New York Times, Wednesday, May 17, 2017

This one all started because I really liked the idea of creating a word chain that could be hooked back to its beginning. But it didn't take long to realize that this was a difficult idea. The first challenge was to find ten consecutive in-the-language phrases that would accomplish this (and that were of course also symmetrical). The second was cluing the theme; how to best indicate the chain (with each word overlapping in two different phrases) and the looping aspect to the solver? I'm happy with how it all turned out, but with five theme phrases essentially unclued, thought it might have been destined for a Thursday… hope that not too many Wednesday-lovers were annoyed with this one!

In the original version, I was determined to use RUBBERCHICKEN. This led to RUBBERCHICKENCURRYHOUSE… etc. but when Will Shortz didn't like CURRYHOUSE enough, I realized that the RUBBERCHICKEN may have been too much of a stretch (sorry). As it turns out, this led to the serendipitous discovery of CLOSEDCIRCUIT instead, which seemed to make for the perfect (unclued) middle to my word loop.

I'll admit, I had no idea what was going on until well after I filled in the last square — those [… X / Y …] clues befuddled me. But, a nice click when I realized that Paul put together a great word chain, using strong base phrases.

Here's an example: DOUBLE BACK and COURT CASE are both peppy phrases. But so is BACK / COURT … as hinted at by the last part of DOUBLE BACK's clue, and the first part of COURT CASE's clue! I've seen plenty of word chains in crosswords, but I don't remember this cluing mechanic. Entertaining (once I finally grokked it!).

I liked that Paul worked in so many bonuses in the fill — that way, if the theme didn't appeal to you, some of SATCHMO, DRUM PAD, MIX-A-LOT, I HEAR YOU, TOMMYROT might. And as a huge "Parks and Recreation" fan, I love PAWNEE.

A couple of dabs of crossword glue to make it all happen, though. Those "parallel downs" (EPISODIC / CULTURAL and I HEAR YOU / TOMMYROT) are tough to pull off without some compromises. I don't mind a bit of TYRO to get the latter two fantastic entries. The price of IPUT and CFL does seem high for the more neutral EPISODIC and CULTURAL though.

(Paul is Canadian, so I did smile a little at CFL … once I remembered that it stood for the Canadian Football League.)

It's so tempting to incorporate parallel downs, especially when you can make one side work as great as the lower right. They're so hard to do both smoothly and snazzily, that it's not uncommon for one side to pale in comparison. It can be such a constructor's dilemma — feature one great side at the price of a less-than-stellar other side?

Finally, MIMEO (outdated), IN PEN (a bit partialish), and EIN in one region wasn't great. But thankfully, that was the only area with such a high concentration of goop.

Nice spin on a word chain, though — I like it when someone takes a tried and true idea and makes it a little different.