New York Times, Thursday, December 21, 2017

I owe a debt of gratitude to the constructor who first published a puzzle with left-right symmetry. Grid art like this is impossible with rotational symmetry.

Coming up with a good Y-shape took several iterations and a lot more agonizing than you might guess given the simplicity of the design. The parameters I varied were (1) the height of the arms; (2) the height of the base; (3) the width of the cross piece; and (4) whether or not the lower corners were squared off (i.e., adding another black block). Part of the difficulty was choosing an aesthetically pleasing shape that could be filled around smoothly, but I also struggled with the inherent tension between my Platonic ideals of "SLINGSHOT," "GOAL POSTS," "TUNING FORK," and "THE LETTER Y." I think it turned out pretty well (even if the arms are a bit short for a TUNING FORK).

I was surprised to see this run on a Thursday. I didn't get a day-of-the-week indication when the puzzle was accepted and I had assumed that the theme warranted a Wednesday (or even Tuesday) placement. Consequently, Will and crew had to dial up many of my clues. Speaking of cluing, I like the conversational tone that Will used for the theme clues. He's quite adept at making puzzles feel like a dialog.

I hope AL FRANKEN doesn't make the puzzle unpalatable for anyone. I constructed the grid back in June, months before the controversy over his treatment of women. I suspect that this will be the first and last appearance of his full name in the NYT crossword. On a more pleasant note, I'm stoked to finally see MII clued as the Nintendo avatar instead of the Roman numeral. I'm sure others have suggested that meaning before.

Grid art! Alex gives us TUNING FORK formation of black squares that can also look like a SLINGSHOT. And if you squint, GOAL POSTS (I pity the kicker who has to get it through those narrow uprights). Squint even harder, and you can almost see THE LETTER Y.

Squint harder!

It's tricky. I like the idea a lot, but trying to make the pattern of black squares look exactly like each of those four things is a toughie. It'd look nearly perfectly like a TUNING FORK if you filled in the S of RAGS and E of ETTA, and lengthened the arms. It'd also make the SLINGSHOT look much sturdier.

But then it'd look even less like THE LETTER Y. And if you widened the posts to make it look more like GOAL POSTS, then it wouldn't look at all like a TUNING FORK.

So … best to go with something that *almost* works for everything?

Ah, trade-offs.

Some nice fill to elevate the solving experience, ICE POPS, EUREKAS, I RECKON making those bottom corners snazzy. LUNAR YEAR, too!

AL FRANKEN … oof. Unfortunate timing.

GENERAL HOSPITAL is also nice fill. Or a themer? Maybe that hospital looks TUNING FORK-ish? Nah, it's just a grid-spanning bonus, muddling up what is fill and what is theme. But Alex needed the black square between STAG and PETE to make it possible to fill inside his TUNING FORK, so you can't break up GENERAL HOSPITAL at the H of HMO (fun crossing, by the way!).

Given the simplicity of the theme, it felt out of place for a Thursday. I think if the grid had been smoothed out, eliminating ALPE, ITE, CRI, CONT, FEU, it could have made for a solid Tuesday or Wed puzzle. I understand Alex's effort to make the grid meatier by going to a low word count (73 is hard to achieve!), but it made for a dissonant combination of early-week theme plus late-week fill.

Still, I like me some grid art. And I like that Alex tries out so many different ideas in crosswords.

Thanks to our database, we know exactly who Alex Eaton-Salners can thank for introducing left-right mirror symmetry to NYT crosswords. The first such puzzle ever in the Times was on June 14, 1942 (the 18th NYT crossword in history) by former Times Editor Charles Merz and former Times publisher Arthur Hays Sulzberger.

It wasn't their invention, of course. Will Shortz tells me that there were mirror symmetry grids as far back as the 1910s.