TUESDAY PUZZLE — If you’re going to make a splash of a debut, you might as well emulate the G.O.A.T. (Greatest of All Time), Patrick Berry.
The constructor Kevin Patterson makes his New York Times Crossword debut doing just that, and his puzzle put me in mind of my favorite Berry puzzle of all time. [Note: Please use this link and don’t go to the crossword archives for this puzzle. A different puzzle was run online that day because of technical limitations at the time that Mr. Berry’s crossword was published.]
Like Mr. Berry, Mr. Patterson clearly knows his craft, even as a new (to The Times) constructor, and that’s important. You have to know the rules of crossword construction before you can begin breaking them.
Tricky Clues
5A. Sing it with me: “ … And a partridge in a PEAR tree.”
17A. Not only is the phrase “Everything MUST go!” a common phrase seen on signs when a business is closing, but it’s also a haunting song by Steely Dan about … a business closing.
23A. Remember that the word “canned” can mean different things. It can mean food in a can, or it can mean, sadly, that someone has been LET GO.
42A. BEER ME is the slangier “I’ll have another, please.”
2D. In the clue “It works like a charm!,” the “it” is the item we are looking for, and “works like a charm” refers to a magic charm, not something that works particularly well. The answer is AMULET.
30D. This was an unfortunate entry in an otherwise very entertaining puzzle. The word NIP — while clued to cold weather in this puzzle — is offensive to Asian people, particularly those of Japanese descent.
Now, there are people who don’t mind seeing a word that can also be a racial slur in a puzzle if it’s clued as a different meaning, and there are people who don’t want to see a racial slur spelled out in a grid no matter how it’s clued. We don’t use a word that is a racial slur against Hispanic people and then clue it as a cleaning product, so why do this?
The shame is that it could have been changed to D.B.A./BIP (“Doing Business As” / Marcel Marceau’s character). Those might not be typical Tuesday clues, but we see fluctuations in difficulty level all the time. And it wouldn’t have been unkind to our Asian solvers.
45D. This “Red state, once, for short” is not a state in the United States, but the U.S.S.R.
Today’s Theme
It’s not even the winter holidays yet, and here Mr. Patterson is, presenting us with a gift. Well, not so much a gift as the item that hides the gift from us. His central revealer is WRAPPING PAPER, clued as “Holiday purchase … or a hint to the circled letters.”
Knowing the rules of constructing as I do, I first tried to read the circled letters from left to right. That got me — and you, I’ll bet — nowhere.
For one thing, when read that way, the circled letters in 17A and 18A spell MUSLIT. That’s not a thing. Try again, Deb.
I got to the central revealer and just as I filled in WRAPPING PAPER, it hit me — I’ve seen this before. Or at least something like it. The circled letters on the right side of the grid wrap around the back and enter again on the left.
LITMUS paper. There’s your WRAPPING PAPER, although, truthfully, it would have to be a really tiny gift if you are going to use LITMUS paper to wrap it.
So all of these entries wrap around the grid and are types of paper: LITMUS paper, TOILET paper, CARBON paper and TISSUE paper.
That’s very clever. More like this, please.
Constructor Notes
For years, I assumed that storks brought Will the new puzzles. It wasn’t until college that I was given “the [crossword] talk” — in the span of a year and a half, I read two separate student newspaper articles about people on campus making their New York Times debuts. The constructors Andrew Kingsley and Laura Braunstein may not know it, but they helped me realize that real people make these puzzles and that — with a lot of practice — I could too! Thank you to them and others — Ross Trudeau, my parents, and my girlfriend, especially — for bearing with me as I’ve worked to figure this all out.
Developing novel theme ideas has always been the toughest part of construction for me. To combat this (bear with me here as my nerdy desperation comes out) I began inspecting things I’d see in daily life for names that could do double duty. SPRAY BOTTLE, STUFFED ANIMAL, SALESFORCE — these are real entries on a rather long and disappointing list I still have in my Notes app. Finally, though, I got the greatest birthday present a guy can ask for: A workable revealer in WRAPPING PAPER. They say big things come in small packages, but I guess the stuff AROUND the package can come in handy, too.
I initially shied away from using TOILET as a “wrapping paper,” and the version of this puzzle I submitted used GRAPH instead. Will and the editorial team encouraged me to look past the breakfast test to find a fourth six-letter type of paper, and I think the puzzle is all the better for it. I’m especially happy with 59A in this grid, and — as a fan of movie trivia — the 8D/54A connection especially tickles my fancy.
The Tipping Point
Almost finished solving but need a bit more help? We’ve got you covered.
Warning: There be spoilers ahead, but subscribers can take a peek at the answer key.
Trying to get back to the puzzle page? Right here.
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