New York Times, Thursday, April 7, 2016

This puzzle was such fun to write, as so many things went my way. Of course, the quote needed to break nicely into two 12-letter chunks to get things going, but after that other cool things emerged while making this, such as Paul Ryan having the same number of letters as a rebused Sarah Palin, realizing that Brian DePALma directed "Scarface", and getting several rebus entries to intersect with the quote so that the grid could be pretty wide-open.

When this quote struck me as the basis for a theme, I immediately thought that someone must have used it before, as it is an oft-quoted line. I searched around and could not find it ever used before. Then, the day after I learned this puzzle was coming out today, I encountered the write-up of this Wall Street Journal puzzle.

It fascinates me that two published puzzles used this well-known line within a month of each other! On the heels of "Gridgate", I'm confident that Matt Gaffney would rate this a 1 on his "Crossword Suspicion Scale." It did get me wondering what I would have done if I got the rebus idea after seeing Mr. Kahn's puzzle…I think the uses of the quote are different enough that each puzzle can stand independently, but it would have definitely been something I'd have to consider.

Thanks to Will and Joel for the terrific clue editing. I particularly loved their 17- and 31-Across clues (REGATTAS, EIEIO). I'm psyched that my clues for 55-Across and 39-Down (RAFT, INTEL) made it through — so much fun getting ?-mark clues through to publication and seeing how they tweak things in general.

I've never actually seen "Scarface," but SAY HELLO TO MY / LITTLE FRIEND is so ubiquitous, the source for many internet memes. Great idea to use it as a reason to rebus-ize PAL, making each of those squares literally a "little friend." Rebuses have become somewhat overdone, so having an added layer like this is much appreciated.

Even though I'm a bit rebused out, it's still fun to find those special squares, a bit of an Easter egg hunt. I like when they're hidden in colorful long phrases like FACE PALM, and I especially like when they run across a phrase like RAP ALBUM, disguising them even further. Not quite as fun to get them in shorties like NEPAL and SEPAL. I am glad that John chose all solid words though — he could have easily resorted to such oddities as PALA or PALP or COPAL or TYPAL or something.

Incorporating six rebus squares in a grid that already contains SAY HELLO MY / LITTLE FRIEND isn't easy. I do like the open feel of each of the four corners, giving those areas a themeless feel. Tough though — when you fix a crossing pair of answers into place, those big regions get much, much harder to fill smoothly and colorfully than usual. While I do love OH SNAP, BEER TENT, PLAYBOY, and OVEREASY spread through the four corners, each comes with a bit of ANENT, ABAS, LO-RES (dictionary has it as "low-res"), ALAE. ANENT feels particularly egregious without some hint of its old-school usage.

Two things some solvers might not get:

• [Brady bunch, in headlines) — note that "bunch" isn't capitalized! Makes a huge difference, as the clue is referring to Tom Brady's PATS. (Boo!)
• I love the clue for INTEL, but I don't know if people will understand how clever [Bond yield] is unless they know the term "bond yield" from finance. I immediately thought about bond payouts, maturities, etc. before realizing it was talking about James Bond.

So, some nice bonus fill and a great rebus rationale, with some roughs spots in execution.

Sarah Palin has been honored (if that's the right word) in crosswords before but this is the debut for her full name. Why did it take until 2016? Clearly, it's a conspiracy by the NYT and the rest of the lamestream media.