SATURDAY PUZZLE — Gene Louise de Vera is again lower than a month after his debut within the New York Instances Crossword. That fell on a Tuesday, and its theme’s revealer — GROWING PAINS — is a humorous little harbinger of right this moment’s barely supersized, 16-column-wide grid. An additional row is required for 2 span entries, each debuts, which play off one another and will resonate with the everyday Saturday solver.
The most important impediment I encountered whereas choosing my method by this puzzle was an enormous sprint of diabolical misdirection — I obtained at the least one entry fallacious in every nook, and in nearly each case needed to admit that the proper reply was objectively superior to my guess. In any other case, I discovered the trivia fairly manageable — aside from the online game and science fiction references, which additionally play off one another.
Difficult Clues
6A. Initially, I didn’t learn the clue [Song and dance] as an idiom, and made a bunch of guesses like “common act,” “common gig” and “appearing function,” getting ever nearer whereas nonetheless lacking the purpose. The right reply is RIGAMAROLE, which has been within the Instances Crossword thrice earlier than, all the time clued extra immediately. The etymology of RIGAMAROLE has an attention-grabbing factor: Within the 1300s, there was a recreation referred to as rageman that concerned an extended, ridiculous record of descriptive verses that have been utilized in what sounds somewhat like medieval rap battles. The notion of foolish, prolonged discourse advanced into the which means that we use right this moment.
18A/54A. These entries are attractive, aren’t they? The clue for 18A is so particular that it was guessable for me: A [Feeling described as “hoping for the best, but fearing the worst”] is CAUTIOUS OPTIMISM. After you have that, I feel 54A is accessible, too: The [Positive result of having 18-Across, perhaps] is a PLEASANT SURPRISE. I’ll take each anytime.
59A. [Charges that vary between states] sounds to me like one thing that might be in a physics examination. Nerve-racking, and utterly off base. The “expenses” right here go on a invoice as SALES TAXES, which vary from 7.25 p.c to nothing in the US.
2D/11D. Neither of those entries has appeared in a Instances puzzle earlier than, and I didn’t actually acknowledge both of them. However they’re each well-known phrases of their respective realms. At 2D, the [Location where a video game character starts (or restarts) a level] is a SPAWN POINT, which has apparently been a time period for the reason that role-playing video games of the Nineteen Eighties, and serves to assist set up a recreation’s universe so you realize the place to search for gamers which are born, or reborn. Talking of being born, 11D, the [Xenomorph who can produce humanoid offspring] is an ALIEN QUEEN from the “Alien” sci-fi franchise. These creatures are 20 ft tall, very smart and able to spawning tons of eggs that hatch into drones, warriors and one thing referred to as facehuggers.
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