Way Up on a Mountain (2024)

Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky Clues

THURSDAY PUZZLE — One of the things you learn as you get better at solving mid- to late-week crossword puzzles is that not all grids are designed alike. I’m not talking just about the placement of the black and white squares. I’m talking about how the theme entries are arranged. I’m talking about the unusual spots in which a revealer might be stashed, instead of across the middle or the bottom, where most solvers would expect to see it.

In this puzzle, David Steinberg gives us an excellent lesson in why you should always expect the unexpected when it comes to Thursday puzzles.

I’ve had the pleasure of watching Mr. Steinberg grow up in the community. He was one of the kid-wonder constructors of New York Times Crosswords, having made his debut at age 14 in 2011. Twelve and a half years later, he’s had 111 puzzles of all kinds in The Times and is the puzzles and games editor at Andrews McMeel Universal, a media company.

Today’s Theme

Based on Mr. Steinberg’s grid design, I think it’s apparent, given the shaded squares, that his theme entries are positioned in the Downs and that they are split between the Down answers at the top of the grid and the answers just below them. The revealer is also a two-parter and is tucked into the northeastern quadrant of the puzzle. We’ll get to the shaded squares in a minute.

The trick to correctly answering the clues is to read only the unshaded parts of them. For example, 3D and 45D make up the third column in the grid. The clue for 3D is “What iodine might do?,” and the answer, as we are to write it, is BLASTING. That’s clearly incorrect, but if we focus just on the unshaded squares, we have STING, which makes much more sense. Similarly, at 45D, the answer to the clue “Liberated” is not FREEZE, as is written, but FREE.

But wait, as a wise man once said, there’s more. Now let’s look at those shaded squares in the same column. If we read those and combine them, we make the word BLAZE.

At 5D and 52D, the shaded squares spell FIRE.

And at 7D and 53D, those squares spell INFERNO.

Keep moving across the puzzle to the right and the revealer at 9D and 47D is GO DOWN IN FLAMES, because the above synonyms for FLAMES are, well, going down.

Tricky Clues

1A. Running the alphabet didn’t help here. The answer to “Queue before Q” is L.G.B.T.

15A. Your “Stand-out performance” may not have anything to do with quality. You could be standing away from the rest of the cast, performing a SOLO.

66A. “Wild catch” sounds as if someone is going all out to catch a ball, but in this puzzle, the catch is by a wild animal, and the answer is PREY.

2D. To “Squeeze together?” is to give a GROUP HUG. My favorite was at the end of the final episode of the “Mary Tyler Moore Show” in 1977, when new managers fired everyone except the character Ted Baxter. It was an inspired bit of physical comedy.

57D. The clue “Way up on a mountain” could be referring to its peak, but we’re really supposed to be thinking about a method (or “way”) to get up there. One way is to use a T-BAR.

Constructor Notes

When I became a crossword editor in 2018, I knew I’d want to scale back my constructing at some point, since I put so much creative energy into my day job. I sensed this point was near when I turned 26, so I constructed a handful of wacky puzzles, figuring (correctly) that most would get rejected but hoping that one would get in so I could go out with a bang. Now that I’m 27, I’m ready to focus on other areas of my life.

I’m pleased that the Times editors selected this puzzle. I’m not going down in flames, but this theme has a sense of finality to it. I want to thank Will Shortz, Deb Amlen and everyone who’s solved my Times crosswords over the years — growing up in the eyes of this community was an honor. I’m also optimistic about the future of crosswords. The submissions I see nowadays have twistier themes, easier fill and bolder clues than ever before, and the crossword sky is aglow with new stars!

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