The Puzzler: 2/19/22: The L.A.Times and The Washington Post: with Constructor Article
and …
Link to article and puzzle solution (below) is here
Feb 19, 2022
Saturday, February 19, 2022, Evan Kalish
Themeless Saturday by Evan Kalish
I had to walk away several times to get this one to unfold corner by corner. I’ll tell you where I struggled as I go through the write-up. Here are Evan’s generous comments:
When I first developed this puzzle in May 2020 I thought this grid was a great for developing interesting—and intersecting—stacks. The seed was the final across entry (clued as: [A masterpiece!]), which was a fairly novel entry at the time and, in my mind, perfectly placed. I always try to incorporate as many unique answers as possible in my themeless grids without sacrificing fill quality. While this 66-word grid meant I couldn’t include as many novel entries from my personal word list as I might like, I was pleased by XWord Info’s Freshness Factor analysis of the grid!Clue-wise I was pleased that my proposals for COMING OUT, MOUNT SINAI, and EMPTY NESTS made the cut. Re: the latter, while I’m not a parent I’ve found that I often try to incorporate some aspect of the parenting experience into my cluing. I was a bit sad that a couple of my other angles didn’t make the cut, but that comes with the territory. Rejected clues included:
— Figures considered nobility in “Flatland” (OCTAGONS)
— Sources of unattended towels, to some hotel “souvenir” seekers (POOL AREAS)
— Occasions for some high-profile appearances? (BAD HAIR DAYS)
Finally, I liked the mirroring clues of BLEH and ICK, as well as the reference to “Arrival” for ETs.
Thank you for all for solving. I hope you enjoyed the puzzle!
Evan
As many of you will remember, Evan’s hobby is collecting photos of post office around the country and he has visited over 10,000 of them including one from every county in America. Here’s his website: Postlandia
CBS recently did a CBS Morning piece of disappearing post offices which included a lovely interview with Evan.
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