Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky Clues
SUNDAY PUZZLE — Rebecca Goldstein, of Albany, Calif., is a research scientist at Merck, developing immunotherapies for cancer. Rafael Musa, of San Francisco, is a software engineer at Airbnb. They’re both regular constructors — we have solved Sunday puzzles by each of them in 2023, in fact — but this is their first combined effort.
As friends, they see each other occasionally at Bay Area puzzle events, and elsewhere. They worked separately on this puzzle, going through many different versions to create this crossword’s ambitious theme.
Today’s Theme
There are only four items in the theme set, but they each really count as a pair, appearing at 22-/26-, 32-/39-, 69-/74- and 95-/103-Across. There is also a revealer at 115-Across that’s very cute and corny, absolutely no pun intended.
Each of those pairs of entries is stacked, and each shares a four-letter run, meaning that the same four letters appear in the same place in the puzzle in two consecutive rows. In the print edition of the puzzle, the empty grid has no horizontal dividers between the four-letter runs, creating a particular effect: Instead of entering the same letter twice, one right on top of the another, it is obvious that you are to enter each letter once, at double height. In the digital version, you get a four-by-two rectangle of gray boxes, and when you’re finished with the puzzle, the enlarging effect happens automatically.
This explanation needs an example. Take 22-Across, the “1980 film that led to the creation of the Academy Award for Best Makeup.” This is a reference to David Lynch’s THE ELEPHANT MAN, which required prosthetic makeup that took over seven hours to apply and two hours to remove. At 26-Across, “Mobile homes, punnily” solves to WHEEL ESTATE, which is a new one on me (and a debut in the crossword) but which pops up in plenty of business names and headlines. You will notice that these entries appear as so:
THEELEPHANTMAN
WHEELESTATE
The down entries that cross the letters H-E-E-L will further highlight the theme’s trick. Take 2-Down, “Its name derives from the Washoe for ‘lake’” — the entry is TAHOE, but it’s one letter short. The H in TAHOE takes up twice the usual space. In 4-Down, “G, in the C scale” solves to SOL; in this case, the L is doubled in size.
The theme pair closest to the center of the puzzle contains a particularly difficult clue. I struggled with 69-Across, “In which ‘P or Q, but not both’ is represented as (P∨Q)∧¬(P∧Q).” The entry, which appears for the first time, is SYMBOLIC LOGIC, a science that includes Boolean logic (a term I’m more familiar with). But 74-Across, “Peacock seen on TV,” sunk in more quickly; it’s the NBC LOGO. In the grid, the letters C–L–O–G are stacked on top of one another, and the crossing down entries — ECO; LOL; AUTOPAY; DUG — each contain one of the letters in CLOG.
Note the title of the puzzle, “About Two Feet.” It’s a reference to the appearance of two HEELs, two CLOGs, and two other types of footwear marching through. And, finally, the revealer, at 115-Across, is a punchline. “High standards established by a predecessor … or what you are presented with in this puzzle?” emphasizes the size of the theme entries: they are BIG SHOES TO FILL.
This is yet another idiom that’s been hijacked in my mind by “The Simpsons.” All I thought of when I got the revealer was clown shoes!
Tricky Clues
73-Across. This entry is at the center of an area of confusion for me; it was the last part of the puzzle that I managed to muddle through. The “____-Missouria Tribe” is OTOE, a bit of crosswordese — useful for its three vowels — that makes frequent puzzle appearances. This clue was made harder because I had problems with two of its crossing entries. I’m embarrassed to say that I blanked on 61-Down, “Sullivan’s opponent in a landmark free speech case”: It’s NYT, for (ahem!) The New York Times. I also have never heard of “Stephen K. ___, British stand-up comedian,” Stephen K. AMOS.
99-Across. This clue’s wordplay makes it surprising and funny, but solving it made me a little nostalgic and sad. “Break after a major fall?” solves to SNOW DAY, because what’s falling is a lot of the white stuff. But this “break” is bound for extinction (in New York City, at least): Hazardous conditions outside will now most likely mean remote learning inside. We used to have to put the radio on and just wait in suspense to hear if school was canceled, kids.
42-Down. This is a new puzzle entry (in singular or plural form). The term was vaguely familiar, but I still had to guess that “Certain side wagers, informally,” are PROP BETS. PROP stands for “proposition,” and the bet can be any that doesn’t concern the outcome of a game, from who will score the first basket to what color Gatorade will be poured on the winning team’s coach.
46-Down. This is another pun clue that really stood out to me. “Angles above 90 degrees?” solves to HOT YOGA, in which one contorts one’s joints into various twists and bends in a heated room (Ninety degrees? Try 105 degrees. Namaste!).
Constructor Notes
Rebecca: What a thrill to see this puzzle in print! The revealer and concept came to me relatively easily, but after a few hours trying to fill around the double letters by hand, I was completely stuck. Rafa’s coding skills to the rescue! Once we had a layout that looked promising, Rafa ran some code to generate a wordlist with all the possible entries that could work around the double letters. We filled the grid, and ended up deciding that the theme entries could be sparklier, so we started over. Getting everything to work — after a few more layouts, coded word lists, and rounds of fill — felt like a miracle. This puzzle couldn’t have happened without Rafa’s coding; his stack at 45- and 46-Down and signature colloquial fill at 109-Across are just the cherries on top.
Rafa: Beyond excited to be back so soon for another Sunday! I’m always in awe of Rebecca’s theme brain, and was immediately in love with this revealer when she approached me with this theme idea. It was cool to use the knowledge from my software day job to write code to make it easier to fill this grid. Stacked themers are no joke to fill around, so I’m particularly proud of the fun bonus fill we were able to squeeze into this grid, as well as the nods to our Bay Area home at 54-Across and 45-Down.
Inching Along?
Subscribers can take a peek at the answer key.
Trying to get back to the puzzle page? Right here.
What did you think?
