New York Times, Tuesday, June 18, 2019

I find it curious that oftentimes my seed entry ends up out of the puzzle when it's all done. Either I find better entries or there's no symmetrical partner for the seed. The seed for this particular puzzle was RAISING McCAIN ("Parenting a future Arizona senator?"), which couldn't find a partner. Another casualty of the puzzle occurred when I realized via a Google search that Nanny McPhee wasn't spelled Nanny McFee (giving me a LATE McFEE). Oops.

As an ardent fan of "Back to the Future" I was sorry to have to SACRIFICE McFLY (sorry, Marty!) but BAR McFLY and FIRE McFLY weren't quite hitting the mark lengthwise, plus they were chopping up the words barfly and firefly rather than having the first word be standalone as in other entries. And DANCING McQUEEN was an early favorite (makes for an amusing mental picture), but it was one 14-letter entry too many.

I was particularly pleased that this one was accepted on its first submission (though I see a few entries were tweaked). Makes me feel like I'm getting better as a constructor. Then again, I also got a couple of rejections this past week, so there's always room for improvement!

Jeff Stillman drops the (MC) hammer today, adding MC to regular phrases to produce celeb-related kookiness. I lost the "guess the early-week theme" game today when I confidently entered BEING SPOCK for [Autobiography of a "Star Trek" doctor].

There's so many things wrong with that. Someone rip up my nerd card.

I often stay away from constructing "kooky result" themes, because Will and I have vastly different opinions on what's fun / funny. None of these felt particularly entertaining. They work, but this is not a theme I'm going to highlight to my gym friends.

(Oddly, most all of my climber friends do crosswords. I wonder if there's some curious climbing/crosswords link, like the well-established math/music connection.)

It's a shame that DANCING MCQUEEN got left on the cutting-room floor. Made me smile to think about ultra-macho Steve McQueen going on "Dancing with the Stars."

Personal reaction aside, kudos to Jeff for picking solid base phrases and doing the transformations consistently — all two-word phrases, and MC added to the start of the second word each time.

What stood out most was the long fill. The usual long down spots were already great, B VITAMINS / TAPAS BAR and CLIP CLOP / PIPE DREAM lovely. But then there were so many mid-length bonuses woven in. MARIAH. SUMATRA. SENECA. IM A MESS. Even HAYDEN — if you didn't know it (like me), it's not something you see every day. In a good way.

Heck, even some of the short stuff stood out in a good way, like YUCCA, AKITA, DONUT.

All in all, such careful consideration of each and every long or mid-length slot. Color me impressed with Jeff's worksmanship.