by Jessie & Ross Trudeau
[.puz][PDF][Solution] Difficulty: 4/5
Short post this week — Jessie and I are setting up for the Wonderland Mad Tea Party we’re hosting! Preparations are becoming curiouser and curiouser. Photos to follow.
As for “Eye for an Eye,” Jessie gets credit for this concept, which she described very early in our courtship after seeing this 2019 L.A. Times grid I made with Nina Sloan. My appreciation to Radhika and Spelling Beelieber for test solving this one. Thoughts and spoilers below.
I’ve messed with similar concepts in the past, including this E-centric grid from this past December. Perhaps you remember a T-for-Times offering from Alex Eaton-Salners.
The “E” and “I” versions are most compelling to me because they offer the added challenge of introducing words that both originate and terminate at the grid art letter in question. The bars of the two I’s in this grid bound ISTHMI, INCUBI, ILLINI, and IVAN VI, which themselves then constrain the possible entries that horizontally abut the Is’ middles. That’s why you see EL-HI in the fill. Woof.
Happy solving, friends.