Where All the Employees Blend Together
Adam Wagner makes his New York Times Crossword debut.
Working beside the juicing machine, Alexander Mendez cut green apples at the Silver Lake Juice Bar in 2013 in Los Angeles, Calif.Credit.FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP, via Getty Images
April 19, 2021
TUESDAY PUZZLE Sporting events aside, it’s not often that you feel the urge to cheer on someone that you don’t even know. I mean, you
would, because you’re a nice person. But it’s rare.
I met Adam Wagner virtually a few years ago on Twitter you can chat with a lot of people in the community under the hashtag #NYTXW and he’s been a welcome presence there for me ever since. I think I sort of knew that Mr. Wagner had tried crossword constructing. One day, I sat down to tackle the week’s puzzles and there he was. Well, not
Main Line From the Heart
Andrea Carla Michaels loves the theme of this puzzle she created because, in a way, this is her life.
Early television, though its offerings were limited, appealed to broad audiences, whether they were gathered in a bar or a barn. A farmer in Devon, England, got TVs for these cows in 1961, claiming that watching made them more productive.Credit.Keystone/Getty Images
April 18, 2021
MONDAY PUZZLE You know how a random order like “Don’t press the red button” makes you itch to press that button immediately, no matter what dire consequence awaits? Well, whatever you do, please don’t read the Constructor Notes first. Don’t do it. Do. Not. Scroll Down. To. The. Notes. Period!
Something Opened With a Click
Leslie Rogers takes us aloft on a Saturday.
Orville Wright working on stabilizing an earthbound glider in 1911, shortly after he succeeded in flying a plane for nearly 10 minutes.Credit.The International News Service
April 16, 2021
SATURDAY PUZZLE Today’s grid has one of the most disarming set of misdirects that I’ve seen in a while. As a paper solver I would have left a couple of incorrect letters in the grid and went on with my day if it weren’t for having to write this write-up, and I imagine that plenty of online solvers had to run through the alphabet a couple of times, on entries with four and five letters, no less. Leslie Rogers is fairly new; her last puzzle was the clever one on daylight saving time in March, and this is only her second themeless. I think it’s a good one lively and original, with seven debuts tucked in throughout.
Sticking Point
Children in Georgetown, Guyana, playing hopscotch.Credit.Adriana Loureiro Fernandez for The New York Times
April 15, 2021
FRIDAY PUZZLE There are so many action words in this Tom Pepper puzzle it’s like a comic strip super fun to race or pick through but not easy by any means. We like to flyspeck this Friday/Saturday grid thing, and I’ll just note that
when Mr. Pepper has a Saturday grid he will hit for the cycle, it’s the only day on which we haven’t solved him. I think this feels like a Friday but I’m willing to reconsider. Another Pepper trait is high-score scrabble words, and this grid is one letter short of a pangram (that letter is featured in a clue mentioned in the constructor notes, which you should read for a very cruciverbal chuckle).
Equality is vet med’s golden opportunity
Don’t pat yourself on the back too hard for standing up for equality when it’s how things should have always been
April 15, 2021
Women are becoming more of a voice in the working world, especially in veterinary medicine.
My late mother, Virginia, graduated from college when she was 16 years old. My oldest sister, Cheryl, was number one in her class at Yale. Maybe that means we have a genius strain in our DNA, but in a way it’s a comeuppance for me and the men in my family, showcasing how many of the people are a lot smarter, more competent, and more confident than me, are women.