New York Times, Tuesday, December 3, 2019

Da Vinci described poetry as "a painting which is heard but not seen." POETRY was my initial revealer for this puzzle but was nixed. I believe I tried again with MEL BLANC who was known for his cartoon voices before finally settling with VOICE ACTOR. Another revealer I thought of was THE VOICE, a TV show but also an instrument that fits the bill. In any case, the puzzle remains one in which the actual solution never appears in print.

"Name That Theme" defeated me today, in a pleasing way. Maybe I should have been able to figure it out — HERD, BUTT, KNOT, and SCENE are all common in homophone themes. Bravo to Ed for keeping me guessing until the very end.

I should say, guessing until the very end … and beyond. I eventually figured out that a VOICE / ACTOR is "heard but not seen." The phrase felt familiar but not right, though, so I focused on that nit for a while. (It's usually "children should be seen and not heard.") That distracted me enough that I glossed over the ultra-long clue, pointing to the real a-ha in the puzzle.

Read it again, I'll wait.

Again.

AGAIN!

"… like the words sounded out at the starts of the answers to the four starred clues."

That's a mouthful. Maybe shading those four words would have been better, so the clue could have read:

"like the shaded words, sounded out."

It's a great concept, that the four sounded-out words themselves — heard but not seen — are exactly that. The clue doesn't do it justice, though. Usually, I'm all for obfuscating a theme until the very end, but I doubt shading would have taken away from the impact since the concept is already complicated.

Curious placement of the VOICE / ACTOR revealer. It'd have been more elegant to drop those into the bottom row, but it's not easy to work STEALER and ACTOR into the same corner. I bet the SE corner wouldn't have been as smooth with ACTOR in the bottom row, so I'm okay with the decision.

I would have liked a smidge more smoothness, though. ELAND and STOAT are toughies for newbs, and coming from the same category — I'll take Crossword Animals for $400, Alex. Adding in SIBYL, ALB, BRAGG into one small region makes it even harder. Every one of these entries is fine in general, but it's too much as a whole.

So many Tuesdays tend to be forgettable, so I appreciate the extra layers Ed put into this concept. Made me think.