Constructor: Leslie Rogers
Relative difficulty: Medium
THEME: SPRING FORWARD (Observe daylight saving time, in a way ... as in 17-, 29- and 54-Across?)— The three theme entries are phrases that include times, all of which have been "sprung forward" by one hour
Theme answers:
- DARKNESS AT ONE PM (60A: 1940 Arthur Koestler novel set during the Moscow Trials)
- SIX O'CLOCK SHADOW (29A: Short stubble)
- BURN THE ONE AM OIL (54A: Work very late)
A pulsar (from pulse and -ar as in “quasar”)[1] is a highly magnetized rotating compact star (usually neutron stars but also white dwarfs) that emits beams of electromagnetic radiation out of its magnetic poles.[2] This radiation can be observed only when a beam of emission is pointing toward Earth (similar to the way a lighthouse can be seen only when the light is pointed in the direction of an observer), and is responsible for the pulsed appearance of emission. Neutron stars are very dense and have short, regular rotational periods. This produces a very precise interval between pulses that ranges from milliseconds to seconds for an individual pulsar. Pulsars are one of the candidates for the source of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays. (See also centrifugal mechanism of acceleration.)
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Hi all, Rachel Fabi in for Rex today. I enjoyed this one a lot! The theme is clever, the theme entries are funny and interesting, and the fill is, on the whole, pretty uniformly excellent, with just a couple exceptions. The flow of the solve felt different for me, and it took me until JUST NOW, several minutes into working on this writeup, to figure out why. At first I thought maybe the grid was extra wide, but I've counted the squares *several* times and nope, it's not that. It's the symmetry! This grid has left/right (mirror) symmetry instead of traditional rotational symmetry, which resulted in me moving through the grid in really unusual ways. It's funny to realize that, when you've been doing the crossword for a long time, you get a feel for how to navigate a grid, and when something is different you can just *feel* it in the solve, like trying to put a shoe on the wrong foot. I get the same feeling solving puzzles with diagonal symmetry, and, as with today's puzzle, it always takes me longer than it should to realize why. L/R symmetry is neat and different and exceptionally useful when you're trying to build a grid around themers of asymmetrical lengths (in this case 15/15/15/13). And I'm sure I'm imagining it, but the grid kind of looks like a clock? Nah, I'm probably just projecting now.
Cool grid aside, I really enjoyed the theme today. I wasn't familiar with DARKNESS AT ONE AM (Noon), so it took me until the second theme entry to really get a foothold on the gimmick. SIX O'CLOCK SHADOW fell easily due to the X of SURTAXES, and backsolving to ONE PM followed pretty quickly after that. BURN THE ONE AM OIL was then immediately inferable, so although I struggled mightily at first, the puzzle clicked into place in short order after I cracked the theme (hence the medium-average rating for the puzzle's difficulty). The timing is perfect for this theme, given that we SPRING FORWARD this coming weekend, which makes me wonder how long the NYT editorial staff sat on this puzzle to make that timing work out! I hope this isn't constructor Leslie Rogers's debut, because having to wait for a specific date for publication sounds like torture. (Ok, yes, this is easily knowable, so I went and confirmed that it's not her debut.)
I also think it's worth noting that the fill today is super fresh / generally high quality, and some standard fill came with fresh clues. I'm especially glad to see DESI clued as [South Asian living abroad] instead of DESI Arnaz for what appears to be only the 5th time in NYT history. Also fun: SWOLE (although I can see this slang confusing some solvers), SINE (which had an actual π in the clue!), the repeated clue for HIP and ARM [In yoga, one side of a triangle formed in triangle pose]. In fact, the clues were definitely another highlight of this puzzle. I'll bulletpoint some favorites below. The one thing that irked me in this puzzle was the dang clue on NANCY [Woman's name that's also a city in France]. Oh, were there no NANCYs of note worthcluingthisentryabout? Really, none? I suspect this was an editorial rather than a constructor decision.
Bullets:
Favorite clues:
Signed, Rachel Fabi, Queen-for-a-Day of CrossWorld
- 20A: Signs of something moving? for TEARS— Because this was in that top section, this took me forever to land, but I smiled when I got it
- 58A: Safari runner, at times for IOS— Because the built-in Apple browser is Safari. Clever!!!
- 46D: It gets you close to home for TRIPLE— I normally don't go in for the sports entries but this is a nice misdirect
A few other things:
- Does the clue for USED [Like most books offered on AbeBooks.com] count as a dupe of ABE? I don't super care, personally, but I know some solvers do.
- Not a fan of Jack DORSEY
- Love that feeling when you get to 2D and it's [The Bulldogs of the N.C.A.A.] and you panic because there are so. many. [Bulldogs of the N.C.A.A.]
Overall, this puzzle is great and I thoroughly enjoyed it, despite solving while burning the 11pm oil (which is one hour later than I'd normally go to sleep...!). Thanks for letting me blog at you for a bit, and see you at the New Yorker crossword reviews over on Crossword Fiend, or back here on the 23rd of the month, when Rex and I will (hopefully) do our next video solve, or on crossword twitter.