“‘Pagliacci’ baritone.”
WEDNESDAY PUZZLE — This is Hal Moore’s seventh crossword for The New York Times and, as the revealer clue at 58A says, it’s an easy enough situation to resolve.
You might need to stare at the finished grid for a while before the theme makes itself visible to you, though. That’s NO ACCIDENT (26D), and there’s nothing wrong with that. As far as I’m concerned, it just prolongs the pleasure.
Tricky Clues
1A. Lead-ins mean that we are looking for a word that would go before the examples in the clues. The “lead-in to love or care” would be SELF, as in SELF-love and SELF-care.
17A. Don’t panic if you didn’t know “Number that, in Chinese languages, is a homophone for ‘longevity,’ and is thus considered good luck.” If you noticed that the answer is a four-letter word beginning with N (from SSN at 1D), the answer has to be NINE.
18A. I love this pun. The Greek writer AESOP created fables and morality tales, so you will often see him in crosswords clued as “Man with morals,” or “Fabulous guy.”
27A. The shaka sign is a fist with the thumb and pinkie fingers extended, sometimes waggled. SURFERs are or were known to use this sign as a greeting.
65A. This “sign of spring” is not a daffodil or the robins coming home to roost. In this puzzle, it’s a zodiac sign, and the answer is ARIES.
2D. Once again, you don’t necessarily need to know esoteric knowledge to be a good solver, although it definitely helps clear the way to the bar at parties (“Say, have I given you a blow-by-blow analysis of my thesis on the ‘Mahabharata’?”). If you’ve read this far, you know that 1A is SELF and 17A is NINE, which give you E _ I _. An educated guess would be EPIC.
7D. Allow me: The singer Arianna Grande has “230+ million followers” on INSTA, or Instagram. Don’t believe me? Take a look for yourself.
13D. This clue for BAD always makes me sad. There are so many other ways to teach a pet what you expect of them. And it can be overused. In fact, I used to have a T-shirt with a drawing of a goofy golden retriever on it that said, “My name in No No Bad Dog, what’s yours?”
33D. Wordplay alert! “The spirit of Russia?” is not about passion, it’s about alcohol. The answer is VODKA, at least in this puzzle.
57D. In “The Good Place,” the epithet “Ya basic!” was thrown around a lot, but the clue “What’s anything but basic?” refers to the pH level. An ACID is anything but basic.
61D. You’ve never heard the song “Aaron Burr, SIR” and would like me to play it, you say?
Today’s Theme
Let’s do this backward. Let’s talk about the revealer first. At 58A, the answer to the clue “Easy-to-resolve situation … or a hint to the progression found in 20-, 23-, 43-, 46- and 58-Across” is OPEN-AND-SHUT CASE.
So now we know two things: We know the answer to the clue, and we know that the theme involves a progression of some sort.
We’ve seen vowel progressions, where the vowels that follow the initial consonant proceed in order from top to bottom. And we’ve seen the sort of progression in this puzzle, where the letters of a key word are separated from that word, one at a time.
Let me see if I can make that clearer. Mr. Moore offers us five theme entries (the revealer is included here, for a reason that will become apparent in a moment). The phrases all include the word CASE in some variation and, when reading from top to bottom, the progression first opens and then shuts on CASE, as follows:
CASE/Y AT THE BAT
CAS/T ASIDE
CA/NADA GEESE
C/HECK PLEASE
OPEN-AND-SHUT CASE
Constructor Notes
The idea for this progression hit me late one night while mulling over the potential of 58-Across as a themeless entry. Maybe it’s a kind of reverse semantic satiation (a term I just learned from the Apple TV series “Ted Lasso”) where if you stare at a word long enough, it can actually gain meaning.
I figured there would be a decent number of options for CAS-E, CA-SE, and C-ASE, but realized there are very few entries that begin CASE without using the word itself. I’m a baseball fan who married into a family of even bigger baseball fans, and I knew I wanted to start the progression with 20-Across. Given the lengths (13, 15) and relatively fixed placements of those two answers, mirror (left-right) symmetry was required. With rotational (180-degree) symmetry so dominant, I always enjoy seeing what the mirror will reveal.
Somewhat surprisingly, this arrangement of stacked themers seemed to yield the best fill, though some compromises were necessary, as in the wide-open north section. I suspect many solvers won’t notice or care, but I do hope some enjoy the unusual layout, including the 2x2 Tetris blocks on either edge of the grid’s center.
The clues reflect a harmonious balance between my submission and fresh ideas from the editorial team. They injected new life throughout, with 17-Across a prime example. 42-Down is saltier than what I would have dared submit — but I loved seeing it! I appreciated the essence of my clues being retained in many places, especially 28-Down, 43-Across, and 27-Across.
Want to Submit Crosswords to The New York Times?
The New York Times Crossword has an open submission system, and you can submit your puzzles online.
For tips on how to get started, read our series, “How to Make a Crossword Puzzle.”
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.
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