Robert Won makes his New York Times Crossword debut.
TUESDAY PUZZLE — I just love a good revealer, and boy, does today’s puzzle from the debut constructor Robert Won deliver! The satisfaction of puzzling over an ambiguous theme that leaves you guessing to the last moment; finally reaching a clever, pithy revealer; and the exclamation of epiphany that inevitably follows — these are the things I most enjoy about themed puzzles.
For a revealer to work, it has to nail the wordplay exactly, perfectly capturing the theme and how it works. Often the revealer clue will be as important as the entry itself, giving explicit instructions as to how to apply the revealer entry to the other theme entries. This was the case today, as we will discuss momentarily.
But before we get to the theme and its A-plus revealer, let’s take a peek at some of the more challenging clue/entry pairs in this puzzle.
Tricky Clues
1A. The “Hot dish that sounds cold” is CHILI because CHILI, a dish that should absolutely be eaten hot, is a homophone of “chilly,” which means “cold.”
20A. I enjoyed the clue “They play among the reeds” for OBOISTS. People who play the oboe are called OBOISTS, and the oboe is a reed instrument.
48A. If I hadn’t had any crosses in, and missed the question mark in the clue, I could easily have entered “woo” as the answer to this clue: “Go a-courting?” That question mark, however, tells us that the clue is actually a pun — in this case, if you go a-courting, you may be going to court to SUE someone.
62A. Another question mark means another pun — “Pisa dough?” is a play on “pizza dough,” but instead of the delicious base for a Pisan pizza, we’re looking for the type of money (“dough”) that one might use in Pisa: EUROS.
58D. I’m calling it now — “John of Salisbury” is the clue of the week for me. John of Salisbury was a 12th-century author and philosopher, but that’s not who we are talking about here. “John of Salisbury” is asking for another way of saying “john” (“bathroom”) in Salisbury (a city in England). A John of Salisbury is therefore a LOO. This is just an incredible bit of wordplay.
Today’s Theme
As I said above, the revealer really makes this theme for me. We find it near the bottom of the puzzle at 56A, with the clue “Genre with a Hall of Fame in Cleveland … or what can follow the respective halves of 17-, 33- and 40-Across.” The genre with a Hall of Fame in Cleveland can only be ROCK AND ROLL, but how does this apply to the three seemingly unrelated theme entries? Let’s take a look.
First, at 17A, we have BLACK COFFEE (“Easy order for a barista”). Following the instructions of the revealer, we can put the word ROCK after BLACK to create BLACKROCK (the name of an investment management corporation) and ROLL after COFFEE to create COFFEE ROLL (an undeniably delicious treat). The second theme entry is BEDSPRING (33A: “Coil in a mattress”), which becomes BEDROCK (home of the Flintstones) and SPRING ROLL (another undeniably delicious treat). Finally, we’ve got MOON JELLY (40A: “Ocean invertebrate with a round, translucent body”), which becomes MOON ROCK and JELLY ROLL (more deliciousness!).
This is an impressive theme set — I’m sure finding even three possible theme entries was an incredible undertaking, and it’s even more impressive that Mr. Won has identified three more possible themers in his notes. Take a look!
Constructor Notes
My older sister first introduced me to crossword puzzles when I was in middle school and she was visiting home from college. I enjoyed solving them with her, but in the years that followed, my crosswording was mostly limited to in-flight magazines and the back page of my college newspaper.
But during the lockdowns of the pandemic, doing crossword puzzles helped to keep me sane. I was gifted a New York Times subscription (thanks Phil!) and the crossword became part of my daily routine. I started recording videos as I solved the puzzles, and posted them to YouTube to share with friends. Even when we were all stuck at home, we would meet on Zoom to chat and solve crosswords and cryptics together.
All of this puzzling got me thinking about how crosswords are put together and what themes I really enjoy. I hope figuring out the theme of my puzzle brings you some joy. Other themers I considered were LITTLE FINGER and BLACK SESAME. I also wonder how many people have PET LOBSTERs.
Special thanks to Liz Chen, Alex Lazar and Oriana Wen, who are great test solvers and even better friends.
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