![]() Lastly, shout-out to my friends, who have diligently test-solved my puzzles, and to my nearly 2-year-old niece, who is going to be a finger-painting prodigy. I also want to acknowledge Evan Birnholz, who has gone out of his way to give me helpful feedback on this grid and many others. Special thanks to my dad, who has been doing crosswords for years and has always been incredibly supportive of my constructing efforts. That turned into my ripping out everything except the theme answers and the revealer, but luckily getting the new fill in place took only a few hours. ![]() A few months ago, I was toying with new constructing software, and I wanted to see if I could remove a few things I didn’t like from the original. The fill is completely different from what was originally accepted. The theme started with the ambiguity of BLUEPRINTS and came together in about an evening. The first few efforts were nothing to write home about, but I’m pleased with how this one turned out. I work in higher-ed communications, and I’ve been making crosswords since late 2018, not long after I started solving on a regular basis. Greim about his experience constructing it. Another question mark means another pun! “Garden-variety” is an idiom meaning “commonplace,” but “Garden variety?” is the clue for HERB. Here, that word is SHE, which precedes “Wolf” in the Shakira hit “SHE Wolf” and “Bop” in Cyndi Lauper’s hit “SHE Bop.”ģ1D. When a clue is looking for a “lead-in” - as with the clue “Lead-in to ‘Bop’ and ‘Wolf’ in hits by Cyndi Lauper and Shakira” - the solver needs to identify a word that comes before the two words indicated. Greim identified “three in-the-language phrases that start with a color and end with a part of the hand,” and concluded with a challenge: “I’ll leave it as an exercise to the reader to think of any other alternate theme answers - we cannot.” Tricky Cluesģ5A. Fagliano noted, is also very “tight,” which he said was “crossword editor-speak for how constraining an idea is.” He explained that Mr. This manages to merge those two genres in a fresh and surprising way.” This theme, Mr. Fagliano told me: “Color themes are very common, as are body part themes. ![]() Each theme entry combines a color and a word related to fingers to create a term that is not actually related to finger painting: WHITE KNUCKLE, BLUE PRINTS and GREEN THUMB. Fagliano observed, at the end of the puzzle) indicates, the theme of this puzzle is FINGER PAINTS (51A: “Materials for a preschool artist … or a hint to 20-, 32- and 40-Across”). I’ll say more about tricky clues in a bit, but first let’s take a look at the AHA moment of the theme.Īs the revealer (placed, as Mr. Fagliano said, “tricky clues obscure their meaning in order to put up resistance to the solver and increase the feeling of satisfaction when finally cracked.” Similarly, a themed puzzle usually places the revealer phrase last “to build up curiosity before finally allowing the breakthrough of understanding.” To achieve that “Eureka!” experience, Mr. He told me that “a satisfying ‘AHA’ moment requires two ingredients: resistance and breakthrough.” I was curious about what makes for a great AHA moment, so I asked Mr. ![]() Greim’s puzzle also delivers a solid helping of satisfying “AHA!” moments (see 2D) in both its clues and the theme itself. ![]() Joel Fagliano, the senior puzzle editor for The Times, told me that this puzzle stood out to the editors for the “simple yet delightfully creative idea” anchoring its theme. Today’s puzzle is a New York Times Crossword debut by the constructor Roy Greim. MONDAY PUZZLE - Eureka! We’ve found it! The Monday crossword is here at last. ![]()
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