New York Times, Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Bruce:

Pete Collins and I have been friends since childhood, when our families used to vacation together on a small lake in Wisconsin. He agreed to mentor me in 2012 when I got interested in constructing crosswords. I got this electricity puzzle idea when I was "block-doodling" one day on the computer and noticed I could make a pretty realistic looking kite. My wife Liz suggested I tie in Ben Franklin so I worked some lightning bolts into the grid. The first version had BEN and KEY attached to the bottom of the kite string, but that did not fly. I loved the grid art though, so I shipped the puzzle to Pete to see if he could get this project off the ground — I'll let him finish the story. Thanks for everything, Pete!

Pete:

Bruce and I share an interest in "grid art." I think this grid is particularly nice, with the kite and lightning bolts. But make no mistake — this one is Bruce's baby (I'm just the godfather). We went back and forth several times, with the kite being oriented various ways, before we settled on this arrangement. In addition to the grid art, I really like the highly unusual diagonal symmetry — and the three pairs of themed answers. And our reward for getting this puzzle published? We get three Benjamins!

As I've said before, I'm a sucker for a neat visual puzzle, and Bruce and Pete deliver today. I didn't recognize the odd diagonal at first, but when I uncovered BENJAMIN, I got a big smile, recognizing the black squares were in the shape of a kite. Very cool! What a neat idea, to use an unusual type of symmetry in order to create a beautiful image.

It's very rare to have a puzzle with diagonal symmetry. At first glance it might be hard to recognize, but draw an imaginary line from the SW to NE corner, and you'll see that the puzzle is symmetrical along that line. Check out our unusual symmetry page — only three other puzzles in the Shortz era display this diagonal symmetry. And for my money, this one stands out even further because of the clever use of black squares.

One more comment about the visual element, and I'll go onto something else, I promise. Aside from the kite, did you notice the two Tetris pieces floating in the grid? At first I thought they were a little unsightly because they have extra black squares (cheaters), but after I finished, I noticed that they looked a lot like lightning. Might just be me, but I stood up and clapped.

Because of the unusual symmetry, the theme answers had to be broken up, BENJAMIN / FRANKLIN, DISCOVERING / ELECTRICITY, and the brilliant GO FLY / A KITE to tie it all together. The necessary cross-referencing did put me off a little, but I suppose it couldn't be helped. Perhaps cutting down some of it, i.e. if 16A had just been [With 23-down, puzzle subject]? Also, DISCOVERY OF felt much more natural to my ear than DISCOVERING, but that might be six of one, half a dozen of another.

And then there's the fill. Love, love, love seeing DR DOOM in there, one of the greatest supervillains of all time, along with JA RULE, OLD TIMER, GEISHA crossing SENSEI, and the BRAINY IBM PC. Sure, there's an OLEO of the MARNE and YSER rivers, SSE, ETAT, A TEST stuff, but I personally will take that trade-off any day. I appreciate super-clean puzzles, but when I get so much snazz, I don't mind the price of admission at all. I know some people will disagree, sticking to their guns about puzzles needing to be ultra-smooth and clean of dreck, but I like this trade-off a lot. Maybe it would be possible to make this puzzle both super-clean AND totally smooth, but I doubt it given all the constraints.

Bravo! Even more fun than the time I dissected an instant camera, stupidly ignoring the WARNING: GIANT SHOCK POTENTIAL DO NOT OPEN label. I tell you what, that capacitor was much bigger than I anticipated. Thanks for nothing, BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.