New York Times, Monday, October 2, 2017

This idea for this theme arose from thinking about Schrödinger puzzles, and wondering if I could potentially create one so that entries that contain more than one distinct stand-alone letter, for example, VITAMIN which can be followed by A, B, C, D, E, or K, intersect another such entry. Ideally, the shared possible letters for each pair of theme entries would be some combination of A, B, C and D, so that the revealer MULTIPLE CHOICE could be used. This didn't end up panning out, but it did lead me, through a somewhat stream-of-consciousness manner of contemplating crossword themes, to come up with the one you see here.

The first version of this puzzle had the theme entries VITAMINS, MUSICAL NOTES, CHEMICAL SYMBOLS, GREEK LETTERS, and ALPHABET, and was rejected on the basis that ALPHABET was too obvious, and GREEK LETTERS was inconsistent. It was tough to find a new set of symmetrical theme entries, but I'm pleased with the current set, particularly as in each case, the category contains other members besides the ones that are composed of a single letter, and the letters are the members of the category themselves rather than being abbreviations, unlike something such as L M S for SHIRT SIZES.

I spent a decent amount of time trying to remove the black square between TILE and GREEK and its symmetrical partner to allow for two pairs of long parallel downs, but I didn't like the compromises on the fill, so I decided to stick to 78 words. Given that this ended up as a Monday (I had expected it to be a Tuesday) and the importance of smooth fill for Monday puzzles, I stand by this decision, and though there aren't a ton of bonuses here, I'm fond of SHOT TO HELL and some of the mid-length fill like US NEWS and HANSEL (he's so hot right now).

I don't have a lot to say as far as the clues go, but a few of mine I'm glad to see survive the edit are 49-Across, 9-Down, 31-Down and 56-Down. Though I'm not sure it will be particularly applicable to this puzzle, I like the inside nod in the clue that Will and Joel came up with for AHA.

In any case it's great to be back, and I hope (fingers crossed!) that my puzzle will be a pleasant start to everyone's week!

Tough concept to fully explain. The best I could come up with: think of a Venn diagram, "letters of the alphabet" in one circle, and "some other set" in another. Got it? The intersection is today's theme. A B C D F are LETTER GRADES, A B O are BLOOD TYPES, etc.

I liked that Trenton used all crossworthy phrases for his theme. It would be too easy to resort to dictionary-sounding entries like NOTES OF A MUSICAL SCALE, which wouldn't be acceptable as fill in a normal crossword. Cool finds too — MOVIE RATINGS is something I'd be happy to uncover in a themeless.

(CHEMICAL SYMBOLS isn't something I'd preferentially use as fill, but I can imagine other constructors thinking it's great.)

I also liked the execution. There isn't a ton of snazzy bonus fill, just SHOT TO HELL and FROST NIXON, but at least there's a little. More importantly for a Monday grid, the short fill is super smooth. HESS isn't going to be on the tips of everyone's tongues, but it is a major energy corporation, and all the crosses are easy enough.

As Trenton mentioned, it would have been great to get another pair of long downs somewhere — taking out the black square between ALONSO and BALI or between HANSEL and MEATS might have been easier than what he tried. These seem doable without compromising short fill quality, but I'd have to do some serious testing to be sure of that. (It'd mean moving some black squares around to find snappy entries that cross three or four fixed theme answers.)

I would have been more drawn to the concept if it had been easier to explain. "Letters of the alphabet that are contained within another set, although not quite the full set, i.e., AB is missing from BLOOD TYPES" doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. But I enjoyed the novelty of the idea, something rare for a Monday puzzle. I like it when a puzzle forces me to think.