Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky Clues

WEDNESDAY PUZZLE — Most days, it feels good to be an adult. You can watch R-rated movies. You can walk into a grocery store and buy a bag of marshmallows. You can stay out late and make poor choices whose consequences are known only to you — and possibly also to your cat, which judges you silently from the end of the bed. (Does this resonate? You may replace the cat with dog, partner, child or portrait of regal ancestor.)

On rare occasions, however, a New York Times crossword will require knowledge that you cast off with your adolescent schooling. And then what? What good is access to sugary treats and unlimited entertainment when a simple crossword theme feels out of reach?

This was how I felt while solving today’s puzzle, which was constructed by Alex Eaton-Salners. I did get there eventually, mind you — even if my ego was lightly destroyed in the process.

Today’s Theme

This puzzle’s revealer, a “Natural process suggested by the starts of 17-, 24-, 26-, 45- and 47-Across” (55A), relies on our ability to solve any of the themed entries in the first place. As it happened, I didn’t have the foggiest idea about three of them.

The mention of “cranberry production” in 17-Across clued me easily enough to OCEAN SPRAY, and I knew that “Hog heaven” (26A) could be described as CLOUD NINE. But it took crossings to get me the “Tech product that’s promised but never delivered” (24A), known as VAPORWARE; and only with a few mental jumping jacks (read: 3 p.m. coffee) did I eventually surmise that the “Business-generating partner at a law firm” might be called a RAINMAKER (24A).

Using the starts of the clues, I dived into my mental seventh-grade biology textbook for the name of a “Natural process” that would take us from OCEAN to VAPOR to CLOUD to RAIN. Finally, clarity washed over me. It was the WATER CYCLE.

(N.B.: Having never played a game of Texas hold ’em, I could have sat for years without guessing the term for what “might make or break a hand” (47A), which is known as a RIVER CARD.)

Tricky Clues

21A. A certain “Book of hymns” is called a PSALTER, but it refers specifically to the Book of Psalms. General books of hymns have a number of names (none of which, to be fair, fit into this entry’s squares).

42A. This “Slangy summons” is just a shortened one: C’MERE.

58A. “Will of ‘The Waltons’” might be obscure to younger solvers because the actor, Will GEER, is known chiefly for his role in this Great Depression-themed series, which aired from 1972 to 1981.

1D. If things were right and good in the world, the entry for “Furrow former” would have been “brow” — if you had only seen how mine was knitting itself into knots as I tried to make sense of this clue — but this furrow is a kind of rut in soil, usually made by a PLOW.

4D. A “Sprint at top speed” is known, idiomatically, as a DEAD RUN. I’ve never heard the phrase; I also never made my school’s track and field team. These two things are almost certainly related.

43D. I’ve played a MINUET or two on the piano, but I didn’t realize it was a “Social dance in 3/4 time,” too. (Now I understand what they were being composed for.)

56D. Until today, I thought that G was the most family-friendly series rating. But the “‘Sesame Street’ Rating” is TV-Y, where the Y stands for youth.

Constructor Notes

I created the first version of this puzzle back in October 2020. The grid included an additional square in the center — meaning more three-letter entries and a higher overall word count — and had different fill in the south and southeast. The biggest contrast, however, was that I had “rain stick” in the fourth theme slot rather than RAINMAKER. Overall, I wasn’t happy with the result and decided to shelve the puzzle rather than submit it anywhere.

Later, when I revisited it, I replaced “rain stick” with RAINMAKER, removed the central square and refilled around those changes. The result was a much stronger puzzle that I was comfortable submitting. I hope you enjoyed solving it!

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