New York Times, Thursday, June 30, 2022

SAM: Doug and I have collaborated on many crosswords over the years (Lisa Loeb and I have the same Peterson Number!). This one pretty much followed the usual process: I came up with the theme idea and revealer and pitched it to Doug; he kept one of my theme entries and came up with three replacements that were better; he constructed the grid (in this case, being careful not to include the letter I anywhere in the grid); I nodded and said to myself, "yep, this is pretty much perfect;" I wrote the clues (in this case, it was only at this stage that I thought of the gimmick for cluing the theme entries); and Doug corrected the errors in my clues.

I vividly remember receiving the acceptance for this puzzle last summer while on my first trip to the Napa Valley. That's a nice place to celebrate an acceptance!

DOUG: It's always a blast to work with Sam, and not just because he's way too nice with his constructor comments. This puzzle wouldn't exist without his creative spark. Hope you enjoy solving!

It's hard for me to be objective regarding anything Sam and Doug do because they're two of the funniest, most humble, greatest people in the Crossworld. I love them both. And when they come out with a Thursday trick that flips me from infuriatingly frustrated to euphorically delighted, I'd double-POW! it if that were possible.

I'm all too familiar with COVERing my EYEs, given that a friend's attempt to inure me to horror movies twenty years ago resulted in me still carrying zombie repellent everywhere I go. So surely, once I uncovered COVER YOUR EYES, I should have figured out what was going on. Nope, only more fast-zombie-level fear that I'd never crack it open. NG MACH? EANTO? NONE PR? Talk about bad ODOURs.

What a mixture of relief and joy when I finally understood that the two Is in each entry were covered under black squares! VEND(I)NG MACH(I)NES, MAR(I)E ANTO(I)NETTE, DETRO(I)T RED W(I)NGS, ALL (I)N ONE PR(I)NTER.

And there was yet another a-ha to be had! Look at the three clues to VEND / NGMACH / NES. Mechanical / Snack / Dispensers. The other three themers work similarly: French cake advocate, Atlantic Division skaters, and Home Office convenience.

I could ding the gridwork, with its excess of ELO RECD ROM ROTO etc., and DEBARK is a bit of an odd duck. These might have been minimized with different themer selections, especially considering there are many options for each I I pattern. However, it takes more than some gloop to bring down a great theme. It's also much harder than it looks to grid around a multitude of short themers, so the constructor in me took that into consideration.

It's so rare that a Thursday trick will make me yell CAN GETAW TNESS. Such a neat use of black squares as CLOAK NGDEV CES.