Andrew Chaikin author page

Confused? Go read the notepad. I'll wait.

Still confused? Okay. Take a deep breath ...

1. Re-read the notepad. Pay attention to the professions. Note that there's a cook, a driver, and a carpenter.
2. APTLY NAMED CELEBRITY? Like TIM cook, MINNIE driver, and KAREN carpenter? A-ha! What a cool idea, setting up a mystery where it turns out the typical players were celebs!
3. Who is GERARD Butler, you say? And TIKI Barber? I'm thankful for TIKIpedia. Er, Wikipedia.
4. The APPLE SWEATSHIRT dropped at the scene of the crime? That belonged to TIM Cook, the CEO of Apple. He's quarantined into the east room, at 65-Across.
5. His admission tells us that the diamond is hidden in the room to the west of where he is; the central room.
6. MCGUFFIN can be seen in a diamond shape around the central black cross. (Start at 9 o'clock and read clockwise.) Therefore, the MCGUFFIN diamond has been located.

Whew!

I loved the idea behind this, but the execution had several issues:

• MCGUFFIN refers to a plot device that isn't important in itself. Seeing it as the end goal created a dissonance. Why not name the diamond something else, a random proper name that wouldn't confuse the issue?
• There's too much in the notepad. How many solvers will TL;DR it? I'm guessing a lot, and without that information, the puzzle makes no sense.
• TIM Cook is in the east room at 65-Across, yet he speaks at 102-Across? He's a ventriloquist?
• It's not much of a mystery. What burglar drops his distinctive sweatshirt at the scene of the crime, then immediately admits guilt? Wait ... is this some sort of Apple publicity stunt? J'accuse, TIM!

Overall, I appreciated the audacity and the attempt to do something completely different. I might have loved it, if the notepad had been scrapped and a fuller, more engaging mystery had been presented in short-story format on a full page before the grid. It's a shame that Will Shortz can't do things like that often (he only gets single page for the crossword, and you'd have to substitute in another puzzle for syndication partners).

The Sunday NYT crossword would greatly benefit from grand new experiments, taking full advantage of the Sunday Magazine's color spreads. I'd love to see the NYT's top brass give Will more leeway in testing out mold-breaking, innovative puzzles that might just blow people's minds.

[ Here's the official mystery explanation from the NYT. ]

I'm a big fan of Will Shortz's notes, and today's was outstanding. I had no idea Andrew was an actual rock star! And that story about making a resolution to get another xw into the NYT is so meta.

Kooky reinterpretations of in-the-language phrases is a standard theme type, but it's one that I don't tire of. I enjoy having normal-looking phrases as themers, and there's so much humor in rethinking how they might be said, or who might say them. It gets to the heart of clever wordplay. CLEAN OUT THE HOUSE is such an apt resolution for a house husband … or a gambler! PLAN A PERFECT GETAWAY is right up there, describing a resolution for a vacationer, or a thief.

Typically, MY and I are frowned upon in theme formatting, Will much preferring ONE or ONES — GROW ONE'S NEST EGG and WATCH WHAT ONE EATS. In today's case, I like the first-person approach. As with novels, first person can make a reader / solver feel even closer to the story.

I wanted GIVE UP BAD HABITS instead of OLD HABITS, but I can see a case for the latter. It's hard to call an article of clothing "bad."

136 words is so tough to execute on. You might guess that I'm going to spout off my usual broken record spiel about how it was a terrible idea. I'm mixed today, though. The areas that usually cause problems are the biggest swaths of white, but the NW and SE are solidly above average. I appreciated how they gave the puzzle some bite; a nice solving challenge.

It's the center that gave me doubts. ESAI to SSR to GO WALKIES (can't decide if I love it or not, but crossing SNOG might kill some perfect solves) to KON to SALT I — separating those three middle themers more by deploying extra black squares would have helped a ton.

So maybe I am playing that broken record. A 140-word grid would have uplifted the theme, perhaps even pushing the overall product to POW! territory. Such an apt idea for the upcoming Happy New Year!

Definitional puzzle riffing on the number 21. I usually find these themes dry, as uncovering dictionary-like entries can be more work than pleasure. AGE FOR DRINKING LEGALLY isn't going to win any crossword awards, for example.

But Andrew found a nice range of answers, from drinking age to the Adele album, to the 21 gun salute, to blackjack. And I enjoyed the final twist, the last themer telling us that each of the themers had 21 LETTERS IN THESE ANSWERS — each of them a grid-spanning length. Fun punchline, very meta.

I was SURE that SPOTS ON ALL SIDES OF A DIE was incorrect. A standard die has opposite sides that equal to seven, i.e. one + six = seven. So the total has to be even!

Oh, wait.

Carry the eight, round down, dot the i's … oops.

Yes, the sum of one through six = 21, indeed. I knew that.

With just six themers, you'd think that a Sunday 140-word puzzle wouldn't be difficult. And it's not too bad.

But going down to the nearly unheard of 126 words? That's crazy! I can understand the allure to work in such great bonuses as ELIE WIESEL, MALEFICENT, ONE TOO MANY — it's important to get a ton of bonuses in, since the themers are a bit dry. But it's virtually impossible to execute on a 126-word grid, without glopping a ton of crossword glue all over.

Hoo boy, was there a lot. I would have sent this one back to smooth away ABLAST, ALOAD, SSTS, OESTE, etc. I stopped keeping track after I hit ten, and it kept right on going. It would have been better to deploy a lot more black squares to separate the themers, facilitating a higher quality of fill.

But I did appreciate the innovative thinking, the wide range of subjects covered by the number 21, and the punchline. Rare for a definitional puzzle to make me smile at the end.

Before I started this gig last year, doing the NYT xw was fun in itself. But I always wanted more, specifically to hear Will's thought process regarding why he chose each puzzle and how he changed it to his liking. There have been many highlights in the past six months, but having Will write and send daily comments on the puzzles is among the top.

One observation that's been eye-opening is the diversity within his target audience. Before we started communicating, I always thought Will strove for the jaw-dropping, mind-blowing puzzles and filled in around them with "ordinary" stuff because he just couldn't get enough of the former. But now I've come to see that a significant portion (probably a large majority, actually) of his constituency shies away from anything too new, being very appreciative of puzzles that are familiar or push the envelope just slightly.

All of this is a long way of saying that even though today's puzzle doesn't blaze entirely new ground, it probably meets the needs of more solvers than the rule-breaking, game-changing puzzles. We've seen many puzzles before where theme answers use only one vowel, but it's a nice addition to have all the clues use only that same vowel. Some of them get a little tortured for my taste (the clue for RASTA MAN brought back unpleasant memories of Jar Jar Binks*) but overall the extra layer was appreciated.

A nice debut. There are definitely some compromises because of the high theme density and the way the themers interlock (the SO I/ON UP/ID DO section is so heavily constrained by the placement of the theme answers, for example), but also some nice long fill (RAW ONION, PYROMANIA, LAB ANIMAL are all great stuff). To start a construction career on a 21x is no small feat. Looking forward to more from Andrew.

*meesa still not forgiven you, Georgie Lucas