relatively low. It's particularly tricky to do this with longer fill, so the NW with PARISIANS and the SE with LODESTARS would have been very tricky. Granted, TROI and SALS are likely not broadly known, but try telling that to die-fans of "Star Trek: the Next Generation" and "Do the Right Thing." (Like me. Qapla'!)

And for a pop music moron, I felt like most of the songs were well-known enough that I was able to get almost all of them without resorting to every single crossing letter. The exception was ANYWHERE I WANDER, but apparently La Rosa was all the rage back in the 50's, so that's fine.

It would have been really cool if one of the songs had been titled something like CROSS DOWN ACROSS to pull everything together as a revealer. That's a song, isn't it? (Well, it should be. Get to work on that, Mr. La Rosa!)