New York Times, Wednesday, August 3, 2022

My solo debut! A multiple choice test, mid-summer? *Sheeesh*

I must confess that I look back on this puzzle with mixed feelings. On the one hand, the critic in me frowns on the blindly clued, seemingly random trivia question. On the other hand, I really do like how this puzzle pushes the envelope. Giving solvers a solid reason to break the norm and "shade" in a square was one clear aim of this puzzle (I'd have preferred for solvers actually to blacken the square, but the rebus is as close as you get on the digital platform I guess...). In any case, I hope this puzzle finds you well and gives you something new to chew on. Big thanks to the editing team for their input and suggestions.

Speaking of STARRY, have you checked out these images on the Webb? Incredible!

...and just in case you were wondering, the combined scrabble score of my commentary here is 1246... I'll show myself out now...

We are sure to be flooded with questions from solvers about how to "correctly" input the answers, much like with a recent poker puzzle. Thankfully, there's only one baffling square today, which will be marked correct using either S or SHADE. Not D, though!

Why won't D be marked as a correct answer, even though it is the correct answer to IN A SCRABBLE GAME / WHAT TILE IS WORTH / TWO POINTS?

D-NIED.

That missing D gets a D minus. (So does that joke.)

I haven't played Scrabble since the Great Scrabble Debacle of 2009, in which my aggravatingly defensive play caused Jill to make me eat my words. Scrabble tiles are not at all tasty, if you're curious.

Thankfully, Dan's bonus material kept up my interest, the mirror layout making a ton of fantastic long Downs possible toward the top of the grid. LOST PETS, A CAPPELLA, ZEBRAFISH, MEGATRON (one of the best nicknames in all of sports) = four zingers out of four.

Not to mention, Dan even worked a few goodies into the constrained bottom of the grid. When you have TWO POINTS and A B C (D) E fixed in place, there's not much freedom left. I hardly SAY NO to BREWPUB, and KISMET is such an evocative single-word entry.

I recently read Oliver Roeder's Seven Games, and one chapter focuses on his quest to become one of the top Scrabble players in the country … by memorizing such words as AGLU, CORF, HOWK, and QOPH. Needless to say, this isn't my (Scrabble) bag. I did appreciate the attempt to do something boundary-pushing with a SHADEd square, though.