Byron Walden creates all sorts of things from a little snippet for a Sunday adventure.
SUNDAY PUZZLE — Byron Walden, a math and computer science professor at Santa Clara University in California, has been a steady constructor since 2001, especially on weekends; this is his first solo Sunday grid in five years. If any of your playlists draw from the 1980s, see if the puzzle’s title, “Soft Options,” rings a bell before you read about the slick and subtle theme.
Tricky Clues
There are some marvelously obscure words in the fill today, many of them debuts and some odd usages (and some both, like GEYSERED). There are also some charmingly shaggy-dog clues for simpler entries like LIAR (an Ambrose Bierce reference) and VERSES (who knew that “Yankee Doodle” was such an epic?).
20A. This is fabulous wordplay: In “hindsight,” while driving, a “clearer” is a REAR windshield WIPER. I also appreciate that it crosses FENDER, which I’d never have guessed was called a “wing” in England, a term that refers to the days when automobiles had swooping panels of metal to guard against the rubble tossed up by their wheels.
43A. This is a debut and a real Francophone term, “À la” BROCHE, that can describe a simple rotisserie chicken.
110A. This is the second time this entry has run in a Times puzzle; it debuted in 1967, clued as Latin for “based on assumption” rather than “forecasts.” Either way, I wouldn’t have come up with EX ANTE, which breaks into “out of” (EX) and “before” (ANTE). It seems to have a place in legalese, but I can’t recall ever seeing the word before (and I thought that GEN X at 99D was GEN Y).
51D. This musical genre is a puzzle debut; other popular artists like Lauryn Hill and Frank Ocean are considered NEOSOUL, recalling artists like Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross and Stevie Wonder.
53D. A surprising scientific factoid in this clue: Only 2 percent of human DNA is actually “coded” to have an effect, and the rest is often called JUNK DNA. This term is a bit dismissive when you examine it further, given that 98 percent of our DNA includes vast amounts of genes capable of various functions like copying themselves thousands of times. (That makes me think of the SUPER VHS tape, a high-quality version of a technology that lived a shorter life than many people).
Today’s Theme
Somehow, today’s entire theme developed from one admittedly enticing lyric in this bit of 1980s nostalgia, right at the 1:37 mark. “Which do you choose, a hard or soft option?”
There are a few interpretations of this line online — sex or drugs, or both, with the involvement of money — but I’m certain that our constructor is unique in fixating on the word “soft” and using its ends, “s” and “t,” and its center, “of,” for a whole theme set.
There are eight theme entries, at 23-, 32-, 61-, 89- and 101-Across and 15- and 39-Down. They’re all straightforwardly clued and undiscernible until you’ve struck on their common formation, which might take a while and involve a small side trip.
The side trip was my experience, as I seized on 61-Across: “Metaphor from an hourglass.” That’s a soap opera tagline, right? You have to jumble it ever so slightly to find the answer here, SANDS OF TIME. Knowing the title of this puzzle, “Soft Options,” I figured that the key letter run was internal — SANDS OF TIME — and looked elsewhere for this pattern. It’s there, but only in two other places — the references to “barkeepers, barbecuers and blacksmiths,” who all use SETS OF TONGS, and “entertainers with bright futures.”
The rest of the theme set, though, sets us straight. For example, the first theme entry in the puzzle at 23A is the moon’s SEA OF TRANQUILITY. SEA OF TRANQUILITY? Nope — SEA OF TRANQUILITY. I was too introspective; the pattern is S / OF / T, not / S OF T /, which brought to light a couple of entries that had already flown under the radar of my solve, the “Edgar Rice Burroughs novel” and the religious artifact running down the center of the puzzle. (Did you happen to notice the crossing with JESUS-LIKE at 53A? Miraculous coincidence, I guess.)
Constructor Notes
Back in 2005, I used the clue “Shroud of Torino?” for CAR COVER. On the old Times Forum and Crossword Fiend, then in its rookie year, a poster vituperatively objected to the cheeky reference to the Shroud. Given the over-the-top rhetoric, I suspected it was all a put-on, but if indeed the correspondent was truly offended, I hope today’s very respectful clue at 32-Down will square things between us.
Speaking of cheeky, I definitely thought about how one might clue REAR WIPER as someone changing diapers. The clue “Clearer in hindsight?” is definitely for the car part. If I were going the other way, it would be “Clearer with hindsight?” For once, the less scatological version is funnier to me.
Hoping you came away from solving the puzzle with a sense of triumph!
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"soft" - Google News
April 03, 2022 at 05:00AM
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NYTimes Crossword answer: spit-roasted - The New York Times
"soft" - Google News
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