New York Times, Tuesday, June 22, 2021

I am excited to make my debut in The Times with a puzzle that pays homage to three classic rock icons.

I work as a consultant in the consumer goods sector, but spend most of my free time playing the guitar. Like many people during quarantine last year, I added crosswording — both solving and creating — to my growing list of hobbies.

This puzzle features music by Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, and Eric Clapton that have long been staples on my Spotify playlists. While the clues for 23-Across and 61-Across reference Zeppelin and AC/DC explicitly, 29 and 36-Down offer slightly more subtle clues to Eric Clapton's 1988 iconic rock album.

I hope you all enjoy my first puzzle!

I've had plenty of people propose STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN themes, with an escalating STAIRWAY, but every time it's seemed too thin. Other people have floated HIGHWAY TO HELL concepts. After solving today's puzzle, I smacked my head for never putting the pieces together!

Amusing juxtaposition creating such a pleasing visual. STAIRWAY and HIGHWAY even intersect! I enjoy imagining the meeting point, the doomed (me included) riding the down escalator, pleading with the smug souls rising up to HEAVEN.

Impressive debut gridwork. These types of diagonal themer puzzles are so difficult to execute on, and they become much harder when you cross your diagonals. The keys to making it work are 1) putting black squares as close to that crossing as possible, and 2) sectioning it off from the rest of the puzzle as best as possible. The storm-looking pattern of black squares did the job nicely.

This did leave Matt with fewer-than-usual black squares to deploy around the perimeter. Even working with big swaths to fill in the SW and NE, the puzzle still clocks in at a whopping 84 words (78 is the usual max). I didn't mind so much, because there was some great RADIO NOISE, ABOVE BOARD fill, but my solve did feel start-and-stop choppy. Part of that was due to the extreme number of 3-letter shorties — 29 of them! Will Shortz usually starts to balk at 22, and Rich Norris at the LAT has a hard cap of 22.

Awesome visual of the crossing WAYS. Having CROSS / ROADS as a final kicker made it even more fun. Such an entertaining and memorable puzzle would win my POW! in most weeks.

The song Crossroads is actually by Robert Johnson, and the legend is that it was at The Crossroads where he sold his soul to the devil to be able to play the guitar. So, literally at the crossroads of heaven and hell.