Jennifer Lee and Victor Galson wax poetic.
TUESDAY PUZZLE — Welcome back to Jennifer Lee and Victor Galson, who are making their second appearance in the New York Times Crossword. Today’s puzzle is a celebration of humorous poetry, drawing on a famous poet’s clever observations about animals to create a fun and breezy Tuesday puzzle.
If you are a solver who is new to the crossword, you probably know by now that the Sunday through Thursday puzzles are all themed, but you may not have begun yet to sort the themes that you encounter into theme “types.” This puzzle has a particular type of theme that you’ll encounter fairly regularly, so you may want to make a note of it. Rather than featuring an original play on words, this theme type is built out of quotations and quips written by someone other than the constructor(s).
I find these quippy puzzles perfectly enjoyable, especially early in the week, when the “trickiness quotient” is lower. All I ask of a puzzle like this is a clever line or two and a clean, smooth grid, and I’ll be happy as a clam. Speaking of which, I never understood that expression — are clams particularly happy? I will explore this question in relation to today’s puzzle, but first, some tricky clues.
Tricky Clues
21A. The clue “Word after square or plus” seems initially to be about math, since square and plus are both math terms. But, in fact, we are looking for a word that could follow either of those words in a common phrase. That word is ONE, as in “square ONE” and “plus ONE.”
35A. I enjoyed the observation that “Something often lent, but never returned” is an EAR; although I wonder whether that’s strictly true? It seems to me that when I lend someone an EAR, they end up lending one back to me in the future. (This, I am told, is how “conversations” work.)
53A. I was fooled by the clue “Straw, basically” for a moment, thinking it referred to the kind of straw that you might find in a scarecrow. Instead, it is a drinking straw, which is a TUBE, basically.
64A. Wow, spoiler alert, 64A! If you haven’t seen the Netflix show “The Queen’s Gambit” or solved this puzzle yet, I suggest you move on before reading the next sentence. I binge-watched the whole thing in two days, so I know that “Beth Harmon’s weakness in ‘The Queen’s Gambit’” is PILLS.
33D. I love a good meta clue that refers to itself. “What the nouns and verb in this clue doesn’t do” is AGREE, because the subject of the clue is plural (“nouns and verb”) but the verb is singular (“doesn’t”).
Today’s Theme
This puzzle’s theme is a collection of poetic quips about animals from the poet OGDEN Nash, per the revealer at 39A. I had never heard any of the quips before, but I thoroughly enjoyed working out each one from its crosses, and with the assumption that each of the couplets would rhyme.
The first theme entry at 17A completes the couplet “God in his wisdom made the fly / And then forgot …” The answer is TO TELL US WHY. The silliest of the theme entries is at 24A: “Tell me, O Octopus, I begs, / Is those things arms OR IS THEY LEGS?” This is not particularly grammatical, but I laughed out loud when it fell into place.
My personal favorite of the set is the entry at 58A: “The trouble with a kitten is that / Eventually it BECOMES A CAT.” Now, nothing against cats — I adore my cat Oliver Wendell Jones Fabi — but I can’t argue with OGDEN Nash. Kittens are definitely cuter.
Finally, as promised above, I want to share an additional OGDEN Nash rhyming witticism about clams that sadly was not included in the puzzle:
The clam, esteemed by gourmets highly,
Is said to live the life of Riley;
When you are lolling on a piazza
It’s what you are as happy as a.
Although this doesn’t answer my question about what exactly it means to be happy as a clam, it is certainly a fun use of rhyme, just like the other quips in this puzzle. Thank you to our constructors for this enjoyable little romp of a puzzle. Let’s hear what they have to say about it.
Constructor Notes
Jenny:
We are very excited to be back in The New York Times for our second puzzle! Here are some lines that didn’t make the cut:
“Farewell, farewell, you old rhinoceros / I’ll stare at something less … PREPOCEROS”
“If called by a panther / … DON’T ANTHER”
“I don’t mind eels / … EXCEPT AS MEALS”
“Swans have cygnets / Seals have puppies / But guppies just have … LITTLE GUPPIES”
Victor:
The inspiration for this puzzle came from a book of Ogden Nash poems, which I borrowed years ago from my grandfather Edgar, and which is still sitting on our bookshelf. It was published in 1959, and a few pages are falling out, but it contains all of the poems from today’s puzzle. Along those lines, I would like to dedicate this puzzle to my late grandmother Eva, as my first and fondest memories of crosswords are from tackling the Sunday New York Times puzzle together on summer vacations. Hope this puzzle leaves a good memory for some of you!
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