SATURDAY PUZZLE — Take the diagonal steps of entries we have solved in recent puzzles, add triple stacks of blistering originality to the top and bottom and you’ve got this daunting challenge from Will Nediger, a veteran weekend constructor who can be counted on for just this type of thing.
Is it easier than it looks? I think it has to be, or nobody would have solved it. On a first pass, I found exactly one clue I could use to break into the puzzle, and it was pitiful — “Fire-engine” RED at 6D. A little while later, flush with confidence, I attributed my lack of initial success to being flustered by this gorgeous grid.
Tricky Clues
İçerik Tablosu
1A. Four of the six longest entries in the puzzle are debuts, starting with this one, which is itself a newish phenomenon. “Modern-day scrapbooks, of a sort” are PINTEREST BOARDS; the answer refers to a free app and website designed for digital magpies to compile shiny objects of desire into pages for future reference. (It should be no surprise that industries rifle through these pages looking for consumer trends — if you’re not paying for a product, you are the product.)
17A. This is not a new entry, and it reminds me of an old story about wealth and camels, which doesn’t really pertain to its clue, “Successfully strike a delicate balance.” The answer is THREAD THE NEEDLE.
27A. This is a perfect example of a clue that seems as obvious as the nose on your face once you fill it in, but I was stymied (for a minute I pictured a fruit bat). “Something large often stored upside down” is a CANOE, of course. At first I figured this positioning was to get rid of any water, but apparently upright storage also deforms a canoe’s structure.
37A. “Europe, Asia and America” are all names of rock BANDS, for another sneaky “Why didn’t I think of that sooner?” clue and entry.
47A. This entry has been in previous puzzles, with cute clues to boot (“Sound technician?” is nice, I think). An “Academic who works with many different schools, maybe” is a MARINE BIOLOGIST, who swims with schools of fish in a sound, perhaps.
14D. A few letters in place led me astray here: For “Like a dirge,” I was sure of “sonorous.” The right entry is a reflection on mood rather than sound; it’s DOLOROUS, which hasn’t been in a Times crossword since 1991 and comes from the Latin for “grief.”
26D. Here’s a genius concoction that’ll get you out of your dolor. “Piña colada topper” isn’t a cherry or coconut cream in this cocktail lounge: It’s a TILDE, the one on top of the n in “Piña.”
37D. I defy anyone to solve this one without humming at least four notes. “Words sung on the same notes as ‘twinkle,’ in a different nursery rhyme,” are BAA BAA, as in “BAA BAA black sheep, have you any wool?”. Note that the alphabet song can be sung to the same ditty, and that ditty is by Mozart.
42D. In the department of “Everything has a story,” there’s this trivia, referring to the “Wood for smoking andouille sausages.” Apparently these French delicacies from the late 1300s, whose name means “imbecile,” must be smoked for days, weeks or months over BEECH wood.
46D. This little oddity stopped me for a moment. “One whose distance may be measured by the yard?” is a MOLE, meaning not a spy but a little furry garden pest that you want as far away from your yard as possible.
Constructor Notes
I don’t normally stack 15s like this, but when I came across the phrase LESS THAN STELLAR, I knew I had to try it. It’s got the perfect combination of high-frequency letters for a bottom-row entry, but, unlike most such entries, it’s actually (IMO) an interesting colloquial phrase, and one that wasn’t on any of my word lists.
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