Author: | Matthew Sewell |
Editor: | Will Shortz |
I hope solvers share my pleasure in seeing CALVINBALL in a New York Times puzzle. It's such an evocative idea of pure creative play, and I liked balancing it with the more contemplative POOHSTICKS — very different visions of childhood (and philosophies of life), each lovely in their own ways.
I'm grateful to Will and Joel for their improvements to this grid, and I'm also indebted to two other editors who've helped immeasurably in my development as a constructor: Stan Newman and Brad Wilber. Brad's mentorship in particular has been a great boon to me — even though he had no direct involvement with this puzzle, it's fair to say it wouldn't exist without him — and I'm very happy to be able to acknowledge that publicly.
I came so close to giving this the POW. It reminded me of a friend's tweet to the effect of "I would be so into fantasy football if I could draft a dragon." There's something so entertaining about the imagination and creativity involved there. And CALVINBALL fits that to a tee, what with its crazy rules, constantly being added / changed / subtracted. Brilliant!
POOHSTICKS is fun too — I didn't recognize it even as a Milne fan, but the name made me want to look it up. Quaint game, dropping sticks into a river and "racing" them. QUIDDITCH also amused me, but it's not nearly as whimsical as the first two.
Those three Star Wars movies were so abysmal. POD RACING in particular felt like a marketing team pushing Lucas to come up with something they could use to sell toys to kids. Sigh. Man oh man, I hated POD RACING.
My personal icky feelings around POD RACING aside, a nice debut grid. I've had the pleasure of working with Matt on a grid that was recently accepted, and I loved seeing some of his style come out in CONTRETEMPTS (what a great word!), SOUNDTRACKS, KICK ME / EDISON. Always fun to see what constructors select for their puzzles, especially what they pick for long bonus fill — that's where a person's voice often really comes through.
It's a tough construction, what with FANTASY SPORTS in the middle of the puzzle, and four more themers spread around. That QUIDDITCH / POOHSTICKS overlap is unsurprisingly the crunchiest area, with ILO / UNCAS / ROSEN. They're all fair game for a Wednesday, but it did feel like a pile-up of toughies. Even after all this time, ILO and ILA are hard for me to distinguish, so it'd be tough to be a non-baseball fan today to figure out if RASEN or ROSEN seemed more reasonable.
ADDED NOTE: as reader David Glasser points out, the clue for ILO makes it more fair; an anagram of OIL. But interesting that David's trouble spot was the ROSEN / UNCAS crossing!
But a few gluey spots (TV TAPE is a thing? KGS is usually KG.) is par for the course on a construction like this. Glad to see Matt make his debut with a really fun theme idea and some colorful bonus fill.
1 T | 2 A | 3 S | 4 K | 5 R | 6 A | 7 M | 8 P | 9 S | 10 W | 11 I | 12 N | 13 G |
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14 V | L | O | G | 15 O | N | I | O | N | 16 E | R | I | E |
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17 T | A | U | S | 18 C | A | L | V | I | 19 N | B | A | L | L |
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20 A | N | N | 21 C | O | C | A | 22 P | A | C | |||||
23 P | O | D | 24 R | A | C | I | N | 25 G | 26 M | A | 27 C | 28 A | 29 W |
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30 E | N | T | E | R | O | N | 31 O | 32 N | E | M | O | R | E |
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33 R | I | A | 34 N | B | A | 35 N | E | T |
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36 F | A | N | T | 37 A | 38 S | Y | S | P | 39 O | 40 R | T | S | ||
41 T | L | C | 42 T | H | Y | 43 P | A | R | ||||||
44 B | A | K | 45 L | 46 A | V | A | 47 K | 48 E | E | N | E | 49 S | 50 T |
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51 A | N | S | E | L | 52 Q | 53 U | I | D | D | I | T | C | H |
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54 T | A | 55 S | 56 N | C | I | S | 57 E | R | A |
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58 P | 59 O | 60 O | H | S | T | 61 I | C | K | S | 62 S | M | U | T |
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63 A | R | I | A | 64 A | L | A | M | O | 65 A | P | B | S |
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66 W | E | L | L | 67 R | O | S | E | N | 68 O | S | S | O |
Across | Down | |
1. To-do list item : TASK 5. Skatepark features : RAMPS 10. Something in a KFC bucket : WING 14. YouTube journal : VLOG 15. Main ingredient in soubise sauce : ONION 16. Lake ___, home of Presque Isle : ERIE 17. T-shaped crosses : TAUS 18. Activity for Hobbes : CALVINBALL 20. One of the Wilson sisters of rock's Heart : ANN 21. Cash crop in Colombia : COCA 22. Election-influencing org. : PAC 23. Activity for Anakin Skywalker : PODRACING 26. Colorful parrot : MACAW 30. Start, as an adventure : ENTERON 31. "I'll have another" : ONEMORE 33. Coastal inlet : RIA 34. Pro org. with Christmas Day games : NBA 35. ___ neutrality : NET 36. Field of DraftKings and FanDuel ... or 18-, 23-, 52- and 58-Across? : FANTASYSPORTS 41. "Return to Amish" channel : TLC 42. Commandments possessive : THY 43. Duffer's delight : PAR 44. Flaky Greek pastry : BAKLAVA 47. Most perceptive : KEENEST 51. Adams who photographed Yosemite : ANSEL 52. Activity for Harry Potter : QUIDDITCH 54. Some univ. instructors : TAS 56. Mark Harmon police series : NCIS 57. Baseball's steroid ___ : ERA 58. Activity for Tigger and Eeyore : POOHSTICKS 62. X-rated stuff : SMUT 63. Andrea Bocelli delivery : ARIA 64. Texas landmark that shares its name with a tree : ALAMO 65. "Be on the lookout" alerts, for short : APBS 66. Wisher's place : WELL 67. Al who was A.L. M.V.P. in 1953 : ROSEN 68. ___ buco : OSSO |
1. VCR insert : TVTAPE 2. Families-and-friends support group : ALANON 3. The albums "Godspell" and "Jesus Christ Superstar," for two : SOUNDTRACKS 4. Metric weights: Abbr. : KGS 5. Ornate style : ROCOCO 6. Pain relief brand with early "hammers in the head" ads : ANACIN 7. La Scala's home : MILAN 8. PBS documentary series since 1988 : POV 9. Do a mohel's job : SNIP 10. Part of a modern baby monitor : WEBCAM 11. T. Rowe Price offering, in brief : IRA 12. Nothing, in soccer : NIL 13. Insole material : GEL 19. Identify : NAME 21. Jeweler's measure : CARAT 24. Jockey's strap : REIN 25. Oodles : GOBS 27. Minor argument : CONTRETEMPS 28. Mars, to the Greeks : ARES 29. Like a dog's kiss : WET 32. Power ___ : NAP 34. Bronx nine, on scoreboards : NYY 36. Custardy dessert : FLAN 37. Transport with mud tires, for short : ATV 38. Hoops great O'Neal : SHAQ 39. Pieces of punditry : OPEDS 40. Indian princess : RANI 41. Unknown, on a sched. : TBA 45. Like arsenic in large amounts : LETHAL 46. [sigh] : ALAS 47. Sign on a prank victim's back : KICKME 48. Holder of 1,000+ patents : EDISON 49. Benchwarmers : SCRUBS 50. "Honest?" : THATSO 53. The last of the Mohicans, in Cooper's novel : UNCAS 55. Magi's guide : STAR 58. "Androcles and the Lion" thorn site : PAW 59. 1/100 of a Norwegian krone : ORE 60. Gallery hanging : OIL 61. Grp. that's an anagram of 60-Down : ILO 62. ___ Tomé and Príncipe : SAO |
Answer summary: 6 unique to this puzzle, 1 debuted here and reused later, 1 unique to Shortz Era but used previously.
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