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wordplay, the crossword column
Kathryn Ladner’s Tuesday puzzle is one to watch.
Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky Clues
TUESDAY PUZZLE — The American nonfiction author Annie Dillard finds inspiration for her narrative prose in nature. She is deft at observing the poetry of quiet places — much of her nonfiction writing takes place on farms, in forests and across mountain ranges. In my favorite essay, “Total Eclipse,” Dillard writes about the arresting experience of watching the sun disappear behind the moon from a hilltop in Yakima Valley, Wash.
Empty space stoppered our eyes and mouths; we cared for nothing. We remembered our living days wrong. With great effort we had remembered some sort of circular light in the sky — but only the outline.
Today’s crossword, constructed by Kathryn Ladner, pays tribute to another means of finding unexpected beauty in quiet places. We have to sit very still in order to see it, but the rewards are well worth our patience.
At 4-Down, we’re told to figure out a word that, “With 50-Down,” describes “things centered in Across answers in this puzzle.” 50-Down, as expected, just tells you to “See 4-Down.” With so little context and nowhere to look, I thought there must be something wrong with this revealer. Experienced solvers might be able to infer the location of themed clues based on past puzzles, but what about the rest of us? What the heck was going on?
Crossings around each revealer clue led me to the discovery that EIGHT BIRDS were centered somewhere in the Across clues of this puzzle. Suddenly, I realized why the answers were so well hidden: They were birds, and I was bird-watching.
Since we’re fellow birders now, I’ll let you in on where the themed Across clues are perched: 15A, 16A, 23A, 30A, 41A, 46A, 57A and 61A.
Centered in each of these clues is a type of bird. For example, 16-Across has you looking for “Dogs like Snoopy,” which are BEAGLES. At 23-Across, the “Brotherhood” in question is a FRATERNITY. Starting to see them now?
Ms. Ladner has certainly achieved the effect of the exercise suggested by her theme. I just had to sit and wait until the animals made themselves known to me. And once they did, boy, did I smile.
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NYT Crossword Answers — May 30, 2023 – The New York Times
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