Marilynn K. Yee/The New York Times Cupcakes from “Everything Frosted” in New York’s Chinatown. SATURDAY’S PUZZLE — Some people will do anything for attention.
Today is Saturday, and we have a themeless from Robert H. Wolfe, who really seems to be crying out to us. “ALAS!” he sighs wistfully, “ARE YOU LISTENING?” Of course we are, and there are some very nice long entries that make paying attention totally worthwhile. Four of the six 15s are appearing for the first time today, as well as three of the four 10s.
Stop once in a while to really enjoy the cluing here. ASTA is a very popular entry in puzzles, and I especially like the way it’s clued here today. Nick and Nora’s pooch was a wire-haired terrier, so “notable facial hair” would be a very clever way to word the clue. MAO is another popular entry, but “He married He” is wonderful and tricky, not to mention original. How about “Foot massager?” I’ll bet your head didn’t immediately go to POET. Don’t worry, mine didn’t either. You might have trouble getting cellphone reception in a “Remote spot?”, but today Mr. Wolfe isn’t talking about a dead zone. He’s thinking about the kind of remote you usually have to wrestle away from your significant other, and in his house, at least, it’s located in the DEN.
A pretty good outing for a Saturday. WHAT’S THE VERDICT?
I leave you with a montage of the wearer of 25 Down. He wears many hats in this video, but you can see a glimpse of the famous porkpie hat around 1:22:
Your thoughts?
You can now download and print the popular variety puzzles from the Sunday magazine free online. Look below for links to this week’s puzzle as well as answers to last week’s.
Deb Amlen is a humorist and puzzle constructor whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, and other mainstream media. The puzzles she creates for The Onion and Bust Magazine, however, would never fly at The New York Times. Sorry, Mom.
Numberplay is a puzzle suite that will be presented in Wordplay every Monday. The puzzles, which are created by Pradeep Mutalik and made their debut on TierneyLab, are generally mathematical or logical problems, with occasional forays into physics and other branches of science. Every post also includes a word challenge. 