New York Times, Thursday, March 8, 2018

I can't help but anagram and make wordplay with stop signs when I'm driving. It's annoying. Those big white letters just ask to be messed with. POTS, TOPS, SPOT, OPTS. Am I alone in this? I hope so. Anyway, "Stop Sign" sounds an awful lot like "Stop Sighin'!" ["Quit feeling sorry for yourself!"] " which is where this idea sprouted. Alas, the only other theme-type answer that I found which would work with it was "Finish Lyin'!" ["Quit speaking falsehoods!"]. Nonetheless, the idea kept eating at me.

It doesn't help that I drive a lot.

Rather than pursue the original idea, I decided to try a variation on it by thinking of other words I could elide to create homophones. I eventually found a set in which the vowel sound changed: LYIN' (for "line"), MOOIN' (for "moon"), PLAYIN' (for "plain"), and BEIN' (for "bean").

I am seriously bothered by the fact that I can't find a way to use "Stop Sighin!" as a theme answer. It's like an itch that can't be scratched. Any help?

As a side note, I couldn't care less about yield sign wordplay.

Delighted to have a second puzzle in the New York Times.

I like it when I have to think about a theme! "Line dancers" become LYIN' DANCERS through the insertion of an "in" sound. Or a long I? Something in between? Hard to explain, but whatever it is, it's consistent. Line -> LYIN', moon -> MOOIN', plain -> PLAYIN', bean -> BEIN'.

Well, I debated that last one. All the others are clued as verbs, and it's a fine thing to drop the g off an -ING for folksy effect. But BEING was clued as a human BEING, noun ... since when do we folksify nouns?

I also debated whether this was Thursday material or not. On the one hand, it's a sound change (addition? replacement?) theme, standard fare for mid-week puzzles. But given how much difficulty I had explaining it — and I still don't think I have it quite right — perhaps it's okay for a Thursday. Sure made me think.

I'd still greatly prefer trickier concepts for Thursdays, stuff that blows the mind by doing something unique. It's an important facet of how the NYT crossword distinguishes itself — not just offering fun, easy puzzles, or tough themelesses, but advancing avant-garde, envelope-pushing material.

It's those uber-clever Thursdays that first drew me into the NYT crossword. Same for many of my friends.

This is a very tough ask. But I think the NYT team is up for the challenge. If I were Will, I'd up the fee for Thursday puzzles. Maybe even hire a set of regulars specifically for this task. Lock them in a room until they've delivered 100 great concepts! A million cruciverbalists, on a million keyboards ...

Big fan of Jim's grid execution. Delightful stuff in CUPCAKES with EARL GREY, APPLE PIE. Puts me in LA LA LAND! I would have preferred the grid not to choke down at two points in the middle — it would have been great to get rid of the two black squares after ACES — but that would have resulted in some tough compromises. The less than optimal grid flow was worth the price of all those goodies, plus a smooth solving experience.