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Eirini Vourloumis for The New York Times
SATURDAY PUZZLE — What is more disarming than facing off against a Saturday crossword, the hardest puzzle of the week, and having it open with a clue about cuddling? Nothing, I say, and I especially loved its entry, BIG SPOON, which makes its debut today.
It’s almost impossible to feel threatened by a puzzle that starts off like that. Even if the clues are ramped up and the entries are more complex, a puzzle like this — with its cuddling and its crunchy, lively entries and the wordplay in its clues — makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
In all seriousness, it’s a really nice puzzle. David Woolf introduces 10 new entries to the New York Times crossword, including BIG SPOON and, beside that one, I especially liked LOG ROLLS, GAG REEL and STRESS EATS. Lively entries that have appeared before include HA HA HA, ORATORIO, BATTER UP, BAR CAR, IN GAME, FIRE SALE, RAT’S NEST, BOLO TIE, HOT DOGGER, GOOD REASON, TEAR GAS and GESTATE, which is a word that never fails to crack me up for some reason. I also liked HA HA HA in proximity to DA DA DA.
Still, getting to those entries takes some work on a Saturday. Let’s take a look at a selection of some of the harder clues in Mr. Woolf’s puzzle.
Tricky Clues
• 1A: Don’t get it? Here’s a standards-friendly explanation of spooning, including graphics on BIG SPOON and Little Spoon. Honestly, read it for the diagrams, but stay for the explanation on how to be a Spork (No. 6). I almost had to leave the office because I found it so amusing.
• 15A: Get it? “Handel bars?” That’s a really good pun. You might have misread it as “handle bars,” but today we’re supposed to be thinking about the composer George Frideric Handel and bars of music. The answer is ORATORIO.
• 18A: My mother read Edward Gorey’s “The Gashlycrumb TINIES” to me when I was a child, which probably explains a lot about me. I still love his artwork.
• 24A: No, you’re not supposed to know that TIN is “About 92% of britannium” off the top of your head, unless you happen to be in the pewter business. I had to look it up, too.
• 27A: “Tar liquid” is GROG, a sailor’s drink, because “tar” is a nickname for a sailor. It’s thought to come from either a shortened version of “tarpaulin” or from Jack Tar, an archaic British term that referred to people in the merchant seamen or Royal British Navy.
• 47A: I took an educated guess that “Iraklion” was a variant spelling of Heraklion, the capital of CRETE, and it turns out I was right. It is also the accepted spelling in the New York Times stylebook.
• 51A: A play on “Just one of those things?”, the clue “Just those of Juan’s things?” is misdirection that also requires an answer in Spanish. We’re looking for the Spanish word for “those,” so the answer is ESOS.
• 5D and 6D: I knew that 5D was going to be POOP deck, but I’d never heard of the ORLOP deck. #NowIKnow
• 49D: Hi, kids! Believe it or not, tobacco companies used to advertise the benefits of cigarette smoking, in newspapers, magazines and even on television (that box that your parents stare at). That’s why the “Brand once advertised with the line ‘They never get on your nerves’” is CAMEL cigarettes. I know this is hard to digest, but tobacco companies even advertised their products to children by showing cartoon characters smoking (this was originally a Winston commercial):
Constructor’s Notes
This was really just an excuse to get BIG SPOON in a puzzle. With that in at 1A, I decided to shoot for big, open northwest and southeast corners while keeping the number of 3 and 4 word answers to a minimum. So here’s a short list of the things I liked about the puzzle while I was constructing it.
1) The presence of HA HA HA and DA DA DA in the same corner, the latter of which was made pseudo-famous in the late nineties by a Volkswagen ad.
2) The Gashlycrumb TINIES are a delightfully morbid piece by the always great Edward Gorey.
3) Coming up with STRESS EATS saved me from having to completely tear up the northwest after I was most of the way through constructing it.
4) CELIAC Disease sufferers represent! We should form a club where we lament the lack of good gluten free pizza.
5) The non-forced dupe clue at 5D and 6D.
I was happy to see many of my favorite clues survive the cut, and particularly enjoyed some of Will’s additions in the southwest. Also, the timing of this puzzle’s publication couldn’t have been better, as my wife just 41D’ed a baby while her family was on 47A for a wedding, so they’re surrounded by 16A while we’re surrounded by, well, 5D. I hope you enjoyed the puzzle!
Congratulations to the new parents!
Your thoughts?
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