New York Times, Friday, July 13, 2018

I'm not exactly sure how I came up with this idea, but I remember trying to brainstorm other possible theme material, though that came to an end quickly (What? You mean AA BOTTOM isn't a thing?) Fortunately, I realized that it might make for a fun mini-theme. Mirror symmetry seemed to be the way to go, and I decided on stacks of 8-letter entries as I figured it made the most sense to start off with the larger stacks. This decision was confirmed when I noticed that ZEROES IN and ZOETROPE stack rather nicely, and I worked my way from there. Once the top of the puzzle came together, I looked for interesting longer entries for the bottom that would fit well with the ZZ TOP revealer (which I guess could have gone anywhere in the stack, but it just seemed strange to not put it on the top).

To be honest, I have mixed feelings about this puzzle. I still like the mini-theme, especially as a sort of callback to the theme of my debut. Speaking of which, it's interesting to think about how my constructing philosophy has changed over time. I am finding that the more I construct, the more I discover about what makes my voice as a constructor unique, and this puzzle stands out to me as not entirely capturing what I currently recognize as my constructing "voice".

EVEN NOW, I really like some of the entries, especially ZOETROPE, WHIZ KID, HOW GOES IT, and the duo of ZOOMS OUT and ZEROES IN, but some of the other fill doesn't feel as much like me, so to speak. For instance, though POP DIVA and IRON MIKE seemed like entries that solvers / editors would find snazzy, they don't really resonate with me personally. NIMRODS, HAVE-NOT, WEIRDO and SEXPOTS in the aggregate also aren't as attractive to me now as they perhaps were when I made this.

The voice of a puzzle can also shine through its cluing, and though I don't have a ton of favorites from this one, I am glad to see that my clues for ELEGY, WHIZ KID and SIXES survived. Personal philosophical pondering aside, I hope that you got some enjoyment out of solving this odd duck of a Friday puzzle.

ZZ TOP — as in a triplet of ZZs at the top of the puzzle. Appropriate to have three of them, since ZZ TOP has three members! I always thought it was amusing that Frank Beard is the only one who doesn't have the trademark long beard.

Some fun fill, HOW GOES IT friendly and colloquial. SCHROEDER bringing back memories of the "Peanuts" kid playing the toy piano to perfection. Interesting terms like RAGNAROK (back in the public eye due to the "Thor" movies) and ZOETROPE (you might not recognize the word, but the image to the right is likely familiar).

I expect more quantity of quality long fill in a themeless, though. What happened?

Well, with regular crossword symmetry, it's easy to place three long slots in each of the four corners. Not so using mirror (left-right) symmetry!

In a mirror themeless grid, you can put 8x3 chunks in either the top two corners or the bottom two corners, but not both. It is possible to create mirror grids that do have a lot of long slots, but for various spacing reasons, those tend to be tougher to fill than normal symmetry grids.

Still, Trenton did well in using his mid-length slots — XGAMES, NIMRODS, WHIZ KID are strong entries. SEXPOTS felt a bit icky, but that could easily be personal preference. The term seems loaded with so many negative connotations that I'd avoid using it in my grids.

As much as I like mini-themes in themeless puzzles, I do want the usual quantity and quality of long entries as well. This one didn't quite get there for me.