8/1/2023 0 Comments Ny times crossword editor 1942![]() The first editor of the New York Times crossword puzzle, serving in thatĬapacity from 1942 to 1969. I suspect this one will be the toughest for casual solvers. 61D: Classic name in crossword puzzles ( M ARG ARET F ARR AR).Whereas the rest are contained within one word. Pairs spans two words (at the end of CASTS and the beginning of THE), This is the only theme entry where one of the letter 47D: Initiates a conflict ( CA ST S THE FIR ST STONE).What a terrible choice for #1 if that had been the right answer. 45A: #1 on the American Film Institute's "Greatest Movie Musicals" list ( S ING IN' IN THE RA IN) - My first thought before I caught onto the rebus: MOULIN ROUGE.22A: Comic strip about the Patterson family ( F OR BETTER OR F OR W ORSE).15D: Elocution phrase ( H OW N OW, BR OWN C OW).4D: 1942 Cary Grant comedy ( ONCE UP ON A H ONEYMO ON) - Not one I've ever seen, but I'm a huge fan of another Cary Grant comedy, " Arsenic and Old Lace" from 1944.I didn't know CAMAY, but I got all of the crosses with no problem. Just about everything else is rock-solid. The worst offenders might be the geographical partial MOINES (27A: Des _, Iowa), the I-can't-believe-that's-spelled-correctly NOES (78A: "Regrets" and others), and the long abbreviation PARENS (90A: Holders of addl. To be able to do all of that with an absolute minimum of poor fill is really impressive. Now, take all of those constraints and look at the grid again. That means that with the eight theme answers, 38 of 140 entries in the puzzle (27% of all the answers) are directly involved in making the theme fit together. Then, consider just how much real estate went into crossing those rebus squares with common words and phrases (32 rebus squares altogether, which is huge for a Sunday, and 30 non-theme answers cross them). ![]() Consider first how Patrick Berry had to choose eight in-the-language theme answers that A) have the same two-letter string repeated exactly four times and B) fit symmetrically with each other when those strings are jammed into one square. Whatever the reason, I'm glad I got to fill in today, because I got a real good one on my plate. Seriously, it's weird how many of the best known puzzle bloggers are all vacationing at the same time. Evan Birnholz here filling in for Rex while he's away during the Mass Crossword Blogger Exodus of 2013. ![]()
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