Kameron Austin Collins provides, as always, an excellent return on investment with a rich Saturday grid.
SATURDAY PUZZLE — Kameron Austin Collins drops puns into his grids with such panache that I trust nothing on its face anymore. Even straightforward clues tease the possibility of a joke, especially when there are three accessible (enough) one-liners in the first five Across clues. This is his 16th Saturday crossword for The Times; they are always bubbling cauldrons of debuts and catchphrases, and they’ve become smoother. I flew through parts of this puzzle but still found it memorable and gratifying.
Tricky Clues
1A. First, a deadpan idiomatic clue: “Field of computing” seems to indicate “quantum,” “machine learning” or the now-ubiquitous “artificial intelligence,” but this clue refers to the ADDRESS BAR at the top of a computer’s browser window.
15A. Then, a cheesy dad joke. A “Sketchy boardwalk offering?” is a CARICATURE.
17A. Finally, a little dazzler (that sneaked up on me, at least). “Ones tracking disc-overies?” had me thinking about music critics, with the inclusion of “track” and “disc,” but these are UFOLOGISTS. They study “discs” that fly “over” us.
52A. I don’t know why I grew so attached to “lotto” here, for “State line?” Maybe the image of people queued up for Powerball tickets is emblazoned on my brain. Instead, excelsior: The “line” in question is a MOTTO.
62A. This is one of the clues that had me looking for a twist, but “Bun topper” solves to the innocuous SESAME SEED.
35D. Ah, here’s the musical pun. “Phone number?” is RINGTONE, the ditty (or “number”) that you can choose to announce a call, if you don’t block them wholesale. This wordplay will resonate most, I think, with the small subset of us young enough to not associate RINGTONE with the generic “brrring” of a landline but old enough to remember buying song snippets when cellphones were still a novelty.
45D. This is a Times crossword debut for this particular artist, RHONDA “Vincent, bluegrass singer inducted into the Grand Ole Opry.Who doesn’t love some mandolin and Dolly Parton harmonizing?
Constructor Notes
I really should stop taking all of the credit (read: blame) for my puzzles being as hard as people say. Super villainy is a team effort. The puzzles are hard when I submit them, but the NYT team makes them even harder, which must mean that they think you’re all up for it. I frequently point to a clue or two and tell them, “I’m going to get yelled at for this,” and I’m usually right. (That was 7D, this time; not a familiar usage, for me.)
As always, my silliest, most shot-in-the-dark clues all made the cut, for some reason. 17A: I couldn’t help myself, sorry. 49D: Ditto, because some pop culture references and crossword entries are practically made for each other; I’ve wanted to use this clue for years. I’m generally prone to short, vague, somewhat deadpan clues, so the length of a few, including 30D, felt a little naughty, at the time. 15A, 20A, and 29D made me laugh, unfortunately. 23A, 33A, and 48A are my reminder (to myself above all) to try to find new ways of cluing typical crossword things. I always mistake 33A for something bird-related anyway, so I figured, why not?
P.S. If you’re looking to get into Frank Norris — one of my favorite weirdo authors, whose work I fell in love with in grad school — I’d start with “McTeague.” Very strange guy.
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