New York Times, Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Personally, I love rebus puzzles, although I realize that not everyone feels the same. I also feel that a key part of the enjoyment is to be taken off guard, so in that respect the NYT does a great job of printing them sparingly. This likely also suits as much as possible the people who loathe them, so winners all around! Except maybe for constructors; it follows that it's a rather rare event to get one published. So that combined with the fact that many of the best punctuation symbols, icons and all whatnot have already been used in rebus puzzles leaves a constructor with their work cut out for them.

The most fun thing about this theme for me is that I thought of it on a camping trip. While inside a bona fide tent. With my family either scratching mosquito bites or snoring around me, I saw the tent icon on the campground map and somehow the penny dropped (seemed more realistic than the outhouse, firewood or electrical plug-in icons, at least). The next pleasant surprise was to see some fresh fill fit the theme; it was especially rewarding to get a phrase that wouldn't normally fit in a daily puzzle to squeeze on in there once it included the rebus. All the longest theme answers interlock one way or another as well, which was fun and rather miraculous to say the least. In fact there weren't too many extra fill possibilities to play with, so that interlock helped a lot to de-clutter the grid.

Anyway, hopefully this puzzle goes over well and maybe it will even encourage the odd solver to get out and enjoy the great outdoors once they're done!

I don't usually run rebus themes on Wednesday, but every once in a while I make an exception. It keeps solvers from getting complacent. This rebus element is pretty easy, so the puzzle felt Wednesdayish to me. Still, I'm expecting complaints from newbies who don't usually do Thursday (or later) puzzles and have never encountered a rebus in a crossword before.

Nice change of pace to see a rebus puzzle on a Wed. Paul did something unusual, using the rebus to incorporate not just one but two entries which are longer than the usual 15-letter weekday limit (SHORT ATTENTION SPAN and ONCE BITTEN TWICE SHY). Neat how constructors are continually thinking of ways to bend the rules.

I also appreciate how he eschewed entries like PUP TENT, ones where TENT is a separate word. Consistency results in elegance, and the fact that Paul either breaks TENT across two words (guTEN Tag) or hides it in in one word (peniTENT) is pretty good. Having strictly one or the other would have been fantastic, but that's a lot to ask.

One aspect that threw me off was the fact that there were several answers longer than the rebus entries: VENGEANCE, TAKE A HINT, ABOLISHES, and TEMPLETON. All nice to excellent answers, but typically the rebus entries are the longest ones of the grid so that they stand out. The other side of the coin is that throwing off the solver can be seen as a positive, in that the puzzle gains an additional level of challenge.

The grid construction is a toughie, especially given those big corners in the NW and SE. Typically these L-shaped corners are only seen in themeless puzzles because of the difficulty in filling them. Throw in the fact that each corner is further constrained by intersecting theme entries and the result is a real challenge. This arrangement of black squares does make filling the NE and SW corners easier, but a price is paid, in that the NW and SE corners are not quite as clean as I like to see.

How cool would it have been if the five tents actually formed the shape of a tent, in the same style as this puzzle by Patrick Merrell? It's awfully hard to draw a tent shape with five squares though, so perhaps it would come out looking too much like an upside-down V or a teepee. Especially for me and my 1st-grade level drawing skills.