Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky Clues
WEDNESDAY PUZZLE — Last week, a Wordplay commenter described Daniel Hrynick’s Wednesday crossword as a “Whursday” puzzle, because he felt it was nearly as challenging as a Thursday one. I warned him that I’d be stealing the term — thank you, Jim from North Carolina — and I am, in order to describe today’s crossword by Gary Larson.
I’d say that short of containing a rebus, Mr. Larson’s puzzle has all the other hallmarks of a dastardly Thursday grid: ample misdirection, debut clue phrasing and a theme that zigs just when you’re expecting it to zag. But don’t let that scare you off from giving it a whirl! Let it be your warm-up for the rest of the week, or a reminder that your solving skills are probably far more advanced than you’ve given yourself credit for.
Today’s Theme
There are five themed Across clues at 16-, 21-, 35-, 53- and 60-Across. (You might consider 63-Down as a revealer of sorts; I thought of it as more of a flourish.)
Ordinarily, clues use question marks to denote the use of wordplay. In the case of the themed clues above, the wordplay in question involves the addition of the letter Z at the end of a common word or expression. Why? Because that’s “ShowBIZ” (62A), baby. (N.B.: Showbiz is not part of the theme.)
An “Obnoxious houseguest?” (16A), for example, is a STAYING PUTZ — playing on the expression “staying put.” To be “Not a fan of postmillennials?” (21A) is to be ANTI-GEN Z, an extension of the word “antigen.”
I was unfamiliar with the word that formed the basis of the wordplay for BOW SPRITZ (35A), but this was unsurprising since not a week goes by that I don’t learn a new bit of boat-related vocabulary in the New York Times Crossword.
As for 63-Down — an “Appropriate letter to end this puzzle on” — I look forward, as always, to reading comments from my fellow Canadians about being jilted by the spelling of the entry.
Tricky Clues
1A. I’m upset about how simple the entry for “Half of an orange?” is, but that’s the curse of a puzzling mind: You look for every possible interpretation of a phrase and ignore the one that’s staring you in the face. Half of the color orange is RED; the other half is yellow.
20A. A “Marble made of metal” is called a STEELIE, and I never would have known it. But I have learned, with some delight, that they are also called “ironies.”
42A. “Roasting platforms” is a misdirect, so I hope you didn’t spend too long picturing bonfires and charcoal grills. These are DAISES, which are seats for the oft-roasted honorees at ceremonial affairs.
56A. I have never worn a RAIN HAT, which is the “Slicker topper” one occasionally sees fishers wearing, but I’m intrigued if it offers me a way to avoid having to lug around an umbrella.
67A. Why is DAN an “Apt name for a sensei,” you ask? Because it describes the ranking system used in traditional martial arts.
6D. Would it surprise you to learn that this clue — “Handle that goes up and down?” — is asking for the name of an elevator company? “Handle” is our cue to look for a name, and “up and down” suggests the machinery; thus, the entry is OTIS. Now I’m going to take a nap, because I deserve it after figuring all of this out.
19D. Here’s a brilliant bit of “Whursday” cluing, since there’s no question mark to cue us to wordplay within the phrase: The “Song one might flip for” is a SIDE B track.
22D. I was in the middle of typing out an entirely different explanation for you about the meaning of “Flies, maybe,” when I realized that my entry for it was incorrect! (“Read twice, solve once,” goes the adage, right?) The solution here is ZIPPERS.
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