MONDAY PUZZLE — Happy Monday, Solvers! He brings you a week of glowing tips and tricks for solving the daily New York Times crossword riddles. Today’s puzzle was created by Byron Walden. Byron Walden is making her 105th appearance in The Times.
Mr. Walden is known for his extremely difficult non-themed puzzles, 66 of which were played on Saturdays. With today’s ridiculously easy puzzles, Mr. Walden is, so to speak, a “hit of the cycle” and publishes puzzles every day. This is a feat achieved by only 76 other crossword constructors out of approximately 1,200 crossword constructors. Kudos to Mr. Walden for joining these elite ranks.
Since it’s a Monday puzzle, most of the clues are “very easy!” — should be within reach for even the most novice solver. Mondays are a great place to start if you’re new to crosswords. Today’s puzzle is a particularly good starting point due to the sheer simplicity of the subject (more on that below).I had a hard time distinguishing Any It might be the clue that I classify as “tricky,” but there are still some clues worth taking a closer look.
tricky clues
23A. The clue “parsley, sage, rosemary or thyme” is a very simple way to cue his HERB, but I am enjoying the oblique reference to the folk song “Scarborough Fair” made popular by Simon and Garfunkel. did.
37A. “Gastrophile” is a combination of the prefix “gastro-“, which refers to anything related to the stomach, and the suffix “-phile”, which means “lover”. So “Gastrofile” is FOODIE.
9D. In fact, it always amazes me when I remember there is a “letter after the Zetas”. Given that the Latin alphabet ends in Z, it seems only natural that the Greek alphabet ends in Zeta. nevertheless! In fact, Zeta is only his sixth letter in the Greek alphabet, followed by ETA.
18D. “What people have done” can be a bit difficult for new solvers. You might say that the goner has no hope because he is the one who gave up.
34D. Quoted cues are required by the solver to identify colloquial equivalents. Here “Easy Peasy!” is another way of saying “So simple!”
today’s theme
This puzzle contains three 15-character thematic entries and a short revealer that ties them all together. Here are some clues to reveal: “Hints to those found in common small golf goals…or 17, 39, and 60 Across”. I’ve played miniature golf a few times in my life, and never been particularly successful.My personal goal is to get the ball into the hole Final” However, for more accomplished mini-golfers, the common goal is actually PAR TWO. This is also a good description of the characters that make up each of the three theme entries.
The first theme is S.parring parTNER (“opponent to help train a boxer”) — contains the word PAR, as indicated by the revealer Twice. we also have parAllele parK (“the most difficult task for many student drivers”) and parTS DEparTMENT (“Place at car dealer to pick up wiper blades or spark plugs”).
This is a clean and simple set by Walden. I appreciate that each of the three theme entries is his 15 characters, spanning the entire width of the grid. This makes new solvers easier to identify and adds an elegant layer to the theme.
Notes on constructors
Don’t remove the calendar app. Yes, it’s Monday’s byline for sure. There was a plan to back up PAR 2 as a reveal if the bottom right corner reveal didn’t work out. The themed entries weren’t particularly flashy, so I tried to include a lot of fun non-themed entries. The challenge was to make everything as Monday-friendly as possible. Please enjoy yourself.
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turning point
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