Trent H. Evans sends out a few letters.
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MONDAY PUZZLE — Most crosswords that appear in The New York Times are themed grids, with the exception of Fridays and Saturdays. These themes come in all shapes and sizes. They may make use of puns or anagrams — or, in the occasional devilish Thursday puzzle, require the solver to enter more than one letter per square. In each case, cracking the code is up to the solver.
In today’s crossword, Trent H. Evans gives us the runaround, using a distinctive theme style. The pattern is subtle, and takes no great pains to identify. Sam Ezersky, a puzzle editor for The New York Times, described it as “simple, but also executed very elegantly.”
The theme’s simplicity is, notably, what makes this a perfect Monday puzzle. Mr. Ezersky encouraged those who are anxious about crosswords, themed or otherwise, to give this one a shot: “This puzzle is just the sort of puzzle I want to point to future solvers and say, ‘See, you can do this!’”
Today’s Theme
Mr. Evans’s themed entries struck me as having a certain cinematic quality: They seemed to be zooming out with each passing row.
We begin in a close-up, with 17A: “In Europe, it’s known as a ‘twin town.’” That’s a SISTER CITY. Our frame widens with the “Hotly contested area in a U.S. election” (29A), better known as a PURPLE STATE. “France, for the 2024 Olympics” (45A) takes us wider with HOST COUNTRY, and we end on an aerial view with “Extraterrestrial’s home, to us” (60A), an ALIEN WORLD. Credits roll.
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Source: Elections - nytimes.com
