New York Times, Thursday, August 13, 2020

It's great to have a third puzzle in the Times! This one underwent a few iterations before arriving at the finished product. I was tossing around a few famous phrases in my head, and realized that "All for one and one for all" would make an interesting crossword theme, and lend itself to some sort of substitution. I knew I would need a revealer, and since the phrase itself would be tough to work in, I noticed that luckily, THREE MUSKETEERS made for a tidy 15-letter entry.

Initially, I wanted to create four other theme entries that would have one substitution each (two would swap ONE for ALL, and two would swap ALL for ONE), each making a new phrase. So, CALL OF THE WILD would become CONE OF THE WILD or something of that nature. I wound up deciding against this structure because most of the viable theme words would be pretty short (CALL/CONE, BALL/BONE, THRALL/THRONE...), and that seemed a little redundant. So, I decided to find some interesting phrases that had both ALL and ONE therein, and swap them in each.

Since the resulting theme lines would no longer yield coherent phrases, I geared the puzzle to a Thursday difficulty level, making the nature of the substitution the gimmick that one would need to unpack. Somehow, that felt more interesting than just having some punny phrases, like my first idea would have yielded. I submitted the idea with the option of including or excluding the circles, depending on how nasty the finished product should be. I think including the circles was the right choice, and probably made for a more enjoyable, less frustrating solve.

Regarding cluing, I like to make late-in-the-week puzzles, so I can sprinkle in some trivia clues and some misdirections. My favorite trivia clues were the ones for MALARIA and DOLPHIN. I thought "They might appear in cameos" was a fun bit of trickery for ONYXES, and avoided a more boring reference. As a cryptic crossword fan, I knew I had to throw in a cryptic reference for SILENT R, so "February 4th" felt perfect. Sadly, "Where to watch the big game?" didn't make the cut for SAFARIS, although the Teddy Roosevelt clue is a fun one. (The River of Doubt is an amazing read about his adventures in the Amazon!).

I hope this was a fun and challenging one, and look forward to giving you more puzzles in the near future!

ALL for ONE and ONE for ALL! I've seen plenty of crosswords play on this famous motto, including a similar interpretation and a rebus version, but I enjoyed this fresh take. It's easy to find phrases that contain both ONE and ALL, using a search string of *ONE*ALL* and then *ALL*ONE*, and there are plenty of options for both. It's clever to present a mix of them, though, so that solvers still have to figure out what goes where.

Jon did a great job of selecting colorful themers, too. FALLING ROCK ZONE is great. The RHONE VALLEY is gorgeous. And my favorite, SLY STONE. Er, SLY STALLONE. That's a beaut! Jim Horne animated the switching below; I find it oddly mesmerizing.

I wasn't quite as taken by the gridwork. Splitting a grid in half with a 9-letter central answer (PHONE CALL) often makes for a challenge. Jon did work in some great entries into the big corners, like SAFARIS, PRO SHOP, FANTASY, APOSTLE, DOLPHIN — more winners than not! — but there were prices to pay. I couldn't make myself believe that ONLAY was a thing, for example, and especially not crossing ON ALERT. I don't mind short duplications, but crossing them feels inelegant.

There wasn't any outrageous crossword glue, but some pairings like AMOI / OLA, SPYS / TMEN, ENE / ESE, and then the tough SORBO and NOMO … it's nothing to be a CROWER about. Breaking up those big corners, going up to a 74 or even 76 word puzzle, would have helped a ton.

One of the best aspects of blogging is forcing myself to go back and understand clues that made no sense. PRO SHOP has a problem if it's out of the woods? Wha … ?

Ah! Out of the woods, as in irons, woods, drivers. It's a bit tortured grammatically, but it's awesome.

And of course, you know what the three golf pros recommended everyone to use off the tee?

ONE wood for ALL!

(rimshot)

ADDED NOTE: The NYT app requires you to enter the "kooky" version of the answers, i.e. FONEING ROCK ZALL, in order to get counted as correct.

I've skated on plenty of ice rinks, but never on an OVAL one (24-Down.)

This is the kind of nit-picking that exasperates solvers. Rinks are rectangular with rounded corners. Their opposite sides are parallel straight edges. Ovals are nothing like that.

Well, more or less. Crossword clues, especially later-week ones, have this strange balance where sometimes absolute parsing precision is required — is "flower" a plant or a river? — and other times, over-generalization is the key. Both approaches are designed to fool you, which is the point of the game.

ELLIPSE would be clearly wrong, right? OVAL is more mushily defined. And since English dictionaries are famously descriptive rather than prescriptive, if "people" call rinks oval, then they're oval.

Much hair has been yanked over these sorts of details. As a solver, you can either choose to be annoyed or amused. You'll have plenty of company in either camp.

My opinion on this particular clue: I don't like it. I realize, though, that I'd likely live a longer, more enjoyable life if I just went with the flow-er.