New York Times, Monday, June 14, 2021

ACME: A couple of months into lockdown, I began cleaning up and clearing out files that had accumulated over decades. Decided to see if I could turn some partial ideas/rejects into something salvageable now that I had an extra ten years of experience.

This puzzle was originally 13 15 13 themers before four became the new three! The original set:

HAVEITYOURWAY 13
HERCURDSANDWHEY 15 (partial!)
ANCHORSAWEIGH 13

I changed it into three 12s and added an 8 (AIWEIWEI) and thought I could try mirror symmetry but didn't know how to do that. So I approached the genius, zen puzzlemaster Doug Peterson who added another 8 (ZIMBABWE!). We dreamed up new ideas and wrestled back and forth between his wonderful suggestions of "PROJECTRUNWAY" 13 or "GOYOUROWNWAY" 12. An instant earworm (and a puzzle) was born!

I'm truly blessed to be able to worship in the "Way of Doug".

DOUG: It's always a treat to work with Andrea, and I love salvaging a theme that's "almost there." It's hard to believe that this is our first NY Times collaboration. We're a regular team on the Crosswords With Friends app, so if you enjoyed this one, look for many more of our puzzles there.

If I can Name That Theme in one entry, I'll usually wonder what's the point of doing the rest of the puzzle. After hitting CURDS AND WHEY, I figured it had to be either WHEY homophones or "things that nursery rhyme characters ate." After uncovering AI WEI WEI, it was clear which.

To my surprise, I loved the rest of the puzzle! Acme's first three themers alone would have felt boring, since this theme has been done before (many times across different venues), but adding in AI WEI WEI helps, and ZIMBABWE is a stroke of genius. I'd have never thought there could be five different WAYs (ha) to spell that sound, all in fine words / phrases.

I did hitch on AI WEIWEI, a tough name to piece together. I'm sure there will be grumblings that he's not "Monday-accessible," and I'd usually be right there. The theme does help with the final WEI, at least. And all the crosses are unambiguous and fair. Still, polling a bunch of my (highly educated, well-traveled) friends, some of whom are Taiwanese or Chinese, only one had heard of him.

The fill was hardly a SNOOZE. It's easy enough to impress with long downs, and THE ALAMO and WIIMOTES do just that, but it's the mid-length material that dazzled. I loved starting with ABACUS, especially with that fun clue. I don't expect to see clever wordplay on a Monday, much less something that doesn't require a telltale question mark. [Something you can count on] is both entertaining and accessible.

Following that with WATUSI, ENTRÉE, IAMBIC, EL NINO, BOGART, AZORES, LADY DI, DAY SPA = top-notch work. Doing all that with only minor ATTN IOC ISR makes it even more impressive.

This isn't rocket science but more a matter of careful layout, adjustments based on testing different skeletons of black squares, and heavy, heavy iterating. Acme / Doug did it extremely well today, helping prove my case that even with five themers, nearly every crossword should be held to this highest standard.

If you like Doug's work, BTW, maybe check out *cough cough, shameless self-promotion* one of his latest releases.