Analysis | Solution to Evan Birnholz’s July 7 crossword, ‘The Three-Body Problem’

• 33A: [Send again] is RESHIP, with a circled HIP. When HIP is tripled in the Down direction, you get H.H. HOLMES at 34D: [Late 19th-century murderer profiled in Erik Larson’s 2003 book “The Devil in the White City”], PART III at 5D: [End of a trilogy, and a phrase that hints at each circled word when entering it in the Down direction], and APP PLAYERS at 29D: [Software that allows people to run mobile programs on computers]. I didn’t originally set out to include PART III as a hint, but it fit well and it presented itself as sort of an alternative title to the puzzle (and it also explains why I felt I couldn’t use the term “body parts” in the clues).
• 46A: [“Bright” partner] is EARLY, with a circled EAR. When EAR is tripled, you get BEE EATER at 39D: [Bird that feeds on insects], AAA BOND at 47D: [Investment option considered to be the most creditworthy], and RIOT GRRRL at 16D: [Punk movement that “blasted feminism into the future,” per a 2019 New York Times article].
• 54A: [Chicken ___ (Italian entree, briefly)] is PARM, with a circled ARM. When ARM is tripled, you get CLASS AAA at 25D: [Baseball group for the Rochester Red Wings], THEY’RE GR-R-REAT at 9D: [Slogan on cereal boxes], and “MMMBOP” at 55D: [1997 No. 1 hit for Hanson].
• 94A: [One of 12 biblical groups of ancient Israel] is TRIBE, with a circled RIB. When RIB is tripled, you get STARR REPORT at 78D: [1998 government document referenced in “Monica’s Story”], WIIITIS at 91D: [Joint pain sustained by fans of Nintendo], and BBB RATING at 95D: [Letter grade assigned to a co.].
• 111A: [Has an extra level, as an amp that Nigel shows off in “This Is Spinal Tap”] is GOES TO ELEVEN, with a circled TOE. When TOE is tripled, you get SCOTT TUROW at 93D: [“All my novels are about the ambiguities that lie beneath the sharp edges of the law” speaker], TOO OLD at 107D: [Ineligible for child tickets at a movie theater, say], and SLIME EEL at 89D: [Hagfish, by another name].

There’s an extra meta answer to uncover, as well. The revealer at 121A: [Vital thing in the body, an example of which is spelled out by the first letters of this puzzle’s tripled words] is ORGAN. Take the first letters of the five tripled body parts (HIP, EAR, ARM, RIB, TOE) and you spell out HEART.

Asymmetry is a rare feature of most mainstream crosswords, though in recent years it has become more common in such venues as the USA Today crossword. If you’re wondering why I abandoned symmetry to make this puzzle … believe me, I spent a while trying to make it symmetrical, but I don’t think it would have ever worked, not unless I chose different body parts (most probably fewer body parts, too) and didn’t build to a meta answer like HEART. Limiting yourself to phrases with a letter appearing three times in a row is a big constraint on its own, and some of them (like a tripled H) have very few decent options at all.

In the end, though, symmetry is mostly an aesthetic feature of a crossword, but not an essential one. The puzzle extraordinaire Francis Heaney once told me five years ago, “Set yourself free from the prison of symmetry,” and I finally took the advice. In a way, the asymmetry also might have made the puzzle a bit easier than it could have been. Without a definitive pattern of where the theme answers would appear, I thought it would be a good idea to mark them explicitly with circles.

Some other answers and clues:

• 24A: [Event that people do for kicks?] is SOCCER GAME. I’m enjoying watching the men’s UEFA European Championship and the Copa América tournaments, although the United States crashed out of the Copa América tournament this week.
• 38A: [Total of reds and whites, perhaps] is TAB. This would be a bar tab with red and white wines.
• 57A: [These usually aren’t considered stories] is BASEMENTS. When you have a two-story house, the basement usually isn’t considered one of the two stories.
• 66A: [Group of animals in a shrewdness] is APES. A shrewdness might be a leftover animal group from last week’s puzzle.
• 2D: [Character who appears in Captain America comics, aptly] is U.S. AGENT. He was new to me when I built the puzzle. Apparently he was originally named Super-Patriot.
• 17D: [Like the vocal ensemble Chanticleer] is ALL-MALE. I got to see them in concert about 20 years ago. Here’s a video of them performing “Ave Maria” by Franz Biebl.
• 100D: [First word of TMNT] is TEENAGE. If you didn’t know what TMNT stood for, it’s “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.”
• 103D: [Sound of thunder?] is SHORT U. As in the “uh” sound in the word “thunder.”