Constructor: Jeremy Newton
Relative difficulty: No idea ... let's say ... Easy to Easy-Medium?
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THEME:"Some Light Reading"— grid depicts seven different stoplights, in various states of coloration (red, green, or yellow); the colors stand for colors in the Acrosses that run through them and for STOP, GREEN, or GO (respectively) in the Downs:
Theme answers:
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I was just thinking "three very good puzzles in a row, that's an extraordinary and anomalous run, I wonder how long the puzzle can keep it up?" So I jinxed it, I guess, because the streak stops hard at three. I should've known Sunday would let me down, again. I'm like Charlie Brown and the football with Sundays. "Maybe this time..." But then no. Everything good about this puzzle is in its look—really impressive to get those black square formations looking exactly like traffic lights, and maintaining symmetry with the light placement was a nice added touch. Beyond that, this puzzle had nothing to offer except one very creative answer (VODKA RED BULL). The rest was easy, humorless, surpriseless, and too often awkward, clunky, or downright ugly. The gimmick was a cinch to uncover, and once you know it, it has no gifts left to give. Actually, there was one "gift," and it was the most baffling and inexcusable part of the theme: the Down clue running through the yellow light. So if green means GO and red means STOP, yellow means ... SLOW? WAIT? CAUTION? Like, I had no ideas. Finished the puzzle with no ideas. Couldn't even really make sense of the way the clue was worded, with that strange bracketed [or] in the middle of it. Do you really expect me to believe, and to have understood, as I was solving, that the yellow light there meant STOP *or* GO. "I'LL STOP NOW"& "I'LL GO NOW"!? It is true that you can choose to stop when you see yellow or you can choose to go when you see yellow but you can choose to do a lot of things and none of this has anything to do with what the color formally means, which is "proceed with caution." Admittedly, that is a phrase that would be hard to rebus. But the fact that the yellow was both words (STOP and GO), or either word, I guess, oof, that was awkward. Also, HASAGO and MAKEASTOP feel like a theme idea running on fumes, and the last thing this puzzle needed was two more ___ A ___ answers when it already had two "EAT A SANDWICH" representatives in play with LOSE A GAME and HIRE A DJ, LOL, that second one is so bad it's almost good. Almost. After you admire the puzzle's look and grasp the theme, it's just a boring walk to the end. There's very little to entertain you along the way, unless you are entertained by ACIDHEAD, in which case, what is wrong with you? Who says that? What year is it?
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Notes:
Relative difficulty: No idea ... let's say ... Easy to Easy-Medium?
Theme answers:
- INFRARED SPECTRUM / STOPGAPS (7A: Range of light that's invisible to the human eye)
- WINTERGREEN MINTS / GO STALE (23A: Strong breath fresheners / 27D: Lose its spark, as a relationship)
- VODKA RED BULL / HEART-STOPPING (60A: Cocktail with an energy boost / 35D: Thrilling)
- IN THE YELLOWPAGES / "I'LL (GO [or] STOP) NOW" (63A: Listed, obsolescently / 43D: "It's my turn" [or] Comment after rambling on)
- EVERGREEN STATE / "DON'T GO THERE" (66A: Washington, with "the" / 37D: "That's a touchy subject")
- CATCH RED-HANDED / MAKE A STOP (103A: Bust mid-crime / 77D: Pull off the road for gas or snacks, say)
- THE JOLLY GREEN GIANT / HAS A GO (109A: Mascot who made his Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade debut in 2017 / 80D: Tries)
Falcon (Samuel Thomas "Sam" Wilson) is a superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character was introduced by writer-editor Stan Lee and artist Gene Colan in Captain America #117 (Sept. 1969), and was the first African-American superhero in mainstream comic books.As the superhero Falcon, Wilson uses mechanical wings to fly, and has limited telepathic and empathic control over birds. After Steve Rogers retires, Wilson becomes Captain America in All-New Captain America #1 (Jan. 2015) and leader of the Avengers. Wilson's deceased nephew was the Incredible Hulk's sometime-sidekick Jim Wilson, one of the first openly HIV-positive comic-book characters. Jim Wilson's father Gideon Wilson would go on to join the Gamma Corps.
Sam Wilson as Falcon and Captain America has made several media appearances, including in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, where the character is portrayed by Anthony Mackie in the films Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Ant-Man (2015), Captain America: Civil War (2016), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Avengers: Endgame (2019); and the television miniseries The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (2021). (wikipedia)
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The fill really is dreary. I kinda like VPPICK (60D: Major political announcement before a convention, informally). That's a very showy and unexpected string of letters. But too often I was dealing with stuff like ADES and BAAED and ILIE and RETAP and TEEHEE and OREIDA, or else Johnny f***ing DEPP (please, cancel culture, can't you be real, just once!?), or else UNGLOVED, what in the world? So the architecture gets high marks, but as for the actual feel of living inside and moving through the architecture ... that was less satisfying. Nice to look at, not so nice to solve. You should probably trust a puzzle when it tells you straight off that IT'S BAD (1A: "In a word ... awful!"). I will admit that my mood was soured right away by the fact that I couldn't (or wasn't willing to) solve the puzzle in my normal solving software, which doesn't do the cutesy visual stuff that the NYTXW seems to find increasingly integral to the solving experience. I got a legit WARNING as soon as I started in:
My instinct was, of course, "I'll show you who can solve what" and then I bumbled around and finally figured out the gimmick, but found it so dull so quickly that I decided "I'm not doing this blind solving stuff any more" and switched over to the puzzle page so I could see the colored grid. And then that made everything dramatically easier, though no less pleasant. Again, the grid looks sweet. But people gotta solve the thing.
["Should I be reading STOP or GO / I don't know!"]
- 85D: Avenger who stepped into the role of Captain America (FALCON) — just as BATWOMAN was right up my alley yesterday, so FALCON, today ... isn't. I couldn't care less about the MCU. I tried, Lord knows I tried. But that was hours and hours and hours of my life lost to forgettable mediocrity. I can't believe how many damn movies there have been and I don't believe for one second that twenty years from now anyone will be able to keep any of them straight or even remember them as discrete movies. It'll just be ... a haze of brands. Annnnnyway, FALCON. I was not aware. Or I was, and I forgot. I might be interested in reading those early comics, though. I thought Marvel's Luke Cage (aka Power Man) was the earliest mainstream Black superhero, with DC's Black Lightning shortly thereafter, so now I'm intrigued. But only from a strictly historical, and strictly comics perspective. The MCU can, as I say, BITE ME (4D: "Oh, shove it!").
- 45D: Marijuana strains said to be more invigorating (SATIVAS)— more invigorating ... than what? TWO PAIR? Your MEDS? PAULINE Kael? Help me out here.
- 92D: Prankster's smug shout ("GOT YA!") — there is no font big enough or italicized enough to capture how loudly I want to say "That Is Not How You Spell That!" The word is GOTCHA. There is a singer named GOTYE. Maybe you were thinking of him. You remember him. He's somebody that you used to know.
Now it's time for this week's
Letter to the Editor
This week's letter comes from Ellie Gottlieb, a teenager from Massachusetts, who has a special request. Ellie writes:
My name is Ellie and I'm a teenager from Massachusetts (near Natick!). I've grown up doing the NYT crossword with my dad, who is an avid reader of your blog. He does the crossword almost every day and then reads your blog (he agrees with you most of the time). I was wondering if you could give my dad a shout-out on your blog post for the crossword on Father's Day? His name is Daniel. I totally understand if it isn't possible, but I thought it was worth a try.
I replied (and this is verbatim): "100% yes." Then I said maybe she should do the shout-out herself. And she agreed. And here it is:
Shout-out to Daniel, crossword enthusiast and the best dad ever! Happy Father's Day! We love you!
Hope that brightens your day, Daniel. You seem pretty lucky :)
Take care, everyone.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorldP.S. Hey if you wanted to get Dad a belated Father's Day gift, or anyone a belated Any Day gift, you could do worse than this (I have nothing to do with this creative endeavor; I just think it's cool, for obvious reasons):
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| [You can order the shirt here] |