New York Times, Tuesday, September 24, 2013

I had a lot of theme entries I wanted to use for this puzzle, so intersecting and stacking them seemed like a good way to fit as many of them into the puzzle as possible. I lucked out in getting the intersecting letters to match up, and in getting the pairs of letters in the stacked entries to all yield possible perps.

The WP combo was tough, but I figured out that I could put either WPA or WPM there. I'm not that crazy about "TOGAE" at 6-Down because in real life most people would say "TOGAS," but I needed a word with an AE there so that's what I used there. I desperately wanted to fit another 5-letter theme entry at 37-Across to go with the ones I had at 23-Down and 35-Down, but I just couldn't come up with anything that would fit, so I ended up with no theme material in the center of the puzzle.

I spent a lot of time on this puzzle. I'm not sure how much. Probably over 40 hours. I built several versions of the grid that I rejected, and kept going back and moving black squares and changing fill, until I finally came up with something that I felt had clean enough fill to submit. Most experienced constructors will tell you that trying to cram too much theme material into a puzzle is a mistake, and I agree with that, but every once in a while it can work out.

I'm astonished by the amount of theme material Kevin managed to wedge into this puzzle, some of it even stacked and/or crossing other theme entries. At the last minute, just before editing, I decided this puzzle needed a theme "explainer," so the circled E and T were my idea. The E was already in place. The center-right and lower-right sections of the grid were revised to get the circled T in a symmetrical position.

Enjoyable to hear the interplay between constructor and editor. Nice puzzle today, made nicer with Will's touch of adding the circled E and T. If only the puzzle could add a sensory element to those circles, making them taste like REESES PIECES. Seriously, we have smartphones and life-saving medical devices but no one's invented "Solve N Taste" yet? Constructors: contact me for Solve N Taste® licensing rights.

An unusual layout today. I always appreciate seeing something different out of a construction, if nothing else to break convention and open one's mind to what else is possible. And this grid certainly allows Kevin to work in a lot of good stuff about a memorable movie. A drawback is that the short thematic material tends to get lost in the shuffle (I've highlighted all the theme material in the grid below to help it stand out). For some, that may not be an issue at all, but in my opinion it causes a slight loss of elegance (n.b.: some might see this layout as having increased elegance, due to the high degree of theme interlock). Additionally, the cross-referencing (OUTER/SPACE and REESES/PIECES) often causes complaints from solvers, forcing them to jump around as they solve.

Amazing that Kevin was able to jam in some long fill too, even given all the thematic constraints. DOORBELL and THE MRS are especially nice. EAR DOCTOR is a real profession (otologist), yes, but as a phrase, isn't not as snazzy as the other long fill. And given that the north and south sections suffer a bit with STER, AGIO, A GIRL, I might have preferred less long fill if it meant getting rid of some of that. But it's hard to say if breaking up some long answers would even be possible with this layout (without making the puzzle feel too segmented).

Overall, neat theme idea with a lot of good stuff packed in.