The Game Is Afoot
Jump to: Tricky Clues | Today’s Theme
SUNDAY PUZZLE — Michael Schlossberg is an internist in Bend, Ore., who has been making crosswords for The Times since 2020. This is his second Sunday grid, and his eighth overall. For any frustrated would-be constructors: Eugene T. Maleska, The Times’s crossword editor from 1977 to 1993, famously had 40 rejections from the old New York Herald Tribune before his first submission was accepted back in the day. Mr. Schlossberg says he had 50 Sunday puzzles rejected by us before he got a yes.
This puzzle is in no way generic, but I find it an archetypal pun Sunday, accessible and fun to solve.
Today’s Theme
Regular Sunday puzzle solvers might think the timing of this grid is a little odd because we had a theme about shoes two weeks ago. But one foot in front of the other, right? Also, the two themes are otherwise quite different. Seven pun riddles are in this theme set, at 23-, 38-, 46-, 67-, 83-, 95- and 112-Across. Each includes a type of footwear whose name has two meanings.
The puns range from cute (but logical) to unguessably wacky. I was amused by most, especially the two that are rooted in political and pop culture history. One of those was the first theme entry I filled in: “1970s-era sneakers?” are the WATERGATE BURGLARS, who sneaked into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Hotel and Office complex in Washington, D.C., in 1972. Fair enough, and sensible, since rubber-soled shoes earned the “sneaker” moniker by making little noise when worn.
Source: The New York Times
