New York Times, Thursday, June 30, 2016
| Author: | Jonathan M. Kaye |
| Editor: | Will Shortz |
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What a thrill to have today's New York Times crossword run under my byline, and to have my debut on a Thursday!
Will and Joel reacted to my submission with a "wow" on May 4, accepted my final grid on May 9, and apparently bumped the finished puzzle up in the queue. I'm grateful to them for their willingness to work with a novice constructor, their suggestion that I revise the grid with cleaner fill, and their expert edits to the clues. I hope solvers enjoy this puzzle and its unusual theme.
In developing the "TOP OFF" effect, I found only seven letters that could be "hidden" in a way that looked natural to me: D, I, J, L, O, U, V. I used these to make a list of about 20 words that might be good candidates, and settled on DUD, IDOL, OVOID, and VIVID after finding that each had a simple definition that could span the grid. (In retrospect, I realize that I overlooked some nice J words in making my list, and could have used the clue J0B8 B8J8 (or B8J8 by itself) with the answer MARTIAL ARTS SITE.)
In cognitive psychology, there's a concept called "functional fixedness" that may explain the difficulty in "seeing" the four words hidden in plain sight: we have a mental bias for associating a tool only with its most common function. We tend to see letters and numbers only as representations of sounds and amounts. Their shapes are arbitrary and used only for recognition, and not as possible hiding places for other information.
A bit about me: I live in the AU Park neighborhood of Washington, D.C., with my wife, son, and dog. For the last 11 years I've been privileged to serve as a Senior Counsel (in house attorney) for the American Red Cross.
Debut, and what a brilliant idea! The mysterious clues kept me in the dark for the longest time, even after I had uncovered TOP / OFF. And it continued even after I pieced together DEFECTIVE BULLET — how could "B0B" possibly describe that? What a fantastic a-ha moment, realizing that you have to lop off the top of "B0B," getting DUD as a result. Here are the others, with a helpful graphic from Jonathan:
- TB8L gives IDOL
- 8V8TB forms OVOID
- My favorite, VMB making VIVID. Cutting off the top of M results in an I V I — so cool!
I'm typically not a fan of "definitional" puzzles, where the grid answers sound like they're taken from Merriam Webster. But it worked so well today, since I really needed those definitions in order to finally get my moment of clarity. SUPERSTAR would have been a fine, in-the-language answer for IDOL (and EGG SHAPED for OVOID), but I kind of like how SHAPED LIKE AN EGG feels like it's prodding me to keep on thinking. I needed that nudge!
There's a bit of APER AMOR ATALE crossword glue in the grid, but it's pretty minor stuff, especially considering all four themers are very long. It's not easy to pull off a perfectly clean grid using four grid-spanners, but Jonathan did well. Check out the west and east sections, which are usually the hardest (since you have to work with the beginnings or ends of two long themers) — the east is the roughest spot with TARDE (tough foreign word), ATALE (partial), RETAG (sort of arbitrary RE- word), but the west is so nice. Not a dab of crossword glue in there.
I might have liked a little more bonus fill, but that's a minor complaint when the theme idea is this good. SILLY ME is awfully nice, anyway, and I do like me some Harry Potter referenced in SEEKERS.
All in all, a fantastic debut. So, so, so enjoyable; a very memorable theme.
1 C | 2 A | 3 R | 4 S | 5 T | 6 E | 7 M | 8 P | 9 E | 10 T | 11 H | 12 E | 13 R |
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14 E | P | E | E | 15 A | M | O | R | 16 M | A | U | V | E |
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17 D | E | F | E | 18 C | T | I | V | E | 19 B | U | L | L | E | T |
20 E | R | I | K | A | 21 R | E | N | O | 22 L | A | R | D |
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23 E | M | 24 I | 25 S | U | R | 26 G | E | |||||||
27 A | 28 D | 29 O | R | E | D | 30 S | U | P | E | R | S | 31 T | 32 A | 33 R |
34 T | I | P | S | 35 N | A | P | 36 A | T | A | L | E |
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37 O | N | E | 38 T | O | P | 39 O | 40 F | F | 41 R | O | T |
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42 M | A | R | 43 S | H | 44 S | A | L | 45 E | D | N | A |
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46 S | H | A | P | E | 47 D | 48 L | I | K | E | 49 A | N | E | G | G |
50 O | N | E | I | L | 51 A | B | C | |||||||
52 E | 53 A | 54 R | N | 55 B | E | L | 56 A | 57 E | L | 58 I | 59 Z | 60 A |
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61 B | R | I | G | 62 H | T | L | Y | C | 63 O | L | O | R | E | D |
64 B | E | D | E | W | 65 O | M | E | N | 66 S | O | R | E |
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67 S | A | S | S | Y | 68 W | E | D | S | 69 E | N | O | S |
| Across | Down | |
| 1. They may get into a jam : CARS 5. Sub : TEMP 9. Thin air : ETHER 14. Electrified bit of sports equipment : EPEE 15. Caligula's love : AMOR 16. Light violet : MAUVE 17. B0B : DEFECTIVEBULLET 20. Christensen of "Parenthood" : ERIKA 21. City whose name, appropriately, rhymes with "casino" : RENO 22. Ingredient in old-time cookie recipes : LARD 23. Record co. excoriated in a Sex Pistols song : EMI 25. Electrical anomaly : SURGE 27. TB8L : ADOREDSUPERSTAR 34. Tout's stock-in-trade : TIPS 35. Fuzz : NAP 36. "And thereby hangs ___" : ATALE 37. Many a numerator : ONE 38. With 39-Across, refill to capacity ... or a hint to interpreting the clues at 17-, 27-, 46- and 61-Across : TOP 39. See 38-Across : OFF 41. Nonsense : ROT 42. Reed section? : MARSH 44. Actor Mineo : SAL 45. Novelist O'Brien : EDNA 46. 8V8TB : SHAPEDLIKEANEGG 50. Baseball great Buck : ONEIL 51. Start of a familiar run : ABC 52. Realize : EARN 55. Actor Lugosi : BELA 57. "My Fair Lady" lady : ELIZA 61. VMB : BRIGHTLYCOLORED 64. Moisten, in a way : BEDEW 65. Gathering clouds, e.g. : OMEN 66. Ticked : SORE 67. Saying "Talk to the hand 'cause the face don't care," say : SASSY 68. Unites : WEDS 69. Book of Mormon prophet : ENOS |
1. Give up : CEDE 2. Parodist, e.g. : APER 3. Bank offering, briefly : REFI 4. Positions in Quidditch : SEEKERS 5. Result of needling someone? : TAT 6. Arabian prince : EMIR 7. Gets promoted : MOVESUP 8. Possible hitch to getting hitched : PRENUP 9. One of the 10-Down birds in the world : EMU 10. See 9-Down : TALLEST 11. Kind of skirt : HULA 12. At any juncture : EVER 13. Like many a capt. or gen. : RETD 18. Showed : CAME 19. Gun measure : BORE 24. Prisoner's assignment: Abbr. : IDNO 26. Navratilova rival : GRAF 27. Subjects in quantum mechanics : ATOMS 28. 1956 jazz/blues album with an exclamation point : DINAH 29. "Porgy and Bess," e.g. : OPERA 30. Person taken for a fool : SAP 31. Afternoon, to Alejandro : TARDE 32. As a companion : ALONG 33. Mark down, maybe : RETAG 38. After that : THEN 39. Royal ___ (Detroit suburb) : OAK 40. One having a small bite? : FLEA 43. Heavy drinkers, informally : SPONGES 44. "Gosh, what was I thinking?!" : SILLYME 45. Pen : ENCLOSE 47. Student woe : DEBT 48. Avoid the limelight : LIELOW 49. Biblical anagram of 55-Across : ABEL 52. Falls back : EBBS 53. Bailiwick : AREA 54. Purges : RIDS 56. Nailed : ACED 58. Weights, so to speak : IRON 59. Loser, informally : ZERO 60. Some sources of vitamin C : ADES 62. Artery: Abbr. : HWY 63. Walk-___ : ONS |
Answer summary: 4 unique to this puzzle.
Found bugs or have suggestions?