What is the fish that blows up when threatened?

FRIDAY PUZZLE — A very nice, 70-word themeless puzzle by Sam Trabucco to start our weekend.

Mr. Trabucco says in his notes below that he made this puzzle more than a year ago, yet I thought the fill in today’s puzzle was pretty good. There is nothing overly obscure if you’ve been solving for a while, and he debuts some GOOD STUFF, including GOOD STUFF: PUFFER FISH, FRESH FACED, SORORITY ROW and TAKE A SNOOZE all take their bows today in The New York Times Crossword. There are a lot more entries that are interesting, including ODOREATER, HEGIRA, HELLA, TAROT CARDS, NEVER EVER, I DON’T MIND, CONEHEADS, DRY RUN, BANANA PEELS (did anyone else find it funny that BANANA PEELS is a Down entry, almost like it was slipping and falling on itself?), GRAND RAPIDS, ULTRASONIC and DARE ME.

■ 15A: Read the clue carefully and note the question mark. It’s not “Shoo in,” but “Shoe-in?” and the answer is ODOREATER, which gets placed in a shoe.

■ 28A: I loved this clue/entry pairing. It’s easy to think that “One blowing up when threatened” might refer to a human being getting angry at being threatened, but that would be very anthropocentric of us. Today, it simply refers to the response of a PUFFER FISH to a threat.

■ 43A: More misdirection! “Observation deck of the future?” is not about sightseeing observation decks, but about a deck of TAROT CARDS, used for making observations about the future.

■ 20D: “It gives a driver a little height” does not refer to your automated seat adjuster in your car. It has to do with the driver of a golf shot, and the answer is TEE.

■ 29D: I couldn’t get the visual of catching a ball out of my head, so “Too high to catch?” went over my head for a while. The answer happens to be ULTRASONIC, as in a sound that is too high in pitch to hear.

This is a weird case where my original seed entry* was deemed a puzzle killer, but Will was interested in the rest of the grid, so I salvaged the puzzle. Unfortunately, this led to the grid having less sparkle than I aim for in my puzzles today. The parts of the grid which can typically shine most are the least constrained parts, and tearing out my only seed then rebuilding that section effectively led to the grid having zero unconstrained regions. It is pretty clean, though, I think; a bit more flash or personality and I’d really like it. I DON’T MIND, though. I wouldn’t have submitted the revision if I didn’t think it had enough GOOD STUFF, and I hope solvers agree.

I love writing hard clues, so my recent focus on themeless puzzles has been lots of fun in that regard. My favorites here are for ODOR EATER, PUFFERFISH (also my favorite entry in the puzzle), TAROT CARDS and ULTRASONIC. I also love all the clue echoes Will and company added — stuff like giving three entries the clue “Test” and the disparate John Hancock references adds a nice sense of cohesion for me as a solver.

Until next time!

*This entry was “MOM, DAD — I’M GAY” which was (fairly) rejected for being arbitrary. I got too attached to the clue “Parental advisory about sexual content?” to realize that, I think, and it’s possible that clue is too “risqué” anyway. [Deb’s opinion, even though no one asked: I would imagine that the entry might also have been quashed because, for some people, coming out is sometimes a very risky and painful thing. It’s not something you make puns about.] Being more objective and recognizing that other people’s experiences or preferences differ from my own has been an ongoing goal for me in construction — and my focus on improving in that arena has greatly improved the puzzles I’ve made in the year or more since I made this one, I hope.

Your thoughts?