MONDAY PUZZLE — There is a phenomenon known as the consummate Monday puzzle, one that is made for new solvers. It does not color outside the lines or demand that your Monday brain make unnecessary contortions. It is logical and simple, and the pieces fall into place with ease. This is what Evan Mahnken has delivered to us. Try it with the confidence that your week will kick off with at least one success assured.
Tricky Clues
Most of the answers in this crossword are clean, Monday-level and comfortably ITL (in the language, or the common vernacular). But puzzlemakers are tricksters at heart, so don’t let your guard down.
For example, the very sneaky 41A finds a roundabout way to use an answer I was astounded to see in a puzzle at the present moment: “Beer brand whose popularity didn’t drop during the 2020 pandemic, surprisingly.” In fact, seeing “pandemic” itself gave me a bit of a jolt. The answer is CORONA. That brand always reminds me of a couple of early risers my friend Jane and I encountered at a salon on New Year’s Eve. It was barely noon, but these two had begun celebrating early with new tattoos after their morning brews and before their pedicures. “Just give us two or three Corona Lights, and there’s no telling what we might do,” one confided.
I thought the answer to 33A, “Worker for a feudal lord,” might be an error when I filled in LIEGE, but according to our official desk dictionary, the word refers to both the noble and the vassal.
“Supreme Court justice Stephen” at 63A gave my heart a little tug as I filled in BREYER. Like Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, whose recent death cast a shadow over the community of crossword commenters here, Justice Breyer was appointed by President Bill Clinton. She took her seat in 1993, and he took his in 1994.
Then comes a nostalgia trip with 59A, “Shade of brown.” The answer, BURNT UMBER, came readily to mind. Is that still in the Crayola 64 pack, one of those beautiful, prettily pointed sticks of pigment standing at attention? What? It never was? No. There was burnt orange and burnt sienna, but the only umber was raw (a raw sienna was also included). If by some chance coloring is something you indulge in to (55A) SOOTHE yourself, there are free coloring pages for children and adults at the Crayola website. Try one called “Through the Rabbit Hole” for a great accompaniment to puzzle-solving.
The silliest clue stumped me: 50A, “Newsroom figs.” I kept thinking of metrics like circulation totals and page views. Then it hit me: The answer was EDS, short for editors, like me. (Face palm.)
I don’t know much “Star Wars” trivia except for a few things — like the handy three- and four-letter crossword names that appear for Yoda of the scrambled syntax and Princess Leia of the twin-Cinnabon hairdo. But this family tree is a helpful reference up to and including last year’s “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker,” should you be one of those solvers who is OK with looking up unknown terms, always a great way to learn something. In any event, 60D, “Kylo ___, Jedi-in-training seduced to the dark side,” could only be REN. That one is worth remembering. You’ll see it again.
Today’s Theme
Mr. Mahnken’s theme brought to mind “The Raw & the Cooked,” by which I mean the classic album by the Fine Young Cannibals, not the writings of Claude Lévi-Strauss and his particular musings about the foods we consume and the ways in which we prepare them.
The theme is, in essence, a process, the chemical change that occurs when you cook or bake, starting with the first themer, 17A, “Unedited film,” or RAW FOOTAGE, and progressing to 29A, “Off-the-wall concepts,” or HALF-BAKED IDEAS, and 45A, “Committed accounting fraud,” or COOKED THE BOOKS. In the end, we go too far, all the way to BURNT UMBER.
Constructor Notes
I hope you find this puzzle to be … well done. *Rimshot*
Insert a Toothpick …
Almost done but need a bit more help? We’ve got you covered.
Warning: We don’t want to spoil the treat, but subscribers can take a peek at the answer key here.
Trying to get back to the puzzle page? Here you go.
Your thoughts?
"dish" - Google News
October 05, 2020 at 05:00AM
https://ift.tt/3jyhOzP
Dish From a Crockpot - The New York Times
"dish" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2MXZLF4
No comments:
Post a Comment