SUNDAY PUZZLE — This grid harkened me back to the simpler days of 2019 when Alex Eaton-Salners made a Sunday puzzle for us with a bunch of cryptic bird clues. Guess what? That one was inspired by this one, and now I’m trying to think of some other subjects that would be fun with this treatment for next year, if we make it. Cocktails, maybe. Funny note for fans of this constructor: Can you believe that this one and that one, “Bird Play,” are his only big Sunday grids? I was surprised.
Mr. Eaton-Salners is an in-house attorney for a technology company and, in Mr. Willl Shortz’s intro in the magazine, says that he likes to “subvert (responsibly) as many different crossword conventions as possible.” This Sunday theme does so by being non-reiterating, perfect for people who like surprises, and I noticed a couple of other gentle transgressions today.
Tricky Clues
8A: I can either chuckle at myself over the odd mistake I made here or propose it as a neologism — I settled on “is poss” to mean “maybe,” as in, “it is possible, groovy cats and kittens.” I kind of like it but you need that E at the end for ELFIN, so I SPOSE that I’m wrong. Happens to all of us, I suppose.
45A: Did this little one make anyone else SPIN out? I wanted some kind of strap and needed all four crossing letters to “get it.” Same with TATS, by the way, and then some — I had to turn that over in my head a couple of times before stretching it to “tattoos,” or pics from a parlor.
5D: Amazingly, this is a first — it’s a smidgen of l33tspeak that goes back to at least 2009 and I guarantee that lots of constructors have tried to get it into the puzzle over the last decade. Therefore, Mr. Eaton-Salners’s debuting this is, in itself, a PWN, pronounced “pone,” as in old-fashioned cornbread. It comes from a simple typo — “P” for “O” — and I don’t know why it ever stuck in the lingo.
55D: Funny thing about names in this grid (which are challenging, both the personal and geographical). I had a very early hunch that 2D had to include a rebus (before I knew the actual answer). When I saw this clue, “Stand-up comedian Mike,” I immediately thought that Mr. Eaton-Salners had put some part of “Birbiglia” in one box and had to pick myself up off the floor. Mike EPPS is a new one on me, and I think he’s new to the puzzle, although Omar’s appeared many times (apparently they’re cousins). Another toughie for me, ANNA LEE, has been in the grid over the years — in 1985, you’d have learned that her real name is Joan Winnifrith.
67D: There are a couple of odd bits of anatomy in the puzzle today. This one, the MASTOID bone, has been in the grid before; the IT BAND makes its debut. This one is interesting because “mast” in biology finds its origin in two Greek roots, one meaning jaw or chewing, one meaning breast. The IT BAND is an example of a fascia, or fibrous tissue — you guessed it, that shares a root (meaning bandage, tightly wrap) with fascism. Anyone who’s ever been bossed around by a tight IT band is nodding right now.
Today’s Theme
There are four pairs of theme entries today: They’re all set up in the top half of the grid and revealed in the bottom. They’re given various cryptic arrangements, like in one of those variety puzzle books — there’s a rebus, an anagram, and a couple of redistributed words. This makes the grid fun because you don’t just “get it” and know the theme’s formula; this makes the grid more difficult, because you don’t just “get it” and know the theme’s formula. But the tricks inform one another, somewhat, and the title of the puzzle — “Playing With Food” — is a broad hint.
One mildly cruel touch from Mr. Eaton-Salners is the placement of one piquant rebus entry at the top spot, at the crossing of 31A and 2D. General rebus anxiety led me to believe that every circled letter must be one as well, so that was a little stressful (had to have a snack) and I didn’t even know what the rebus could be for the longest time, I just knew it had to be one if you know what I mean.
So! The easiest entry in my opinion to break into this theme is 49A, “Collectible item with stats,” because with just a few crosses, BASEBALL CARD is attainable. If you double the number 49 (this is a coincidence) and scan down to 98A, you’re asked to figure out what to do with those bubbled letters, S, A, L, A and D. They’re not mixed, they’re not chef’s, ils ne sont pas Niçoise — they’re CHOPPED SALAD.
Another fairly straightforward cryptic treatment occurs at 24A, where your bubbles appear on the borders of that entry and must be parsed into the entry at 72A. The straightforward clue at 24A is ridiculous, not easy at all — I needed loads of crosses because I assumed that a South American bank would be a banco, you know — I didn’t walk past a midtown Banco Popular three million times without noticing. Nope, this is the BANK OF GUYANA, and the corresponding entry that addresses the whole bubbled letter situation is the most alluring concoction today, if you want to take a break before we go on.
One thing about a solve like this is that it encourages you to bounce around a bit, unless you let the theme entries fill in over time. So by the time you’re halfway done the theme entries might be solving themselves with hints from crosses. That’s how I got the second two — 59A, FOOT PATROLS, contains the ingredients of another decent comfort food (once you give the main ingredient the cryptic treatment). And, finally, I remembered the movie (or song, honestly) at 31A and figured out what I’d have to cram into that square to get the right little hors d’oeuvre. I am told that you can succeed at that spot with the entire fruit, entered as a rebus, or just its first letter, O.
Constructor Notes
Although today’s gimmick is similar to the one in my Sunday from August 2019 entitled Bird Play, the idea here predates that puzzle by a few years. It was originally conceived in 2016, though in a slightly different form.
Themer choices were pretty limiting. BANANA SPLIT had just a couple of alternatives: BANK OF GHANA and BANK OF GUYANA. CHOPPED LIVER was my choice for “chopped” in the original version of the puzzle, though it didn’t have any good options at the lengths I needed in this reimagining. I was really happy to find MASHED POTATO in FOOT PATROLS. It would have been easier to settle for a shorter anagram string, but I think uncovering a 6+ letter sequence makes for a more enjoyable solving experience.
Of course, when picking viable theme entries, I was also constrained by crossword symmetry. I’m super happy that I achieved ordering consistency between the upper and lower sets of themers. Doing so required cross-pairing the lengths. So, for example, the 12-letter BANK OF GUYANA pairs with MASHED POTATO while the 11-letter FOOT PATROLS pairs with BANANA SPLIT.
Favorite clues cut in the editorial process: It might picture a pitcher (BASEBALL CARD), Possible side effect of drugs? (R-RATING), Do one thing after another? (MIMIC), Junk collector? (PIRATE), and Cat nap trap? (LAP).
For the record, my favorite theme answers to eat, in order, are BANANA SPLIT, MASHED POTATO, CHOPPED SALAD and STUFFED OLIVE.
Put down the fork! We can work this out!
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Playing With Food - The New York Times
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