10-14-2022 4:32am

HUNT VALLEY RESIDENT GETS

Jeff Barto Editor

WORDPLAY, THE CROSSWORD COLUMN

Ups and Downs

Tracy Gray’s Sunday puzzle doesn’t miss a step.

By Caitlin Lovinger, NEW YORK TIMES

SUNDAY PUZZLE — Today’s constructor, Tracy Gray, lives in Hunt Valley, Md.; she and her husband have owned and operated a lawn and landscaping business for 33 years. She got the idea for this puzzle last Christmas while riding an escalator, up and down, at a mall, further evidence that ideas can come from anywhere, if you let them. This is Tracy’s 33rd puzzle, and ninth Sunday grid, for The Times. (And her first puzzle in over a year! Welcome back.)

I love the dimensionality of today’s theme, and as I worked through it and tried to come up with some possibilities of my own, I realized that this was a much more difficult design to execute than it at first appeared.

Tricky Clues

This puzzle is packed with suitably kinetic fill, and the theme is interwoven to the extent that there are more theme entries than you might think on your first run through the clues.

45A. What a juicy term for “Big lugs”; GALOOTS (and “galoot”) make more appearances in the Times puzzle than they do in common conversation, I figure, though there’s much discussion online about the term’s etymology. I always thought it was said with some affection, but “galoot” has been a putdown in the past, and the original “galoots” may have been rowers in a ship’s galley, or even pirates.

92A. This clue is not a corvine reference; the “Crow language family” is SIOUAN, a word I tried to insert an “X” in several times while solving.

5D. I just tried and failed at these “Boot camp exercises performed on all fours” (I can’t even walk like a duck, embarrassingly). Perhaps I could muster up the core strength if I were being chased by a Grizzly while attempting BEAR CRAWLS, but it’s going to have to find me in Queens first.

FINISH READING HERE

--STOP READING UNLESS YOU WANT TO SEE THE COMPLETE ANSWERS--

Tracy Gray’s New York Times crossword, “Ups and Downs” —Nate’s write-up

Hi, all! I hope this post finds you well and experiencing more ups than downs. We have a bit of an Escherian grid today, so let’s climb up an slide in:

09.04.22 Sunday New York Times Puzzle

– 35A diagonally up to 22A: EDMUND HILLARY [Mount Everest scaler] – HILL in circles
– 39A diagonally up to 24A: RAN RAMPANT [Went out of control] – RAMP in circles
– 60A diagonally down to 79A: EVIL STEPSISTER [“Cinderella” meanie] – STEPS in circles
– 73A diagonally down to 95A: BACKDOOR SLIDERS [Lateral-breaking pitches] – SLIDE in circles
– 80A diagonally down to 109A: PARACHUTE IN [Glide down from above] – CHUTE in circles
– 114A diagonally up to 84A: ALASTAIR SIM [Portrayer of Scrooge in 1951’s “A Christmas Carol”] – STAIRS in circles

I really enjoyed the Chutes & Ladders nature of this grid, with a HILL, RAMP, and STAIRS to bring you up the grid and STEPS, a SLIDE, and a CHUTE to bring you down it. My favorite theme entries were the one where the conveyance was present in a totally different form in the base answer, like in EDMUND HILLARY or RAN RAMPANT, and I wished there were more of a transformation in some of the other entries. I was waiting on a revealer that never came, but I reckon the graphic nature of this theme along with the title meant there didn’t need to be one. It was a very quick solve for me, though, which was a nice bonus and could tip the scales in favor of this puzzle for folks on the fence (though I suspect there’ll be a mixed response to this puzzle).

My favorite clue of the puzzle was easily 112A BRATWURST [It’s a banger in Germany]. – I love a good sausage joke!