New York Times, Tuesday, August 9, 2022

Two months ago, I had a puzzle with biblical verb wordplay (PUBLIC TOILETH et al), now another biblical theme!

This puzzle was unusual in that the editorial team did not request any changes to the original grid submission. They said they liked the slingshot grid art and the unique grid configuration. It's wide open for a Tuesday, at 71 words, but mostly pretty accessible, I think.

I clued EN VOGUE as the "Hold On" rock group, but the editors felt they were too obscure. That entry Googles very well, probably because it is a common phrase in France.

USED TO and OF USE are dupes, but they do have pretty disparate meanings.

I like taking my grandkids to the beaches of La JOLLA!

We've seen a ton of grid art over the years, and some of it works much better than others. One of the problems tends to be that even if you can get black squares to look unquestionably like your desired image, the other black squares that help make the grid fillable detract from the impact. Take a delightful tennis racquet, for example — there's little doubt what those central squares form. However, all the other black squares in the puzzle dilute the overall impact.

Today's visual is so simple, so pared-down, yet so effective. Besides the usual "fingers" of black squares along the grid's perimeter, all we see are 1) a football goal post and 2) a single dot flying through it. That black square is up … and it's good! What makes it so good — great, even — is that the black square "rock" is smashing GOLIATH squarely in the middle of his forehead.

DAVID at the bottom. A slingshot in the middle. A rock-bashing GOLIATH. Such stunningly basic imagery. This picture is worth more than 71 words.

71 words in a themed puzzle usually spells trouble, especially when targeting early-week solvers. This mirror layout is tough to work with — you get the excellent bonuses of EGO MASSAGES and SHANTYTOWNS, but those have to work next to the long VALLEY OF ELAH and BOOK OF SAMUEL, creating a considerable challenge. Not a friendly early-week solve overall, especially considering the crossing of two geography trivia names, ELAH and URAL.

Although the puzzle would have seemed thin if it had only been DAVID and GOLIATH, along with SLINGSHOT added in somewhere, that would have been a direct hit to this solver's forehead. Then again, I probably would have complained so much about only 21 thematic squares that you'd want to wind up that slingshot even more than you do right now.

Ultimately, it's audacious grid art, and the imagery is on par with that work of the old masters.

New Flash: Crossword puzzles are not science, history, or theology textbooks. Prepare for outrage in the blogosphere anyway.

Crossword puzzles have their own rules. Or rather, they have no rules, only conventions, which they happily break whenever they want, all for your amusement. The grid art today looks vaguely like a slingshot. That's good enough. It doesn't matter that the slingshot David (if he existed) used against Goliath (if that event occurred) would look nothing like it.

In pre-modern times, the slingshot was a destructive and deadly weapon, similar in impact to a rifle today. A soft pouch held a rock or pebble. It was attached to a couple of long strands of leather. You'd swing it around your head a few times to build momentum and then precisely aim at your target. Unlike other weapons of the time, it was effective against armor or shields. See the photo in Jeff's note.

The David v. Goliath story is an odd one anyway. All poor Goliath had was a spear. You or I could have conquered the big guy as easily as David did with a bit of practice and the world's most deadly weapon. Hardly the "underdog prevailing" story we're used to.