Jump to: Tricky Clues
FRIDAY PUZZLE — When you tell people that the best way to get better at something is to practice, you may get the same disappointed reaction that I get: “Are you kidding me? I don’t have time for that!” Very often, this is not spoken aloud, but if you look carefully, you can see the fear in their eyes.
Just for giggles, let’s say we’re talking about, oh, I don’t know, crossword puzzle solving.
Suggesting that people practice by starting with the easier Mondays and slowly, slowly working their ways toward the tough, themeless puzzles on Fridays and Saturdays understandably feels like forever. It feels insurmountable to me, and I’ve been solving for a long time. Then again, I am now able to solve every day of the week in a reasonable amount of time because I practiced. Also because I would get fired if I couldn’t.
And yet, experience is the best teacher.
Even if you’re not sure whether you can handle a Friday puzzle — yet — give Hemant Mehta’s puzzle a try. He offers some lively debuts, which he lists in his notes below.
And don’t forget that on Fridays, Christina Iverson, a puzzle editor and the writer of the “Easy-Mode” newsletter, will show up in your mailbox (provided it’s large enough — Ms. Iverson is about 5’4”) with a list of more accessible clues if you sign up here.
I needed all of my skills to solve Mr. Mehta’s puzzle. The bottom third was the hardest for me, but with a fair bit of stick-to-it-iveness, I had enormous fun and — eventually — finished his crossword. Because I practiced.
But enough about me. How did you handle it?
Tricky Clues
17A. Some people believe that the “Focus of a get-rich-quick scheme” is the financial windfall, but it’s not. It’s those mesmerizing LOTTO BALLS that you stare at when they go ’round and ’round.
32A. I had to look this one up, but I learned something: There is a fitness test called the PACER or “beep” test, which gauges a person’s VO2 maximum while running.
33A. You can “Sit in a cellar, perhaps” or you can sit anywhere you like, and you will still AGE. Just kidding. Mr. Mehta is talking about wine.
43A. The clue “Make the grade?” means that someone or something is of a certain quality, but in this puzzle, it’s about rock climbing. I see two meanings to this clue/answer pair. “Grade” can either be a measure of steepness, in which a person might make the grade by walking up a hill. It can also be the grade given to a climb by the people ASCENDing the cliff.
49A. Talk about misdirection. “Things gotten just for kicks?” — behold that wordplay. The answer is FIELD GOALS, which is what you get when you kick the ball into the net, as in soccer, also known as football. (My overseas friends tell me that what they play is football, and the game that is played in the U.S. is called “not football.”)
55A. It took me a long time to figure out “Canvas finish?” My brain was filled with artists’ canvases, as well as canvassing for informational or political purposes. Not even close, Deb. The answer is T.K.O.: If you hit the boxing canvas, you’ve essentially finished your match.
2D. EMASCULATE is such an odd — and somewhat outdated — word. Here it’s used to describe the word “Neuter,” but the technical term for neutering is “orchiectomy.” If someone thinks that neutering an animal emasculates it, they should talk to my friend’s Rottweiler. That is one virile dog.
3D. Come on, how can you not love writing RED SOLO CUP into a puzzle? It made me reminisce about the parties that I’ve had. It’s a fun entry, as well as a “Common receptacle in beer pong.” So I’m told.
6D. The “Pot growers?” in this puzzle are BETS, because they increase the value of the pot.
22D. If you are going to put the word LASED in a puzzle (it’s a bit awkward, but helped tremendously with the fill in that area), you should definitely write a great clue for it. The clue (“Performed light surgery on?”) fits the bill with it’s pun about light.
26D. To BLAMESTORM is to meet with colleagues in order to argue about “who’s responsible for a failure.” It’s just as much fun as it sounds.
42D. You don’t have to be Icarus to love this clue. In “Head for the sun?” the word “head” refers to a prefix Post Views: 5