New York Times, Wednesday, September 25, 2019

This puzzle was the product of the JASA crossword class's summer semester this year. We're fortunate to always have clever students with a wealth of knowledge and experience to draw on. This bunch was particularly interested in current affairs, which led to the generation of this theme.

Our fall semester started this week, but it's not too late to sign up if you're in the NYC area and interested.

I like this twist on the usual "letter removal" theme. Typically, BREXIT would serve as a revealer for base phrases that had BRs removed, i.e., TOO BIG FOR ONE'S ITCHES. (Hee hee!) Neat idea to pair the original BR word with the resulting (minus BR) word to generate kookiness.

It wasn't until I hit HOMBRES HOMES that I started to appreciate what Natan, Andy, and the class was doing. BRITCHES ITCHES and BREYERS EYERS felt suspiciously close to a rhyming theme, which has been so overdone that they're no longer viable. Thankfully, HOMBRES HOMES and CEREBRAL CEREAL piqued my interest. I enjoy curious wordplay finds like these.

Will Shortz and I have (sometimes wildly) different tastes when it comes to kooky themes. He's often given me feedback that resulting phrases can't be TOO out there, and they ought to be something solvers can imagine.

I have no idea how CEREBRAL CEREAL fits those criteria.

I do appreciate the attempt at a clever link to "food for thought," but that doesn't explain how the cereal is cerebral. CEREAL ISN'T ALIVE, HOW CAN IT BE CEREBRAL?

Humor is subjective.

I like it when constructors go down to low word counts — if they have as much experience in making themelesses as Natan and Andy. Using a big corner to work in TAMARIND and SLY LOOKS is a big win.

Unfortunate about HUAC (if you don't know it, it's impossible to infer). That's a problem with the basic grid design, as there are woefully few choices fulfilling that H??C pattern — maybe HVAC is okay, but even that's a toughie. As much as I love the potential of 8-letter bonus fill slots, I'd have thought long and hard about moving the black squares after TAMARIND and SLY LOOKS to the left, forming a much friendlier H??C?? pattern. (HEPCAT, HICCUP, HONCHO, HOT CAR, HUBCAP.)

Overall though, fun take on the typical letter removal theme, along with strong gridwork. It's not easy dealing with 12-letter themers in a 14-wide grid, but Natan and Andy led the class to a grid skeleton that's relatively easy to build around, and aesthetically pleasing to boot.

I'm going to disagree with Jeff about HUAC. Jeff calls it unfortunate. I say it represents one of the most significant and dramatic times in recent American history.

Perhaps 2019 will find someone as brave as Joseph Welch who famously said to Senator McCarthy: "You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last. Have you left no sense of decency?"