Free Association 16
Welcome to another edition of pandemic puzzling! Today I have what I believe to be a hard Friday/easy Saturday puzzle for you. As usual, this puzzle contains clues that would be rejected by every single publication out there. Which is why this experimental space is so fun for me. I hope you find this an enjoyable solve.
For those of you who follow this blog regularly, I have next Tuesday’s NYT crossword, so check it out and I hope you like it. Check out my comments on XWord and Wordplay for more details. If you are coming to this site for the first time after hearing about it on XWord or Wordplay: welcome! I hope you’ll sign up for notifications and be a regular part of our little crew.
Stay safe and stay strong my puzzle peeps. We will get through this. I wish all the best for you and your families. Now it’s back to tending my (hopefully) tasty pot of Maryland Crab Soup. Email me if you’d like the recipe!
About The Author
Trent H. Evans
I'm a husband, father, psychologist, musician, and crossword constructor living in Catonsville, MD. My puzzles have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times and its syndicates, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Andrews McMeel Universal Syndicate, and crossword apps such as the Redstone Crossword Puzzle App on iOS and Google Play. All of that means I've been published in every newspaper in the United States and many others around the world. And now I've been published here at Grid Therapy, which allows me the amazing freedom to let who I am shine through. Maybe it will occasionally rub you the wrong way politically. I don't know. But in this space I get to not care. I hope you enjoy your time here on the crossword couch! I'd love to hear from you if you have comments or suggestions. If you're interested in having a custom crossword puzzle created for your event or organization, email me at drtrent (at) gmail.com.
This was fun. I really liked 39D although it slowed me down, because I mean, who doesn’t lie to inject Lysol? It took me awhile to come up with the lambada and the clue was educational because I didn’t know it was banned. And it took awhile to recover from my knee jerk reaction of putting “Moore” into 49A. Also fun to see what clues look like when they are not edited by Will.
Thanks Scott! Being able to let my opinions and personality into some of the clues is one of my favorite things about Grid Therapy. I’m glad you enjoyed.
Comment
I didn’t know if I could complete a crossword with a 4 1/2 couch level of difficulty but I gave it a go and enjoyed it a lot! I appreciate clues that are challenging without being maddeningly obscure. I also had a lot of fun with your NYT puzzle today. Like Deb, I laughed out loud.
Thanks so much Beverly!
Trent, enjoyed your NYT puzzle today! Well done. Looking forward to solving more from you here.
Brief question – as a budding constructor, I’d be fascinated to know how you got the puzzles here to be online-solvable? Is this a plugin tool of some kind?
Thanks and keep crossing.
Mike
Thanks Mike. Yes it’s a service called Puzzle Me by Amuse Labs. For each puzzle, I generate html code from their site and paste it into mine and it all runs from their server. The New Yorker and the LA Times among others use it.
Trent,
Thanks for the reply. Really looking forward to solving more of your work, including this puzzle later today. All the best to you!
-Mike
PS – Really like your couch rating system.
Thanks Mike! I hope you and yours are doing well.
Lots of fun, but a challenge too. I did not know the LAMBADA, so that area slowed me down. Didn’t know about the “Up documentary series” either, but for some reason APTED was the first name that popped into my head. Isn’t it intriguing how the brain works sometimes–knowing things we didn’t know we knew? I only got OLIVER from the crosses. Should have known it from “Twist” because Dickens is right up at the top of my list of favorite authors. “Pam” didn’t ring a bell though. It’s so refreshing to do a puzzle where it’s perfectly okay to show political preferences. The WELL DAMN was refreshing too. Thank you so much for offering these extra puzzles to us. It’s a real service in these stressful times. And somehow, knowing that you are a mental health professional makes me feel like I’m getting therapy from doing your puzzles. (I know, that’s why it’s called Grid Therapy, and I love it!)
Oh, and I forgot to say that I loved the puzzle you did for the NYT last Tuesday.