by Ben Bass & Ross Trudeau
[.puz][PDF][Solution] Difficulty: 3.25/5
Big shout-out to friend of the blog and all-around mensch Ben Bass, who is currently asea somewhere near the coast of Denmark. (For serious.) Some months ago he approached me about cluing one of the 100+ themeless grids I’ve made and (never clued) over the last couple years. Generally speaking, if I *want* to make a crossword and don’t have a theme concept I’m excited about, I’ll sit down and hammer out a freestyle grid. But I’m still not sure I want to do anything with them; they tend to leave me cold, for whatever reason. And so! I readily agreed to hand Ben–whose word play acumen and sense of humor I’ve long appreciated–a themed puzzle to wrangle. And lo!
Thanks much to Matt and Spelling Beelieber for test solving today’s grid! Thoughts and spoilers for “Extended Family” below…
Ben: Hej from Copenhagen, Denmark, where I’m wrapping up a European vacation. Of course, location is immaterial these days, as evidenced by today’s collaboration. Ross sent this lovable grid from Boston, I wrote a set of clues in Evanston, Illinois, and here we are.
What a pleasure to work with such an expert constructor and clever good guy. Thanks Ross for inviting me into Rossworld. Much like Scandinavia, I’d happily visit again!
Ross: I’d be interested to hear which version of this y’all prefer. I was torn between a few priorities. On the one hand, I couldn’t decide whether BIG STRETCH or OH BIG STRETCH or OOH BIG STRETCH made for a more satisfying revealer. On the other, I couldn’t decided if I wanted to use it as a *title* or a revealer proper. And lastly, I wasn’t sure how much to prioritize the maximum length of the C__A__T answers. (I was 100% sure there could be *only* one C, A, and T in each answer.) And in fact, as you can see, CLOSING ARGUMENT (15) and CONJUGAL VISIT (13) exceeded the max length of the version I settled on (CORN HARVEST, 11).
Ultimately, all of these priorities are very much a reflection of what I think the most satisfying solve will feel like, though of course plotting that out requires an intellectual empathy that I expect I’ll be refining *forever*. In the end, a lot of this stuff is just to taste and a product of whatever gives you the best and most satisfying brain pops.
So! What say you? Drop a reaction in the comments!
Happy solving, friends!
-Ross
