Jim here, sitting in for Jeff Chen, who is getting his weekly balayage treatment.
This puzzle is too hard for a Friday and needs to run on a Saturday instead. It's incredible how often Shortz screws that up!
Wait a sec, let's think about this...
There are two ways a crossword becomes difficult. The first is trickery or wordplay that sends you off in the wrong direction. "Eats" in "Eats outside" is a noun. "Making a lead balloon" requires you to pronounce it as LEED balloon. "Office binder" isn't a paper holder. "Church address" isn't a sermon, it's how you might address the person behind the pulpit. Cryptic crosswords are nothing but these kinds of twists, and they're fun. The more crosswords you do, the more you teach your brain to flex, the less likely you'll be fooled by clues like "Alaska has the highest one."
The second way to increase difficulty is more controversial: obscurities. Knowing that leporids are rabbits or HARES, and that a female swan is a PEN, feel like basic facts. But maybe you don't have kids, so there's no way to know Frozen's realm, or you hate basketball, so you don't know NBA analysts, or you never do fast-paced posing or have your hair hand painted. Maybe you've never even heard of A Black Lady Sketch Show. Maybe you read Emma so long ago there's no way you can dredge up the vicar's name. (More on "dredging up" in a future post.)
These are all obscurities if you don't know them, and when two obscurities cross, it feels like a failure. Let's say it feels like the puzzle is a failure, not you, of course.
The problem is that obscurities are in the brain of the be-solver. Different life experiences vastly affect what defines common knowledge or facts worth knowing. What is obscure to you will delight others and (I like to think) encourage them to join the fold.
Erik Agard and Brooke Husic are brilliant constructors, they both want to make more diverse crosswords themselves, and they both want to push the NYT and other venues toward more diversity by crashing through the long-standing canon of acceptable knowledge. That's a challenge tougher than a weekend themeless because the status quo has so much inertia. There's even a perceived financial risk for the Times if they delight a smaller new audience but annoy their larger traditional solvers.
This tension happens with all art forms. We shouldn't be surprised that crosswords are no different.
Sat 6/18/2022
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Jim here, sitting in for Jeff Chen, who's working on his skincare routine.
What do you want to get from solving crosswords? What do you want to accomplish by constructing one?
The answers feel like they should be obvious. Constructors like Lynn, Robyn, and Patrick get praised, here and elsewhere, for their skill in building smooth puzzles within a crossword's crazy constraints. And no question, they're brilliant, and their puzzles are fun. You usually learn a few facts from them, but the learning never feels forced.
Crosswords are changing, though, and more constructors with a point of view realize they have a platform and an opportunity to express an opinion. To push people out of their comfort zone. To point out what the quiet, comfortable puzzles are leaving out, and open a window to worlds and people and cultures that NYT crosswords have neglected. I've come to appreciate that, and I have constructors like Brooke Husic to thank.
Consider the top-left corner. I haven't read comics since childhood, but I had no idea there were queer DC characters. SUPERMAN wore his underwear over his blue tights, so maybe "heroine" is his preferred identifier? No, it's BATWOMAN. Fascinating! (Are gay references in NYT crosswords becoming more common? Yes!)
[Literally, "high city"] is another great clue. Acrophobia is a fear of heights, and OPLIS seems like a city, so it's an answer you can get by thinking about it. It's Saturday-tricky because you think about the Acropolis of Athens which itself isn't a city, per se.
Then we get to CHIWETEL EJIOFOR at 16-Across. Even if you saw the film and even if you remember his name, you might have no idea how to spell it. Unfair! It's a weird name, so it's not remotely inferable!
The point is, it's weird to you. Others will celebrate his inclusion and feel that the NYT crossword welcomes them in too. Mr. Ejiofor's successes and awards make him worthy of inclusion in a crossword.
Do you feel like you're being preached to? Get used to it. There will always be gentler puzzles but expect Saturday puzzles, in particular, to keep expanding the traditional ambit of knowledge.
Fri 5/13/2022
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Fri 3/18/2022
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Sat 11/6/2021
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Mon 8/30/2021
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Sat 7/31/2021
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Fri 7/2/2021
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Fri 5/7/2021
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Sat 12/12/2020
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Jeff doesn't appreciate SQUALL LINE or ET ALIBI, but I like them both.
SQUALL LINE I happen to know. ET ALIBI is unfamiliar, but it's the kind of clue I love. The clue is [Latin for "and elsewhere."] The answer isn't immediately obvious (Latin isn't my prima lingua) but it has to start with ET (remember ET ALIA, ET AL?) and ALIBI is the perfect excuse. It literally means you can't be guilty because you were "somewhere else!" Once ET ALIBI comes to mind, you know it must be correct.
