Got another puzzle published today. My 40th in the New York Times. That’s a pretty good number. (Somebody called me "prolific" in a blog comment today, which I enjoyed.) My goal is to get to 100. I probably won’t make it, but I should at least get to half of it. Fifty is a nice round number too. The problem is themelesses, my bread-and-butter (exactly half my total publications), have gotten much harder to publish. I had one denied just a few days that, according to the rejection note, would have been accepted a few years ago.
If I was a really good Sunday constructor, on the other hand, I would be in better shape, as I’ve heard supply is relatively low for such puzzles. (It shows too; I’ve been surprised at how basic a lot of the Sunday themes are now. There have even been a few themeless Sundays.) But, I’m not a really good Sunday constructor. I had one accepted over 15 years ago and nothing since. I think I’ve submitted four other Sundays through the years and none of them has come particularly close. I can't quite seem to get the hang of it. I actually like working with the bigger grid, but Sundays often contain a visual element, and such puzzles have never been my cup of tea (solving nor construction), or they rely on puns, which are always super subjective. In the pun puzzles I’ve had the rejected, the entries I liked the most were often the ones singled out by the editorial team as being the weakest. So... c’est la vie, I guess.
As for this puzzle, it got mostly good remarks from the critics. It didn’t get Jeff Chen’s weekly POW! rating, but it was a “definite POW! contender,” and really, what more can you ask for in life? Crossword Fiend Amy Renaldo proclaimed: “What a fun themeless!” And Rex Parker liked the top part of it, but not the middle part (as much), because some of the entries didn’t hit his ear squarely. There’s not really anything I can (or should) do about that, as everything he mentions is a perfectly cromulent, standalone phrase.
For example, of ACCIDENTS HAPPEN he says, "I never hear that sentiment expressed quite that way." But that exact phrase gets nearly 300,000,000 million Google (about five times as many as Rex’s preferred variant “accidents will happen”), and it’s also the name of a 2009 Geena Davis, which, I didn’t know existed before today.
He’s also picks a nit with HEAD TRIP, averring they’re just called “trips.” To that I say: Obviously, he is not an Eminem fan.
I'm like a HEAD TRIP to listen to, ‘cause I'm only givin' you
Things you joke about with your friends inside your livin' room
The only difference is I got the balls to say it in front of y'all
And I don't gotta be false or sugarcoat it at all
(I copied these from a lyrics site, but I could have written them from memory. And I'm not a huge Eminem fan either. For me, this song fell perfectly in that time in one's life, age 23 or so, when you consume pop culture without even trying, through osmosis.)
One thing I might have missed the marked on, however, is AGGRO, which is clued as “Belligerent, in British slang”. According to several blog commenters, at least one of whom claims to actually be British, AGGRO is used almost exclusively as a noun: The poor pub owner had to deal with all the AGGRO of the drunken football hooligans. So, the clue probably should have said “belligerence” instead of “belligerent.” Or maybe it should have said “Aussie slang” instead of “British slang.” I’m pretty sure I heard AGGRO used as an adjective -- no need to be so AGGRO, mate -- during my year Down Under. But that was a decade ago, so I might be misremembering.
Overall, the public seemed to like this puzzle just fine. Blog comments were mostly positive, and the reception to it on Twitter was… I don’t know, because I haven’t been on Twitter for a long time. I also deleted my Facebook account. I’m way less connected than I would like to be, but I’m also way less anxious and distracted, so it’s a worthwhile tradeoff. I’m not going to go on Twitter again until after the election, and if Biden loses, I probably won’t go back on until 2025… assuming there is a 2025.
