by Parker Higgins & Ross Trudeau
[.puz][PDF][Solution] Difficulty 3.75/5
We’re trying something just a skosh different this week, so if today’s puzzle looks familiar, bear with. We generated the theme–and in fact built out a whole grid–on last Thursday’s Cursewords stream. After you’ve solved, feel free to head over there and watch the video of how it all came together. As we note on the stream, we generally like to take a lot longer than 25 minutes to come up with a grid architecture and fill. The work we do live is largely illustrative/educational in nature, which is why we went ahead and started from scratch off-camera and produced the grid you see posted here. That said, special shout-out to the Cursewords Live crew for contributing material. Nate, Lyle, Quiara and many others were instrumental to the process!
And ICYMI, Parker and I also co-wrote the Thursday 6/16 New York Times puzzle. Give it solve and let us know what you think! You’ll also be able to solve a Parker solo grid if you sign up for the 2022 Boswords Tournament, at which he is a featured constructor!
Warm thanks to Megan and Matt for test solving today’s grid. A couple thoughts and spoilers for “Choice Words” below!
It occurred to me after we stopped streaming the other night that OUTDOOR POOL deviates from a pattern that went unmentioned. Namely, that each of the other themers builds off a verb + or- suffix base, where as the DO in OUT DO OR POOL is incidentally formed by lopping off the -or. In any case, we were enthusiastic enough about the found poetry of the example that I feel good about including it nonetheless!
Everything else I really want to say about this puzzle’s theme you can hear us saying in real time and much detail on the Cursewords VOD. I do want to give Parker a shout-out for a few of his cluing angles, including the Lifelock CEO’s social security number in the clue for SSNs (worth the read). Also, kudos to Parker for really committing to an identity. I don’t think we’ve ever made a puzzle together into which he didn’t slip at least one “Star Trek” reference, and [Title for Patrick Stewart (on- or off-set)] for SIR is pretty ding dang on brand. Keep beating that horse, Parker. (“HE’S DEAD, JIM.”)
Happy solving, friends!
-Ross