Sophia Maymudes and Kyra Wilson, together again.
FRIDAY PUZZLE — Some of us get really excited about puzzles. It could be working through one that feels made just for you, or reaching a peak in your streak or (bingo!) seeing the byline of your newest fave constructor(s). This week I’m thrilled to be writing about a Sophia Maymudes/Kyra Wilson production. I’m also a bit cowed. Can I solve it? This is a team whose grids I first encountered at The Inkubator, the subscription service that publishes edgy work and is dedicated to groups underrepresented in the conventional crossworld.
The people at Inkubator largely devote themselves to developing the skills of constructors who identify as women. They help you nurture an idea or theme, share some wisdom about their craft, polish and publish your puzzle and pay you real money for it. (Full disclosure, Inkubator has published a couple of my puzzles and taught me a great deal.)
Ms. Wilson’s Inkubator bio describes her as a “research assistant in the Neuroscience of Language Lab at N.Y.U. Abu Dhabi” and a 2020 graduate of Carleton College with a computer science/linguistics double major. Among her leisure activities, she includes being “harassed by the Duolingo owl.” Ms. Maymudes’s bio said she uses her computer science degree and math minor as a software engineer in Seattle. The two met through friends at Carleton and found that they were in the same orbit of activities.
Tricky Clues
The clues and answers are fresh and crispy. Take 16A, “Bumper adornment.” That would be a “sticker,” right? A very small one. One that would fit neatly into five letters. Or, and this is something I never noticed until I moved to the New York area, “teddy,” like the stuffed animals truck drivers lash to their bumpers, presumably not because they love Paddington, say, but as one more buffer between them and the cars that they park between. Sound the buzzer for a wrong answer! It’s a DECAL.
14A “Band featured in Disney World’s Rock ’n’ Roller Coaster,” is only one of several “rolls” to appear in this puzzle. I checked out some video of the musical amusement park ride, but the twists and dips didn’t compare to AEROSMITH recorded live, in a performance like this one, on YouTube. I especially liked one listener comment: “To all the boomers. You’re lucky that you have experienced this era of rock n roll music 🙌🏽.”
Rolling right along, at 38D, there’s “Roll player.” “Pianist” fits, but it’s not that kind of roll. Parker House roll? Jellyroll? Some kind of bowling joke? Monopoly? No, it is that kind of roll. PIANOLA. And we have a “Big name in pizza rolls” at 40A in the freezer aisle: TOTINOS. I guess they were on a roll.
What’s not to like? The clues are snappy, the answers often unexpected, and there’s nary a Mel Ott in sight, which is not to say there are no sports references. I liked the stealth clue 42A, “Cardinal pts.?” on one of them. My first thought was the St. Louis Cardinals, but their points would be runs, and that’s four letters. The idea of cardinal numbers floated by, but I dismissed it, along with Roman Catholic higher-ups gowned in red. This had to be a sporting Cardinal. I found them. The Arizona Cardinals, a combination that sounds somewhat incongruous. They play football and their pts. are TDS. Go, Cards?
Another amusing clue was 10D, “Run through.” Like a rehearsal? Or a tragic end to swordplay? It’s more a recital of events, or the detailed plot of the new movie you can’t bear not to share: RECAP.
And at 17A, we came upon “Last of the Ptolemys,” a well-known figure quite often signified in Times crosswords by the agent of her death, an asp. That word has appeared in Times puzzles no less than 553 times before now, to be exact, according to Xwordinfo.com. And the last of that line was the queen of the Nile, Cleopatra. She may have ruled Egypt, but her origins lay in Macedonian Greece. She was not, however, 53A, “Last of the Greeks,” a spot reserved for the very special OMEGA, who happens to be our dog, presumably the runt of her rescued litter and as far from the alpha dog as a dog can be (we’re lucky the Greek alphabet has only 24 letters). Can I resist illuminating Wordplay with Omega’s visage? Umm, no.
This themeless puzzle, with answers that skew outside the Times norm, is a neat, sweet, smooth exercise that flexes, but not by building out brawny stacks.
There were several terms that made their Times debuts in this collaboration: FRAMEUPS, MOMFRIEND, TOTINOS, ZIPTIES, and ZOOMBOMB. I particularly like Zoombomb, a frequent enough occurrence these days. And mom friend, because who doesn’t need someone who volunteers to be the designated driver, always carries tissues, nudges you to get to the gym and promises to call you 40 minutes into that date with a Hinge match, armed with a prefabricated emergency in case you need one?
Constructor Notes
Sophia: While bored in an online class last spring, I texted Kyra to ask for a good themeless seed entry. She suggested 33-Down, and thus this puzzle was born. We locked in the bottom half of this puzzle early on, but the top half went through several iterations before this final submission. As usual, it was a blast to collaborate with Kyra — she’s incredibly talented at both grid construction and writing clever clues, and she even puts up with my insistence on adding extraneous Disney references to all of our puzzles.
Kyra: Now that our online classes are over, Sophia and I need to find a new time to work on our collabs together! I loved making this one with her, and we’re excited to do more together soon.
Want to Submit Crosswords to The New York Times?
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For tips on how to get started, read our series, “How to Make a Crossword Puzzle.”
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