TUESDAY PUZZLE — Welcome back to Trip Payne, who is celebrating his first New York Times Crossword puzzle in nearly seven years!
This puzzle brought to mind my favorite urban staple: the bodega (and, more specifically, the bodega cat). I just love that we as humans have decided that we are cool with tiny fluffy predators keeping watch over our stacks of newspapers, piles of overpriced fruit, and various assorted candy bars and sundries. In honor of bodega cats, I will be writing the remainder of this column with the bodega cat perspective in mind.
Tricky Clues (or, just for today, clues that a bodega cat would have feelings about)
1A. “Kit ___ bar” is not a tricky clue, but it is a clue that a bodega cat would particularly be pleased with, because it’s about both a candy bar and a KAT.
17A. “Soldier’s food packet, for short” is an MRE, or a “meal, ready-to-eat.” Although bodegas do not sell MREs, they do sell plenty of meals that are ready- (or nearly ready-) to-eat, so this entry also gets the bodega cat seal of approval.
18A. “Occasion that people are dyeing to celebrate?” is a punny clue for EASTER, because on EASTER people dye eggs. Bodega cat says: more holidays that celebrate cats and fewer that celebrate bunnies, please.
8D. A grocery store sign might say “10 ITEMS or less,” but a bodega cat knows that it should say “10 ITEMS or fewer.” Bodega cats are notoriously persnickety about grammar.
55A. “Private eye, in old lingo” is a common clue for TEC, which is short and old-timey for deTECtive, such as one might find in a pulp fiction novel for sale in a bodega. (I admit that this one is a stretch.)
54D. The “Frequent quotation attribution: Abbr.” is SHAK, as in “Falstaff: Tut, never fear me: I am as vigilant as a cat to steal cream” (SHAK., Henry IV, Part I).
Today’s Theme
The theme for this puzzle is spelled out in the grid-spanning revealer CORNER THE MARKET (“What you might do after some financial trading … or in this puzzle?”). That is to say, in each CORNER of the grid, you can find the letters that make up the words THE MARKET. This, naturally, led me to think about corner markets (bodegas), which resulted in the bodega cat column you are reading today.
The letters in THE MARKET aren’t in any particular order, which may seem somewhat arbitrary to solvers, but it was doubtless very difficult to pull off as a constructor. The constraint that this theme puts on the grid is immense, and the fill groans under the weight of these limitations in places. Although I personally don’t think I’d have made the fill-for-theme trade-off we see here (ETH, A RED, ON A, to name a few), it’s certainly an interesting theme concept and execution.
Want to Submit Crosswords to The New York Times?
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The Tipping Point
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Warning: There be spoilers ahead, but subscribers can take a peek at the answer key.
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Your thoughts?
