Skip to content Skip to sidebar Skip to footer
Home / Kids Drawing Tablet Crossword Clue

Kids Drawing Tablet Crossword Clue

Post a Comment

wordplay, the crossword column

Billy Ouska's puzzle may play games with your heart.

Small fragments of star surround a section of the Cas A supernova remnant, one of the youngest known supernovae identified in the Milky Way galaxy.
Credit... NASA/Getty Images

TUESDAY PUZZLE — Welcome back to the constructor Billy Ouska, who is making his second appearance in the New York Times Crossword with this playful Tuesday puzzle.

Like the "notoriously fast starter" at 43D, I flew out of the gate on this solve before reminding myself to slow down and smell the roses, so to speak. The theme of this puzzle is clever and joyful, and I wanted to savor every moment of unraveling the theme entries. Before we get there, though, let's take a look at some of the tougher entries.

1A./30D. I love a good repeat, where the same clue is used for two entries. Today we have "Exam for some coll. seniors" for both MCAT and LSAT. The abbreviation "coll." lets the solver know that the answer will also be an abbreviation.

17A. This is a tricky type of clue sometimes called "faux cryptic" because it takes after the style of cryptic crossword clues, in which the wordplay revolves around the letters that make up the words in the clue. In this case, "Cadillac rims?" refers not to the rims on Cadillac tires but to the "rims" of the word Cadillac. The letter c can be found on either end of the word Cadillac, so the entry here is the spelled-out word CEES.

38A. Quotation marks signal that the entry will be a colloquial word or phrase equivalent to the one in the quotation. In this case, "You rang?" means the same thing as "YES?" when one answers a summons.

41A. To be IN WITH a group could mean to be "among" its members, "as friends."

47A. The word "modernly" in the clue "Happenin', modernly" signals that we are looking for some current slang that means, approximately, "happenin'." Although I'm personally not cool enough to use the expression "It's LIT!" to refer to a "happenin'" party, plenty of younger solvers might be. Of course, I'd also never call a party "happenin'," so I suppose I will just have to avoid parties altogether.

3D./27D. This is a set of almost-repeated clues: We have "The beginning of the Hebrew world?" and "The end of the Greek world?" for ALEPH and OMEGA. I had to think for a while to figure out how this clue worked, but I think it's just that ALEPH is the beginning of the Hebrew alphabet and OMEGA is the end of the Greek alphabet, and the use of the word "world" in the clue is just meant to heighten the wordplay. If anyone has a better explanation, please post it in the comments!

37D. The "Element named after a group in Greek myth" is TITANIUM, after the mythological titans.

45D. I love the clue "Where you might bump into a metal fan" for MOSH PIT. Despite not having a question mark at the end, it's a funny, visual misdirect that had me thinking of the metal fans at the ends of ventilation shafts that people crawl through in action movies.

53D. A "Work of art that goes to waist?" is a TORSO, which is a sculpture of the human figure that runs from the shoulders to the waist (or hips). Of course, a TORSO is also just the part of the human body that runs from the shoulders to the waist, but this clue is much more fun than a straight anatomical definition would be.

59D. "One seeing red?" is a reference to the (inhumane and generally pretty awful) sport of bullfighting, where a TORO is drawn by a matador waving a red cloth. TOROs are not actually able to distinguish the color red, so the use of red fabric is more for tradition than to actually enrage or otherwise attract the TORO.

It's GAME time! Mr. Ouska has created a puzzle based on common phrases that could also be read as the instructions for four games (which, per the clues, have been posted outside a "tournament" of each game).

The first phrase is CAPTURE THE FLAG, which I understand to be the goal of Stratego, but never having played Stratego myself, I will have to take Mr. Ouska's word for it. The other three games are familiar to me, and I particularly enjoyed the theme entry SIT FOR A SPELL as the sign posted outside of a Scrabble tournament. (On a related note, if you've never read Roxane Gay's essay about her experience with Scrabble tournaments in her book "Bad Feminist," I highly recommend checking it out.)

My other favorite theme entry is the "Sign outside a dominoes tournament" that reads CONNECT THE DOTS. The game may be a tad more complicated than that, but, ultimately, connecting the dots is precisely what one does to play dominoes.

The theme set is sparkly and vivid, and no revealer is necessary to understand the wordplay in the four theme entries (although 44A is the word GAME, clued without reference to the theme — I wonder if this entry was used as a revealer when the puzzle was submitted?).

This is a fun, seasonally appropriate puzzle for families gathering over the holidays (as Mr. Ouska's notes make clear). I'd love to see if readers can come up with more common phrases that could be reimagined as the instructions for a board game. The only one I've thought of so far is "Check this out!" for chess, which is not nearly as good as the four in this puzzle. Add your own in the comments.

Some of my favorite memories, both as a kid and as an adult, involve playing board games with friends and family, so it was wonderful to get this theme accepted for publication. It's even better that this puzzle is running now, as a game of Risk over winter break was a childhood tradition in my family (even though the game would invariably end with someone in tears). Hopefully you get a chance to SIT FOR A SPELL or CONNECT THE DOTS with loved ones around the holidays, and hopefully you enjoyed this crossword!

Kids Drawing Tablet Crossword Clue

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/29/crosswords/daily-puzzle-2021-11-30.html

Post a Comment for "Kids Drawing Tablet Crossword Clue"