who talked? – New York times

Saturday Puzzle – This is a great grid from Jeff Stillman, who designed the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday puzzles for The Times, but it was never a weekend or themeless crossword. Four vibrant expanding inserts frame the rest of the packaging, which also somehow wraps around the center of the puzzle.

I had a much harder time with shorter inserts than with extended inserts today, mostly due to unusual guides in the packing.

Difficult evidence

17 a. This “Ultra Wide Shoe Specification” with its four letters attracted me. I’m familiar with EEE shoes, of course, but EEEE? Absolutely, and no offense to anyone walking on EEEE or Wider feet.

24A/32A. Both of these entries include emojis. It took me a minute to get 24A, “excellent response”, which is not an “agree” but a “like”. You would think that would have set my sights on 32A, “something that often has a single parenthesis”, but I was convinced that this entry would be from the world of mathematics until I discovered SMILEY using a lot of intersecting letters. You don’t see “:-)” that often anymore since emojis have become so precise and numerous, but I still show them occasionally.

56 A. Apparently, this wonderful expression first appeared in A A 17th-century play by John Dryden. This might make you think of a melodramatic interpretation of a silent film, but it doesn’t feel dated. “The note that followed an interesting development” is the thickening of the plot.

1D. Something about the wording of this clue didn’t immediately conjure up the right song, but some crossed letters helped do the trick. The 1972 song whose singer claims to know a place is “I’ll Take You There” by the Staple Singers.

11 d. I pictured civilians dressing up for a party when I read this clue, “Get ready quickly,” which was an incorrect guess. The answer is a military term for extremely fast and tightly designed Launch multiple planes This happens when the issue is jamming aircraft.

31 D. This popular entry, but never solved this way – “Aerospace company that builds launch vehicles for NASA” – goes through three difficult clues. So I struggled, guessed and (gasp!) I looked forward to it For confirmation. If you’re wondering how to send your own small satellite into orbit, it looks like ASTRA can help.

Creator Notes

Two milestones for me with this puzzle! It’s my 10th New York Times acceptance — but not the look, as one mystery was turned into ACPT. This is my first topic!

For the first nine iterations of this puzzle, the upper and lower triads were completely different. I worked from SECRET STASH and then from EAST LANSING (shoutout to our local university, Michigan State, where my son had just been accepted). But the middle was always disappointing. I deleted that and started over with IMAGE AWARDS and FLAMENCO DANCE, fun posts that I thought would be a fun way to start the solution. And let’s hear it for the moms! Maybe because of all that good karma, the building process was much faster, and I ended up with a more sparkling fill. Thanks to Sam and the editorial team for improving the guides, especially 31A and 54D.

So happy to have a puzzle on Saturday!

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