Leaves Before Paying the Check – The New York Times

THURSDAY PUZZLE Crossword puzzles count as games in my book, as I often tell people who claim to be intimidated by the New York Times Crossword, and games are supposed to be fun. Solving a crossword with the same trepidation one might feel when sitting down to take an exam kind of misses the point.

The only thing more fun than a game is a game within a game. And thats what the constructor Michael Schlossberg who made his New York Times Crossword debut in February has in store for us.

26A. Clever wordplay. Assembly line? in this puzzle doesnt refer to a crew building something. It is a line (or verbalization) that you might hear in a political assembly, and the answer is NAY.

32A. A Cellular plan? is not, in this puzzle at least, what you owe to Verizon or Sprint, but the considerably less expensive DNA. Some of our DNA is inside the mitochondria, which, as we all know from high school biology, is the powerhouse of the cell.

34A. The warm weather is coming, so dont forget that the Second Amendment promises you the right to bare ARMS. I, myself, am a big fan of tank tops.

12D. The playwright PAULA Vogel is probably best known for her Pulitzer Prize-winning play How I Learned to Drive.

18D/29D/31D. There is considerable YORE and YON in this puzzle, which happened ERE the morrow.

39D. Leaves before paying the check? is brilliant. It sounds like someone dined and dashed, but thats not where this clue is going. This clue is asking you what kind of leaves you might encounter before you pay your bill in a restaurant. Pour yourself a nice cuppa TEA and ponder that one.

50D. Whether you are trying to score a goal or not, everyone can use an ASSIST sometimes.

64D. The answer to Orders is HAS because if you order something in a restaurant say some leaves (see 39D) you are having it.

There are a lot of bingos in this puzzles clues, and for good reason: The grid is supposed to represent a bingo card.

Pretty crafty the way Mr. Schlossberg just sneaked that FREE square rebus into the center there, with no other rebuses (rebi?) around, isnt it? If you are solving in the app or online, here is how to enter more than one letter into a square so that you, too, can take advantage of that FREE space. If you are not sure where it is, it is at the crossing of GLUTEN [FREE] CEREAL (37A) and CRY [FREE]DOM (25D).

The theme clues hint at four ways that the word bingo can be defined. For example, a Bingo, in Scrabble is a FIFTY POINT BONUS. The song B-I-N-G-O! is a NURSERY RHYME.

We are very excited to welcome the actress Zoe Kazan (HBOs The Plot Against America) to Crosswords Live on Thursday, May 14 at 1 p.m.

Tune in on either our Twitter account (@NYTimesWordplay) or our YouTube channel (@WordplayNYT), click the grid to enter the conversation and help us solve this tricky puzzle.

In case you missed it, heres Ms. Kazan, blowing this puzzle out of the water.

I got the idea for this puzzle after a game of Monopoly with my children. I thought I could shorten the phrase GET OUT OF JAIL FREE to 15 letters or less with some type of FREE-themed rebus puzzle. When the phrase FREE SPACE came up, the puzzle mutated into a Bingo theme. I submitted my original manuscript in October 2018, and two trips through the mail and several more revisions later, the puzzle was accepted in September.

My Scrabble clue made the final cut, but the other three themed clues were toughened up (originally Bingo, in a preschool; Bingo, on a card; and Bingo!, on trivia night). Im glad that my clues for 26- and 32-Across and 39-Down made it. I had hoped that my original clue for ROSS, TV painter with the line, We dont make mistakes, just happy little accidents, would get in, but ALAS.

Almost finished solving but need a bit more help? Weve got you covered.

Warning: There be spoilers ahead, but subscribers can take a peek at the answer key.

Trying to get back to the puzzle page? Right here.

Your thoughts?

Originally posted here:
Leaves Before Paying the Check - The New York Times