Tracy Gray’s gonna wash that grid right outta her hair.
WEDNESDAY PUZZLE — It is so nice to solve a puzzle by Tracy Gray again. Her last couple of puzzles have run on the weekends, when Caitlin Lovinger is your guide, so I haven’t had the pleasure of writing about them.
Ms. Gray has hit for the cycle — in the constructing community, that means that she has had a puzzle published at least once on every day of the week in a single venue — and seems comfortable constructing both themed and themeless crosswords. That’s a special talent requiring mastery of two somewhat different constructing skills.
In this puzzle, she gives solvers a lot to think about, but hopes we come out of it feeling somewhat cleansed.
Tricky Clues
4A. “Took a dip?” can mean going for a swim, but in this puzzle, the clue is hinting at something that has SAGGED in the middle.
15A. If something is called a “Piece of cake?” it is thought of as easy. But real cake is not only cut up into slices. A TIER on a cake can also be thought of as a piece.
22A. I guess the plural of SESAME seed can be SESAMES, but it’s not in-the-language to my ears. I wouldn’t ask for extra SESAMES on something, I would ask for extra SESAME seeds.
36A. I got this through the crossings, so I didn’t notice it at first. When I was going over the puzzle, however, I stopped at “Stellar start?” and wondered why the answer was ASTRO. In many cases, clues that ask for a “start” are asking for the first letter of the other word, but this one is different. This “Stellar start?” is asking for a stellar or star-based prefix, as in ASTROnaut, ASTROlogy or ASTROphysics.
45A. Read the clue carefully. “Billy or tom” sounds like we are supposed to be reading the clue as if it contained two names, but the “T” in “tom” is lowercase. Could we be talking about gendered animal names? We are: The names for two types of MALE animals are a billy (goat) and a tom (cat or turkey).
1D. It’s interesting how just the presence of a question mark can change your view of a clue. “Massive pop stars?” — on the surface — makes me think about famous musicians. But with that “?,” the question then becomes: What other kinds of pop stars could we be talking about? And who says they’re massive?
You know what stars in space do sometimes? They explode, or pop. And they are massive. When stars pop, they are called NOVAS.
29D. I need to commit Chichén ITZA to memory. The Mayan ruins have been in the New York Times Crossword eight times, and I can never remember their name.
33D. TIL (Today I Learned) that MAHI MAHI, the dolphinfish, means “very strong” in Hawaiian. According to the clue, there is MAHI, which means “strong,” and doubling it to MAHI MAHI means “strong x 2,” or “very strong.”
43D. I haven’t heard hair gel called POMADE since my mother tried — in vain — to slick back my very curly hair with Dippity Doo. Today, I think most people call it gel or product, but I think a few companies still call their hair wax by that name.
Today’s Theme
At first, I thought this was going to be a vowel progression, but the theme remained hidden in a tantalizing way until I got to the revealer at 67A. We solved a puzzle recently where the revealer contained numbers, and this one does too. This may seem kind of random, but one of the upsides of solving regularly is that you learn to expect things like that.
But the number has to be there for a reason. You can’t just plunk a numeral into a word puzzle without one. Well, you can, but it’s not going to be looked upon kindly.
In this case, the reason is that Ms. Gray is giving a shout out to the Alberto VO5 hair care brand. (Note to corporations: This is a coincidence. The puzzle editors are not allowed to accept money for product placement no matter what they tell you.)
Anyway, each of the five theme entries contains two words. The first word starts with a V and the second word starts with an O. For example, the answer to the clue at 16A, “Kidney or heart” is VITAL ORGAN. Similarly, the answer to 61A’s “Specialized lab equipment for drying” is VACUUM OVEN, which I did not know but which I looked up, and it is definitely a thing.
Since there are five of these entries, they make up the revealer, VO5, which sounds like an early pop band. (“Ladies and gentlemen, The VO 5!”)
Of course, the crossing entry at the “5” has to work as well, and TIL that the 18th hole at Pebble Beach Golf Course is PAR 5.
Constructor Notes
My mundane morning shower routine sparked the inspiration for this puzzle, when the brand name of a certain shampoo caught my eye and lit up my constructor brain.
Although initialisms are a basic theme type, I was pleased to see that these particular letters had never been used before and the revealer was a “fun, different take on this type of theme genre,” according to Joel Fagliano, the senior digital puzzle editor.
Five theme entries and a revealer — plus being careful not to include any extraneous “VO” combinations anywhere in the puzzle — prevented me from including any bonus long Down entries, but I was happy to be able to add some new debut entries to the Xword Info database.
Hope you enjoy the solve!
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Your thoughts?
"cake" - Google News
May 12, 2021 at 09:00AM
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Piece of Cake - The New York Times
"cake" - Google News
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