New York Times, Wednesday, April 15, 2015

The idea for a theme of seven-letter phrases where the first and last three letters are the same came after glancing at my phone when the Daft Punk song "Giorgio By Moroder" came on. It's always fun when a cool idea like this comes completely by accident.

I agonized over whether the revealer BILATERAL/SYMMETRY was accurate enough, because I could see the argument that it more aptly describes a palindrome like RACE CAR. But if you think of the three-letter strings as chunks, it works. Also, I couldn't think of something that would better describe it.

Finally, I'm of the opinion that some in the crossword world have taken the whole 'grid dupe' thing way too far — I remember an early puzzle of mine receiving a negative review just for having two UPs crossing each other. First, I don't think most solvers notice this sort of thing. But even if they do, I'm not sure how it detracts from the enjoyment of the puzzle that much. Every rule should have a good reason behind it, and this one has always seemed a little too dogmatic for not enough cause.

All of this to say, the MADE MAD/MAD MEN dupe doesn't bother me at all. MADE MAD was fixed by the theme, and MAD MEN is a fresh, modern answer that's particularly nice now that the final season is airing. If they were crossing, I'd probably have to lean against it, but otherwise I don't mind it all.

I had to look up BILATERAL / SYMMETRY, wondering if it really described entries like MADEMAD (MAD is identical on either side of the middle E). To Joel's point, wouldn't MADEDAM be more descriptive of BILATERAL SYMMETRY? According to one dictionary, though:

BILATERAL SYMMETRY: the property of being divisible into symmetrical halves on either side of a unique plane.

Fair enough!

It did confuse me a bit that BUTTERFLY and TAJ MAHAL, while also adhering to BILATERAL SYMMETRY, don't seem consistent with MADEMAD. It did make me imagine what a BUTTERFLY with one wing flipped would look like, i.e. the outer edge of one wing attached to its body. Kooky.

Aside from my OCD wonderings, another solid construction from Joel. During a fun chat at the ACPT, I really appreciated hearing his perspective about variety in shorter answers. Especially for every-day puzzlers, it's cool to see less-often used entries like BAD SPOT, UM OKAY, MAD MEN and even BRYAN, which can be clued in so many different ways. I like the fresh feel of Joel's grids. (I didn't notice the "dupe" of MAD until Joel mentioned it, and I agree with him that it doesn't matter.)

I did feel like it was odd that some seven-letter across answers — especially ONEOFUS and CHALUPA — weren't themers. Similarly, I originally missed that GIORGIO was a themer. Maybe shading instead of clue starring would have helped. Or, placing the themers so that they were bilaterally symmetric in the grid (using left-right mirror symmetry) would have been particularly nice.

Finally, some great clues:

• [Passing concerns …] aren't transitory worries, but concerns for NFL QBs = TDS.
• [Kings are part of it …] has nothing to do with the Bible or history, but the NBA's Sacramento Kings.
• Chemistry! I know some solvers pull their hair out when seeing organic chemistry nomenclature, but I personally love it. Not that I know the structure of LSD off the top of my head, but it's fun to reason out what it possibly could be.
• As a huge Blues Brothers fan, I ignored the given clue and pretended it was [___ Jake, the best of Belushi's many awesome roles].