Unlocking the Best NYT Crossword Solutions: Sept. 21, 2023

Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky Clues

THURSDAY PUZZLE — This is Dan Caprera’s fourth puzzle in The New York Times, and it’s a fun one, if you can catch it. Blink, and the contents might be gone.

Today’s Theme

You may need binoculars to spot them, but six species of birds are flying in a V formation through Mr. Caprera’s grid as part of their WINTER MIGRATION (40A). In reality, not all of the birds featured in this puzzle travel that way, but I liked his idea: The theme phrases make the shape of a V, turning 90 degrees downward, and that vertical leg is the name of a bird.

Update: I thought I had written that the birds in the Down entries represented their flying south for the winter, but my brain may have migrated somewhere else as well.

I caught on at 37A, clued as “Infamous presidential denial.” The answer is the Nixonian I AM NOT A CROOK, but the phrase breaks off after the C and the remaining ROOK becomes 39D’s “Corner piece.” The Across clues are for the entirety of the theme entries, and the Down part of the answer is clued as something other than a bird, which is a nice touch.

Spoiler alert: If you need help finding the other birds in this puzzle, click here to see the grid with just the theme entries and the revealer filled in. It may make it easier to see the V’s.

Tricky Clues

6A. This is a theme entry, but it’s also a question mark clue, so I wanted to point out the wordplay. The answer to the clue “Center cut?” is written as MOH, which then turns down at 8D’s HAWK. A MOHAWK is a haircut in the center of the head.

14A. I needed some crossings for this one because I interpreted the clue “Half of a rhyming game name” as a game where players have to come up with rhymes. It’s the game itself, Jai ALAI, that rhymes.

24A. The “Capital of Washington?” may be Olympia if we’re talking about the state, but in this puzzle Mr. Caprera is referring to capital as in funds. The answer is ONES, the U.S. bill with the nation’s first president on it.

29A./29D. Note these nearly twin clues. The Across clue is “Shows indecision, in a way” (HEMS) and the Down clue is “Show indecision, in a way” (HAW).

45A. What great wordplay! “Desire for a lonely hart?” refers to an adult male deer, and the answer is DOE. Now all I can think about is a deer singing the Yes song “Owner of a Lonely Heart.”

2D. From the “ÉPÉE her? I hardly know her” department, the “Competitive poker?” is that blunt-ended fencing sword.

33D. The clue is “What you do just for grins?” and, in order to “grin,” you have to SMILE.

Constructor Notes

I’m pretty pleased with how this puzzle turned out: It has seven theme entries, 66 themed squares going both horizontally and vertically, and those fun, stacked entries in the center of the grid. Moreover, if we ignore the phrase O.R. DOC (which is, admittedly, kind of gluey), I was quite happy with this grid’s fill, especially given how cramped the theme entries were in certain sections. Sometimes the crossword gods smile on you as you fill out a grid, and that was certainly the case with this one!

I hope you all enjoyed the puzzle, and thanks for solving. Enjoy the beginning of autumn (and the start of the WINTER MIGRATION)!

Don’t Fear the Fridays: About the Easy Mode Newsletter

Christina Iverson, a puzzle editor, will send a weekly Friday crossword with more accessible clues right to your inbox if you sign up for the Easy Mode newsletter. This extra bit of goodness is for those who would like to try the Friday puzzles but have heard all about how hard they are.

Take a look at the difference between the regular and easy-mode clues below. The links are a small sample of the clues from this Friday’s puzzle. When you click on them, you will see the version that will run in the regular puzzle as well as the easier version.

(Warning: The following are spoilers for the Friday puzzle.)