New York Times, Saturday, January 18, 2020

I've always found crosswords with diagonal symmetry to be aesthetically equivalent to those with rotational symmetry, so I figured I'd try making a puzzle with it (and without gimmick otherwise!). I ultimately left it up to the editing team to decide whether a standard themeless puzzle with this more unusual symmetry was acceptable and was happy (and a bit surprised) that they said yes. The design allowed me to intersect longer stacks in the NW without necessitating the same in the SE corner, giving some more flexibility with the overall grid. I'm doubtful this will spur any revolution in grid design, but maybe we'll see a few more puzzles with diagonal symmetry than before!

Some with critical eyes might wonder why I went for the GIL/DECAL cross over GIF/DECAF. The reality is I didn't even see the latter option until a few days ago, though to me, it's objectively better. Funny how that happens. I had been excited to include GIL Shaham (one of my favorite violinists) in the puzzle, though GIL Scott-Heron is in no way a bad alternative. He, along with AL JARREAU and IRMA Thomas, make this a very soulful puzzle. The puzzle is also throwing a lot of shade, with four references in the clues. Hope you enjoy!

Diagonal symmetry is one of the rarest categories in our database. It's a shame, because not only is it distinctive, but it can be aesthetically stunning. That's the case for this sword-ish grid, resembling a medieval coat of arms. My family's crest is currently a set of squiggles drawn by my 5-year-old, so I'm nudging her to, ahem, revise. I'll have to leave copies of this puzzle around to influence her subconsciously.

At just 64 words, this grid almost made our fewest words list. Typically, that makes me worried, since such a feat almost always comes with severe compromises created by the difficulty of filling gigantic white spaces. Ryan did something smart, nibbling away at said white spaces with extra black squares — those three pyramid shapes count for a whopping 12 cheater squares (black squares that don't affect word count), 3 each in the top two pyramids and all 6 of the lowest. Usually, I don't like such a huge count of cheaters, but today's enhance the overall visual impact, without affecting solving flow.

Ryan also left himself plenty of long slots for juicy fill, and wow, was the juiciness overflowing! Beautiful marquees in WINE TASTING, KICKSTARTER, POP A WHEELIE, SIDEWALK ART, ICE PALACES, IVE MOVED ON.

Hilarious clue for BAD DATES, too. Way back when I was in the dating pool, is that why all those people had emergencies come up? No, those were all real emergencies, I'm sure.

A frequent reader, John Sutton, wrote in the other day, asking if I could spend a few lines explaining clues that one might never figure out via Google. You can go to AL JARREAU Wikipedia page if you don't know him, for example, but you can't do that with a wordplay clue. Great idea; here are two I noted:

• TAJ: The "opening" in [Opening for a Mughal masterwork] is a bit of wordplay, aiming at "starting word," as in the TAJ Mahal.
• Dalmatian, for one is CROAT? Yes, when you're referring to Dalmatia, Croatia.

I'll try to do this more for tricksy Friday and Saturday clues.

I didn't connect with everything — LINDROS sounded alien to this red-blooded ‘Murican, LAVA LAKES didn't ring a bell, and SUDSES sounded soapy — but there wasn't anything newfangled that turned off this ol' geezer in the vein of DANK MEMES. All in all, a beautiful product that sang like Excalibur.