MONDAY PUZZLE -- During a recent lunch at the office, the New York Times Games team solved a puzzle together. One person admitted that after cracking a Monday puzzle, he sometimes thinks, "That's all?" A seasoned solver, he is left wanting more -- some added challenge that the typical Monday puzzle cannot provide.
I'm pleased to report that I did not have that thought while solving today's puzzle. While the theme is easy enough to grasp, today's crossword by Brian Callahan is a delightful romp, free of the usual fill. What's more, a fun similarity across all the clues gives this puzzle a unique flourish. You'll "see" that trick soon after you "open" the crossword. The clues are clever and alliterative, and the theme ties it all together. Let's take a look.
Today's Theme
Let's start with the obvious: Every clue in this puzzle starts with the letter C. Mr. Callahan found creative ways to incorporate the letter, sometimes in more than one word in a clue, as in 15-Down, [Cousin of a cruller or bear claw], and 36-Down, [China's continent]. Christmas is mentioned twice. This (ahem) constraint keeps the puzzle engaging. The fill feels appropriate for a Monday and should be solvable for beginners. (After submitting this grid, Mr. Callahan had to make the fill easier, as he notes in his constructor notes below.)
The puzzle has four theme answers, three of which are debuts, and a revealer at 65-Across: OPEN SEAS. All the theme answers consist of two words, both starting with C. Basketball fans will recognize CAITLIN CLARK among them; her full name is one of the debuts in this puzzle.
Tricky Clues
- 57A. The [Chain of luxury hotels] is OMNI. It is sometimes clued as an alternative to Hyatt or Wyndham, or as a prefix meaning "everything."
- 63A. A [Cellphone's weather app, e.g.] is a WIDGET. The word originally meant a "gadget," but in the era of technology in your pocket, it has come to signify "a small software application," like those that appear on your smartphone.
- 11D. ["Chill," e.g., for "relax"] is SLANG. This took me a moment to figure out because the clue seemed to point to the substitution of one word for another. "Chill" is SLANG for, or another way of saying, "relax."
- 17D. [Cartoon sound from an intoxicated person] is an inventive clue for HIC, a word that is often clued as the fruit drink brand.
- 19A. [Children's song refrain ("Old MacDonald had a farm ...")] is asking for the response EIEIO, for anyone familiar with the popular song.
- 21D. [Canon camera brand named for a goddess] was my favorite clue in this puzzle because of the celestial reference. I was not familiar with the EOS line of Canon cameras.
- 54D. The [Chief Hindu god] is INDRA, a warrior king said to control the weather.
- 64D. [Coneheads, e.g., for short] are ETS in the 1993 movie "Coneheads," adapted from a "Saturday Night Live" sketch, in which a family of extraterrestrials with elongated heads lands on Earth and tries to adapt to suburban life.
Constructor Notes
Most of the full-size puzzles I make take weeks or even months to complete. This one is an outlier, as I came up with the theme, built the grid, wrote the clues and submitted the puzzle in about a day and a half. I appreciate my luck in everything falling into place on this one because it will probably never happen again. At the request of the editors, I did have to revise the grid to clean up the fill and make it more Monday-friendly. I think the updated version wound up much better than the original, so kudos to the New York Times team for pushing me to make the puzzle better!
I'm also thrilled to highlight the iconic 52-Across, even though she plays for a rival team (go Sky!).