Malaika Handa opens our solving weekend.
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FRIDAY PUZZLE — Every constructor brings something different to the New York Times Crossword, and I’d like to think that I approach each solve with equal enthusiasm. When it comes to the different days of the solving week, however, I’m not ashamed to play favorites: Fridays have my heart.
The Times runs two themeless puzzles per week, on Fridays and Saturdays. Because the Saturday crossword is generally understood to be the hardest of the week, I like to think of Fridays as the calm before the storm. These grids give us a welcome change of pace after a week of themed puzzles and serve as a teaser for what’s to come. I don’t know how else to describe what I love about them — they just work.
Today’s Friday fare is the handiwork of Malaika Handa, a constructor whose deftness for punchy fill has made her a regular and much-admired figure in the T.C.C.U. — the Times Crossword Cinematic Universe. This is an especially breezy grid, with no ambiguous spanners or any obscure phrasing. It just works.
Tricky Clues
19A. Here’s today’s tip about solving question-marked clues: Try interpreting words as different parts of speech. In [Leaves for dinner?], for instance, “leaves” seems like a verb. But what if we interpret it as a noun, as in the leaves you eat for dinner? There’s our answer: KALE.
23A. Users of the TI-83 — or of any calculators that predate smartphones — may have the upper hand here. [What might be confused with “5” on a digital display] is the letter ESS. (When entries are letters, they tend to be written phonetically.)
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Source: Elections - nytimes.com
