New York Times, Friday, July 1, 2016
| Author: | James Mulhern |
| Editor: | Will Shortz |
I made this puzzle about two years ago. It's actually a rewrite; initially, I had a couple answers (FLASH ART, AN ITEM) that Will and Joel rightly nixed, all of which led to the version you see today. As a big fantasy sports fan, I was happy to include the grid-spanning FANTASY BASEBALL, as well as some other fun fill.
Hope this puzzle is a pleasant lead-in to a wonderful long weekend!
Two nice answers, FANTASY BASEBALL and SQUARE BRACKET down the midlines of the puzzle. I'm huge into fantasy basketball, and I can see the appeal of FANTASY BASEBALL (if only I liked baseball!). Something so compelling about analyzing oodles of stats, cutting the data in hundreds of ways a la Billy Beane in "Moneyball."
Sometimes when a themeless features a few really long answers, we don't get much else. Really nice that James configured his grid to allow for 12 eight-letter-long slots. My favorite was TEXAS BBQ, not just because I love me some BBQ, but that terminal Q is so bizarre-looking. It's also so smoothly interlocked into SQUARE BRACKET.
I would have liked more of these longish slots to be converted into stellar material, though. I enjoyed EPIDURAL with its funny [… labor management?] clue, and ER DOCTOR, TAILGATE, FLASHERS with brilliant usage of the word "hazards" (slang for hazard lights) in [Driver's hazards]. ANAPOLIS felt a little off, like ANNAPOLIS had been misspelled, and it felt like there was a lot of geography what with NAGASAKI and CANBERRA. I did like learning a little about each city, though.
Grids with great grid flow like today's often present construction challenges. It's so tough to work from two different directions and get everything to mesh together. Generally I thought James did quite well, for example getting the ER DOCTOR/TAILGATE region to mesh with LESTAT/LAKOTA/STARES, without needing crossword glue. The one place I hitched was in the center, with STUPA. The middle is no doubt the toughest region to fill, given how many words flow into it, and STUPA is really the only word which stood out to me. (Just one data point, but my dad's a practicing Buddhist, and he didn't know what a STUPA was.)
I would have loved a little more cleverosity in the SQUARE BRACKET clue — [Backslash neighbor] made it a little too easy to look down at my keyboard and fill in the blank right away. How about [It's often to the left of a backslash], misdirecting to URLs?
Overall, a couple of really nice long entries and a lot of care taken to make the grid pretty smooth.
1 T | 2 A | 3 T | 4 T | 5 L | 6 E | 7 F | 8 L | 9 A | 10 S | 11 H | 12 E | 13 R | 14 S |
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15 O | N | E | M | A | N | 16 A | I | R | W | O | M | A | N |
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17 T | A | X | C | U | T | 18 N | A | G | A | S | A | K | I |
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19 E | P | A | 20 D | E | 21 S | T | R | O | Y | 22 J | E | T |
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23 B | O | S | 24 S | 25 R | I | A | L | S | 26 L | O | I | S |
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27 A | L | B | U | 28 M | 29 C | S | I | 30 M | O | R | N | |||
31 G | I | B | L | E | 32 T | 33 Y | A | 34 Z | O | O | ||||
35 S | Q | U | A | R | 36 E | B | R | A | C | K | 37 E | 38 T | ||
39 S | T | U | P | A | 40 C | H | O | R | A | 41 L |
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42 F | 43 I | E | S | 44 I | S | 45 O | 46 A | U | D | I | O |
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47 R | I | M | A | 48 A | D | E | P | 49 T | 50 T | O | L | L |
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51 E | G | O | 52 D | O | U | B | T | I | 53 T | 54 C | G | I |
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55 C | A | N | 56 B | E | R | R | A | 57 L | E | 58 S | T | A | T |
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59 O | R | I | E | N | T | A | L | 60 L | A | K | O | T | A |
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61 N | O | T | A | T | A | L | L | 62 S | T | A | R | E | S |
| Across | Down | |
| 1. Talk : TATTLE 7. Driver's hazards : FLASHERS 15. Not divisible, as a job : ONEMAN 16. Amelia Earhart, e.g. : AIRWOMAN 17. Good news for wage earners : TAXCUT 18. Far Eastern city whose name means "long cape" : NAGASAKI 19. Org. that covers Springfield in a dome in "The Simpsons Movie" : EPA 20. Torpedo : DESTROY 22. Black : JET 23. Office monitor : BOSS 25. Dough made in the Middle East? : RIALS 26. Lane in a strip : LOIS 27. Wedding keepsake : ALBUM 29. Long-running Vegas show : CSI 30. Even's opposite : MORN 31. Gravy goody : GIBLET 33. Mississippi feeder : YAZOO 35. Backslash neighbor : SQUAREBRACKET 39. Buddhist memorial dome : STUPA 40. Like motets : CHORAL 42. Cross words : FIES 44. One-on-one basketball play, slangily : ISO 46. Sound : AUDIO 47. Feature of un poema : RIMA 48. Accomplished : ADEPT 50. Damage done : TOLL 51. It welcomes praise : EGO 52. "Wouldn't think so" : DOUBTIT 54. Pixar specialty, briefly : CGI 55. City called the Bush Capital : CANBERRA 57. 2006 musical featuring a vampire : LESTAT 59. Light blue partner of Connecticut and Vermont : ORIENTAL 60. Crazy Horse, e.g. : LAKOTA 61. "It was my pleasure" : NOTATALL 62. They're drawn by the bizarre : STARES |
1. Green grocery choice : TOTEBAG 2. Brazilian city name that sounds like a U.S. state capital : ANAPOLIS 3. Some southern cookin' : TEXASBBQ 4. Alternative to SHO : TMC 5. Celebrate : LAUD 6. Rapping response : ENTER 7. Its rosters aren't real : FANTASYBASEBALL 8. 1997 comedy with the tagline "Trust me" : LIARLIAR 9. Odysseus' faithful dog : ARGOS 10. Clout : SWAY 11. Christmas trio : HOS 12. Key of Chopin's étude "Tristesse" : EMAJOR 13. Collect lots of : RAKEIN 14. Cross states : SNITS 21. Word with a 35-Across before and after it : SIC 24. Separator of the Philippines and Malaysia : SULUSEA 26. "Incoming!" : LOOKOUT 28. Charcuterie, e.g. : MEATS 30. Nut-brown : MOCHA 32. Tony-winning title role of 1990 : TRU 34. Country's ___ Brown Band : ZAC 36. Aid in labor management? : EPIDURAL 37. One handling an OD : ERDOCTOR 38. Get too close, in a way : TAILGATE 41. Teases, in older usage : LOLITAS 42. French daily, with "Le" : FIGARO 43. Lackey's response : IMONIT 45. Pick : OPT 47. Casing job, for short : RECON 48. Big supply line : AORTA 49. Bill collectors? : TILLS 52. Dimple : DENT 53. Something farm-squeezed? : TEAT 56. Arthur with a Tony : BEA 58. Genre for Reel Big Fish : SKA |
Answer summary: 3 unique to this puzzle, 2 unique to Shortz Era but used previously.
Found bugs or have suggestions?