It took two constructors to stretch out the long E's in the May 11 Sunday puzzle by Tony Orbach and Patrick Blindauer (answers.) This is their third collaboration at the Times. Their previous joint effort was the clever Forward Thinking which didn't get a lot of blog coverage because it came out during the Crossword Tournament but was an excellent puzzle. Today's was more typical, sticking to a vowel substitution scheme of a sort not uncommon on Sundays, but it was still enjoyable.
AMEX was clued as "green card", a clue Mr. Blindauer has used before, but I love it. ARTURO got a non-Toscanini clue, referring this time to Arturo Sandoval. The smiling face belongs to Lauren TEWES. Can you look at that photo without hearing her TV theme song? Yeah, sorry about that. You can only get it out of your head by humming It's a Small World After All but then you can never stop that song from banging around in your head. "The less you see of this person, the better" is a splendid clue for DIETER. Otherwise it felt like standard Sunday crossword fare for me. Nothing wrong with that.
