New York Times, Saturday, June 15, 2019

I spent several years and many failed attempts to try and get this grid design to work. It's in my mind the quintessential "gaping maw" puzzle, with what are essentially intersecting septuple stacks in that wide open middle. Anchoring the middle is BIT-O-HONEY crossing with BEEHIVE, which was a fun pairing and came by chance after playing around with several different (and ultimately disappointing) options.

The editing team nixed most of my "?" clues - no big surprise, given the tough grid design. They also changed my OUST/LUO to OAST/LAO (sorry Luo Guanzhong.) I'll be the first to admit that having both OAST and IRR in that corner is pretty cringeworthy, but hopefully not too much! The rest of the grid I'm pretty satisfied with, though undoubtedly it'll play a bit differently from your standard themeless. I was happy to fit in the color trio BLUE, GREEN, and RED in the middle. Also glad that some of the more obscure answers were composed of common words that made them more inferable (ARM BAR, FLOUR BOMB, SIN BIN, GREEN TAPE.)

This is also apparently the NYT debut of LESBIAN? Very surprising. Happy Pride!

Jim and I enjoy trading messages about a week's worth of puzzles, comparing notes on which we liked the best and which we thought lacked. I highlighted today's as one of my favorites from this week, with the caveat that I wasn't sure it would work as well for a broad audience. Perhaps a couple of niche entries would get lost on a lot of solvers?

I was thinking about GREEN TAPE, GOOGLE HOME, maybe FLOUR BOMB?

The first is a fresh play on "red tape" for ecolaws, the second one of Google's sad home product attempts (FOCUS ON GOOD STUFF LIKE GOOGLE READER, DAMMIT!), the last something modern protesters might employ.

I was 100% correct!

Well, maybe not 100%.

Jim wasn't familiar with BIT O HONEY. Or the "Rocky" franchise. Or the world of the "X-men."

So more accurately, I was 100% correct, in one way. 0% in another, more important way. Let's average it out to 99%.

I liked so much about this one, a well-crafted 66-worder similar to a previous one, packed full of great entries without needing much crossword glue. That's no easy task.

There are almost always trade-offs, though, and today it came in the form of some unpleasant entries, akin to KNEECAPPING in one of Ryan's previous ones. GANGRENE is tough to clue in a fun way (although maybe referencing the Packers' "Gang Green" nickname would have helped?), and SICK ROOMS wasn't as uplifting as BIT O HONEY.

(It's delicious. How can you go wrong with a bit of chewy honey? Even IVAN DRAGO liked him some BIT O HONEY, I'm pretty sure. Professor X too.)

Oh, and BIT O HONEY crossing BEEHIVE — with the latter's fun [Home sweet home] clue? Even better.

This one got some POW! consideration. Perhaps without the ickiness of GANGRENE and a nudge toward aiming at broader audiences, and it would have gotten the nod.