New York Times, Thursday, June 27, 2013
This puzzle:
This puzzle was born from 20-Across. I noticed the alternate parsing of GIANTSQUID somewhere in my normal (non-crossword) life, and set out to make a puzzle based around it. I originally wanted to include one team from each of the four major sports, but could not for the life of me find a decent two-word term that included an NHL team's mascot with the appropriate number of letters. STARSTRUCK was close, but that's one word; DEVILSTICK was possible, but probably not well-known enough in this context. I eventually gave up that idea and concentrated on baseball teams. I was very worried that TIGERSTRIPE would be a puzzle killer, because the term seemed a little forced and not quite in the language enough, but everything worked out.
Will did ask for a revision to remove two entries: CELIAC at 22-Down and TAE GU at 48-Across. Getting rid of CELIAC was simple, but removing TAE GU meant a complete rework of the southwest corner. When I was finished, I had these entries:
DADD, ALIEN, FLAME, DAFT, DEMEAN, and NERF
…which were later edited to become:
DADA, OLINS, SLADE, DOST, ANDEAN, and SERF.
Pretty interesting stuff, if you ask me. I worked hard on the cluing for this puzzle, and am proud that a slight majority are mine (or very close to mine). However, I am not responsible for 5-Across, which is brutally brilliant.
1 B | 2 R | 3 A | 4 N | 5 B | 6 E | 7 A | 8 T | 9 L | 10 E | 11 A | 12 D | 13 D |
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14 R | U | T | S | 15 A | R | T | H | U | R | 16 L | E | O |
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17 A | B | B | Y | 18 T | I | T | A | N | S | 19 M | S | N |
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20 G | I | A | N | 21 T | S | Q | U | I | D | 22 F | A | M | E |
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23 S | K | Y | C | A | M | 24 E | 25 N | E | R | O | ||||
26 C | A | 27 R | 28 D | 29 I | N | A | L | S | I | 30 N |
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31 D | 32 A | 33 D | 34 A | 35 N | E | A | R | 36 P | L | A | N | O |
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37 O | L | I | N | 38 S | 39 A | K | A | 40 S | A | L | E | S |
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41 S | L | A | D | E | 42 C | A | N | 43 S | 44 S | A | S | E |
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45 T | I | G | E | R | 46 S | T | R | I | P | 47 E | ||||
48 S | N | A | F | U | 49 A | X | 50 I | 51 O | 52 M | 53 S |
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54 K | W | O | N | 55 P | 56 I | 57 R | 58 A | T | E | S | H | I | P |
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59 N | E | S | 60 D | E | V | I | T | O | 61 L | A | N | E |
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62 E | L | I | 63 E | R | E | S | T | U | 64 E | R | I | N |
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65 E | L | S | 66 A | B | S | E | N | T | 67 T | E | S | T |
Answer summary:
2 unique to this puzzle, 1 debuted here and reused later, 1 unique to Modern Era but used previously.
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