New York Times, Thursday, June 3, 2021

KYRA: The idea for this puzzle was inspired by Neil Patrick Harris and David Steinberg's HARRY HOUDINI puzzle from 2017. I really liked the disappearing entry gimmick and wanted to figure out some way to do the reverse of it. After workshopping some ideas with Sophia, we ended up turning that into the doubling concept in today's puzzle.

At first we planned on not using a revealer to make the "appearances" more subtle, but having only four doubled entries of pretty short words meant there wasn't enough theme, and having five made the grid near impossible to fill. It felt like serendipity when we thought of DOUBLE DOWN as a revealer because it could fill out the theme and still not constrict our grid too much (although it did mean we had to switch the orientation of our theme answers!).

SOPHIA: I want to shout out Patrick Blindauer's DOUBLE FEATURE crossword as another inspiration — I've probably been thinking about it since 2013 due to its unique use of rebus squares. This puzzle took longer from conception to submission than any other puzzle Kyra and I have written together, so we're happy to see it run!

I was so confused — and then utterly delighted — the first time I ran across a doubled-word rebus. I was barely familiar with the idea of two letters in a single square, and doubling them to form ZOOM ZOOM was so cool.

Doubling has been played on many times over the years, including one doubling perimeter answers and also a neat (DOUBLE O) 7 visual. As if I weren't seeing double enough, one earlier this year double-doubled!

It turns out this theme style goes a long way back, including a 1995 by Fred Piscop.

I appreciated that Kyra and Sophia added in DOUBLED DOWN, a perfect way to explain what's going on (DATES is really (DOUBLE) DATES, OVER is (DOUBLE) OVER, etc.). That adds a lot of meat to their puzzle.

Also great to be treated to fun entries like AY CARAMBA and IDIOMATIC.

I would have liked more out of the themers, though, as ARRAIGNS, REEMERGE, ESSENE, ADDS don't add much pizzazz. I also worry that the AY CARAMBA / PAYA crossing could be rough — AY CAROMBA / POYA might look fine. Even as a lover of curry (the spicier, the better!), I had to look up PAYA.

DOGGO similarly confused Jim Horne, who's not nearly as cool as we young hipsters watching YouTube videos about doggos. Huh? Nobody watches YouTube anymore? Bah. I'll stick with it as long as there are doggos and OTTERMANS.

(That DOGGO / LOGIA crossing might dog you, and I'd sympathize.)

I wasn't sure if I'd seen ECO-SAVVY in use, but there are tons of products and companies touting how ECO-SAVVY they are.

There's a construction trick you can use for a theme like this, where you start with a grid that's two columns wider than usual. It takes away some of the magic if I explain it fully, but those of you who want to pull back the curtain will likely be able to figure it out.