SATURDAY PUZZLE — Ryan McCarty is on an impressive run: This is his seventh Saturday puzzle for in two years, and his 26th overall. I’ve solved them all, so I know it can be done, but I still get a little frisson when I see his byline, and expect a grid full of obstacles.
Mr. McCarty brings a great depth and breadth of trivia to his puzzles that often exposes some of my knowledge gaps — music history is one that comes to mind. But in today’s puzzle, many of the clues draw from more recent events, a lot from the 21st century, even. This gives a fresh feeling to clues and also might make solving them a little easier, although I still found getting through it to be a good workout.
Tricky Clues
1A/7A. I feel blessed when I understand even one of the first five or 10 clues that I read in a Saturday puzzle; for this one, I was two for two. On top of that, both of these entries are inviting. At 1A, the [British celebrity chef Nigella] is Nigella LAWSON, who was everywhere culinary a couple of decades ago but has only been in the Times Crossword once before. At 7A, [Cozier alternatives to motels] solves to B-AND-BS, short (of course) for bed-and-breakfasts. Sign of the times: I thought of “Airbnbs” first, which didn’t fit.
26A. This [Irish actor who was nominated for a Golden Globe for 2023’s “Saltburn”] makes his puzzle debut today: It’s BARRY KEOGHAN, who’s in a lot of other things, if you missed the film in the clue.
35A. I think this might be the biggest piece of nostalgia in the puzzle: [Long, curved bike features] solves to BANANA SEATS, popularized by Schwinn in the 1960s and designed to resemble the super cool motorcycles in “Easy Rider.”
2D/3D. I found these adjoining entries interesting. 2D is clever: [One dealing with a certain absence], in this puzzle, has lost something that’s awfully hard to place. They’re an AMNESIAC. 3D is tough: [“Don’t things always turn out OK?”] made me pencil in “optimism,” but the clue is asking for an expression with the same meaning, which is WHY WORRY. (I instantly pictured Alfred E. Neuman when I got this — close enough, I guess).
7D. [Much concert merch] solves to BAND T-SHIRTS, which were apparently first produced by an Elvis Presley fan club in the 1950s (and then became a real trend with the Beatles in the ’60s). BAND T-SHIRTS shares its first letter with B-AND-BS at 7A. They make an interesting pair.
14D. [Code group] is terse and vague enough that I had not an inkling until I filled in a lot of letters from crossing entries. The answer has nothing to do with software: It’s a ZONING BOARD that deals with building codes. This is a debut entry.
41D. I struggled with [“If you squint, maybe …”], another clue that solves to an expression. SORTA is the answer, a common enough entry that is usually clued with something like “more or less” or “rather.” When I see “squint” I think of something tiny, so I found this clue a little bit of a reach, but fair enough, I guess.
