FRIDAY PUZZLE — Welcome back to a featurette that I like to call “First Pass Friday,” where solvers get to see how I did on the first tricky themeless puzzle of the week and, subsequently, feel much, much better about themselves.
To be perfectly honest, I did not find Trenton Charlson’s puzzle to be all that challenging, even though there were plenty of speed bumps along the way. Maybe I was too busy enjoying the relative crunchiness of those high-scoring Scrabble letters that he sprinkled all over his grid. Or maybe I was so entertained by the excellent cluing and crunchy entries that I didn’t even notice that the northeastern half of my puzzle was still completely blank.
Look at that grid. Even with just half the puzzle done, that is quite an assortment of rare letters. I count four Z’s alone. And phrases like DEEP SIGH, OVER HERE and HOT LAVA are pretty funky. GOOD JOB, Mr. Charlson. Clues like “Acts like a quidnunc?” for MEDDLES are poetic and lovely.
Still, I was having trouble breaking into those blank sectors. I was also flummoxed by the comic strip kid, JASON, at 57A, and his crossings, until I remembered SILEX, which gave me XEROXES.
So I hopped up to the northwest. Having ZAR at 1A got me NAZARENE, and once I had that, the crossings fell into place. I live with a South African, whose culture dictates that anytime is a good time for grilling (15A), but that didn’t fit, and the answer turned out to be about academic grilling anyway (ORAL EXAM).
I know I said this would be a first pass, but sheer Taurean stick-to-it-iveness made me hang in there and show you the rest of my solve. I want you to know that you can do this, too. Do whatever you need to finish: Take breaks; have a piece of chocolate (that’s my go-to method, because I’m always on deadline); ask a friend or a loved one for help; look things up. That’s how you learn. That’s how you improve. If you find that you can’t remember how to read a certain type of clue, you will most likely find the answer in our “How to Solve the New York Times Crossword” guide. Practice will teach you how to read the clues, too, so you can answer “Decreases, in a way?” with confidence. (We’re not looking to actually decrease a number, we are looking to remove the creases in an item of clothing, and the answer is STEAMS.)
Also, whoever wrote the clue for 58A (“Devils’ advocate?: Abbr.) is brilliant. The answer is NHL, or National Hockey League (The N.J. Devils are a team in the league).
Anyway, this isn’t a test, it’s a game. That’s important to remember. We get caught up in feeling like we have to prove ourselves constantly, and there is seriously nothing to prove here. If you get an answer, yay you. If you don’t, move on until you find one that you know. Those gimmes are there, trust me.
Getting an answer wrong or not getting it at all says nothing about who you are as a person. It just means that the constructor and puzzle editors fooled you. It means that you have more to learn. And, in my opinion, that’s the best position to be in. I hope I never stop learning, and that I always maintain my capacity to be surprised. That’s what makes life sweet.
Have a great weekend, everyone. See you for the Monday puzzle.
Constructor Notes
This puzzle started with JASON FOX, for reasons both Scrabbly and sentimental. Foxtrot is a favorite newspaper comic of mine, and growing up, I found Jason a bit too relatable at times. Like Jason, I made my own Jumbles, and I think Jason would have approved of the elaborate code in which I wrote a message for my fourth-grade teacher.
Over all, I think this grid turned out quite nicely; I was particularly pleased that though there is certainly no shortage of rare letters, the short fill seemed remarkably clean for a 68-word puzzle. I enjoy working with themeless patterns heavy on seven-letter entries, and I think the selection here complements the longer answers well.
Though it feels like significantly more clues were changed than is typical for my themeless puzzles, I’m glad that my clue for Mitch HEDBERG survived. He has so many great one-liners that I’m tempted to try and work his name into every puzzle I create. The man used to be a comedic legend (he still is, but he used to be, too). [Mr. Hedberg died in 2005. — D.A.]
Hope you enjoyed the puzzle!
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