SUNDAY PUZZLE — Will Shortz, in his print introduction to this grid, writes: “Michael Lieberman, of Washington, D.C., is an attorney at Fairmark Partners, an antitrust firm. This is his 29th crossword for The Times. He says he’s a Dodgers fan and likes to construct puzzles while watching baseball, at least during the season. ‘I made this puzzle last October,’ Mike says, ‘which means it probably provided a much-needed distraction from the stress of the playoffs.’”
I’m conditioned to Mr. Lieberman’s byline like one of Pavlov’s dogs, at this point; when I see it, I expect a puzzle that expands an oddball linguistic trick into a satisfyingly slick theme set. This grid was especially fun because it upended another little frequent assumption of mine, extending the suspense of the solve.
Today’s Theme
There are eight entries in this theme set, at 23-, 34-, 43-, 64-, 75-, 98-, 106- and 120-Across. Each contains a pair of gray squares, and each has a clue that poses as a question. As a veteran solver, I believed the letters in those gray squares must be important. I also took note of the puzzle’s title, “Heart Transplants,” which I thought would describe what to do with those shaded squares.
None of these hypotheses helped or hindered my progress through the clues, which are punchy but difficult to crack. I had a good chunk of grid solved before figuring out the two top examples. First was 34-Across, [Secrets known only to E.N.T.s?]. For infernal reasons, I read “E.N.T.” as a personality type; the crossing entries reminded me that those letters stand for Ear, Nose and Throat. The entry solves to EAR CANAL ARCANA, knowledge held by specialized doctors. I found this entry intriguing, but not apparently punny or idiomatic. I mentally pronounced the phrase a few times, and then took a moment to think about the letters in the shaded boxes — The “E” and “L” in EAR CANAL ARCANA.
[Some “Star Trek” slang?], at 23-Across, solves to KLINGON LINGO, which you probably agree is a bit catchier than EAR CANAL ARCANA. I think it’s also a much more obvious example of the trick in this theme, because of the way that it rolls off the tongue. This is a really clever variation on reduplication: Each of these entries takes a term and removes its first and last letter for the last word in the answer.
In the case of both EAR CANAL ARCANA and KLINGON LINGO, the final part of the phrase is where the first and last letters are missing. The theme entries in the bottom half of the puzzle are opposite, a fine detail that must have taken some care to pull off. It keeps the set interesting, and makes solving a bit tougher. [Spark joy?], at 75-Across, was the hardest one in the set for me to answer: It solves to ELICIT FELICITY, which is endearingly silly and poetic.
Now, what about this title and those gray squares? To perform the “Heart Transplant” surgery in this puzzle, you need the letters that they frame — the “heart” — not the letters in the shaded squares. This was a real red herring for me (or even a MacGuffin). I’m used to the highlighted letters being important, so I spent time trying to figure out if they were transplants themselves and even wrote the letters down to see whether they spelled a phrase or had something in common. In this case, less presumptive solvers who focused gray boxes, but not what was inside them, might have had an easier time than I did.
Tricky Clues
69A. [N.K. ___, “Broken Earth” trilogy author] is a reference to N.K. JEMISIN, who has been mentioned in clues before but is debuting as a Times puzzle entry today. She finished the trilogy 2017, and it won massive critical acclaim along with a slew of science fiction and fantasy book awards.
85A. I drew a blank here: [Daniel ___ (children’s TV character)] is Daniel TIGER, whose show is called “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood.” It’s been around since 2012, but its demographic skews very young. I’ve never heard of it.
113A. Reduplication alert! This clue, [Wibbly-wobbly], is a cute example that solves to a quaint old crossword chestnut, AREEL. “Doctor Who” fans will take this clue as an inside joke, but I confess that I only learned that on a look-up.
3D. This is really good, nonchalant wordplay. [Anti-matter?] had me thinking of physics, but its solution is unscientific: It’s POINTLESS.
24D. The [Green Egyptian god] is OSIRIS, a powerful divine figure who is depicted in ancient imagery as a man whose green skin tone represents earth, fertility and resurrection.
26D. [Get into, as a cab, say] is a fabulous misdirecting pun that plays on wine and crossword deduction. “Embark” looks perfect here with the crossing entries, but you get into this “cab” when you UNCORK it. (It’s wine.)
71D. [They might be the last to be booked on an airplane] is one of those clues that struck me as obvious in retrospect, but I didn’t see it until I had some letters in place for deductions: They’re MIDDLE SEATS, of course, which are always involved in some shenanigan or other.
Constructor Notes
I’ve always imagined that the person tasked with designing the logo for ESPN’s “Pardon the Interruption” had a moment of euphoria when they realized the show’s abbreviation “PTI” was hidden within the word INTERRUPTION. Perhaps someday a graphic designer for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will make a similar discovery. I got to experience something like that when I saw a real-life recipe for a RAINBOW GRAIN BOWL, which gave me the idea for this theme. I hope you enjoyed solving!
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