by Parker Higgins & Ross Trudeau
[.puz][PDF][Solution] Difficulty: 3.5/5
Halloween is easily my favorite time of year in crossworld. Spooky grid art. Macabre thematic conceits. The seasons seems to bring out the best in the constructing set. Don’t miss this one from Paolo.
Meanwhile, Jessie and I are visiting with family rather than getting decked out or properly raging, as is our typical wont. Halloween also happens to be my mom’s birthday! We do live on one of those streets that T-junctions on both ends and is descended upon my hundreds of neighborhood trick-or-treaters, so there’s that to look forward to when we get home this afternoon.
Parker and I would like to extend our appreciation to Judy, Jacob, Todd, and Chaz and Kaylee Bruscato for test solving “Pop-up Scare.” Thoughts and *spoilers* from Parker and me below…
Parker: I’ve always found Spirit Halloween interesting as a phenomenon. It pulls in almost $600 million almost entirely between two months of the year! It shows up basically overnight in more locations that Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s combined! Anyway, seemed like a fun idea for a crossword theme and Ross had the spookiest weekend of the year available for it. I hope you find the solving experience to be the perfect blend of tricky and treatful.
Ross: Both the thematic conceit and the gridwork on this one were all Parker’s work. What a guy. We edited the clues we sent to our test solvers over bourbon late Friday night, and scanning the final product confirms that thing our decision making was predictably, uh, loosey goosey.
Happy solving, friends!