New York Times, Monday, August 28, 2017

Very pleased to have my 3^rd puzzle published in the NY Times! My daughter Anna is an avid equestrian, so I thought in her honor I would create a horse themed puzzle. I was a little concerned that the Dickens quote "the law is a ass" would be a little too obscure, even though as an English major I had heard of it and always wondered why Dickens used "a" instead of "an". It's almost pretentious in a weird way. Anyway, I'm glad Will found it acceptable as well.

My original version of this puzzle contained more horse references (Equus, Mr. Ed, Hee Haw, Donkey Kong) but the result was too much dicey fill, so Will and Joel convinced me to drop the extra references for the sake of smoother fill. Good advice, especially for a Monday oriented puzzle.

I liked some of Will and Joel's clue changes, especially "wide keyboard key" for ENTER and "figure made by a figure skater" for EIGHT.

Hopefully all my friends and neigh-bors will find it to be an enjoyable solve!

Four lines of equines, featuring MULE, PONY, ASS, HORSE. If my horse-loving niece only did crosswords …

Two great phrases in STUBBORN AS A MULE and ONE TRICK PONY. I'd happily use both of these snazzy entries in a themeless. ON ONES HIGH HORSE is good too, although these ONE/ONES phrases tend to sound stilted to my ear.

THE LAW IS A ASS … whoa! I'm not used to pausing while solving Monday puzzles, but I was sure I had something wrong when I saw the SAASS string. Yikes! It is true that this is the direct line from Dickens, complete with grammatical error. I can't decide if I love the entry for its sheer weirdness, or hate it for how tough it made what's supposed to be an easy-breezy puzzle.

I do like learning a thing or two from a crossword though, and this is a neat bit of trivia I'll file away. Thank goodness BEANTOWN and ISIAH made for easy crossing answers! Even if you didn't know one or both, it'd be hard to argue that there are better letters to fit those crossings.

BEANTOWN VITTLES (lobster rolls, yum!), some TOOTSIE KARMA too. Not bad in terms of bonuses. DO BATTLE felt like a missed opportunity, though — it's a fine phrase, but not as colorful as I'd like for that precious slot.

Not that bad in terms of crossword glue, either. TAVI, ASSN, ALOG, ERGS, HTS — thankfully they're all minor, and easy to figure out. BERM was the only one that stuck in my craw — I don't expect novice solvers to know the term for a "road shoulder." It does make for a rough crossing for West Coasters — SEANTOWN or MEANTOWN or LEANTOWN might seem just as fine — but ultimately, BEANTOWN is a prevalent enough nickname that the crossing is okay in my book.

Overall, a fine, straightforward Monday theme. I would have liked more sizzle and smoothness in the execution, to help the puzzle stand out more, though.