Border Crossings (Published 2020) (2024)

SUNDAY PUZZLE — Everyone here loves to find the theme, and there’s something special about a theme that exposes something hidden in plain sight. Today we have an example of this phenomenon that takes “I can’t believe nobody ever noticed this before!” to the nth degree.

This is the first we’ve seen from Adam Fromm for almost a year; his portfolio with The Times stretches back to 2008. According to Will Shortz’s print introduction, Mr. Fromm is a songwriter/musician in Brunswick, Me., who has been making puzzles “as far back as I remember.” This one might change how you view the world!

Tricky Clues

There’s a lot of enjoyable eccentricity in the fill of this grid; I often call daily puzzles “smooth solves,” but today I lurched around a lot because I kept hitting tough medium-length entries that I needed more crosses on, pass after pass. I think I probably had about 45 percent of the puzzle done before I really figured out the theme; then I rushed through another 45 percent before having to slow down again to get those last few bare spots. I can see how some might have had “soho” rather than NOHO at the very top of the grid, although I didn’t fall for that one; I did get stuck on “hinds" instead of HARTS, which hindered me greatly, and I also had “AFL CIO” in the same general region before grumpily conceding to “the UAW” and finally THE NEA. That clue is technically right, but it got me.

106A: Again, that southwest corner tripped me up. YEN FOR is no debut, and it’s been clued this way before — using “yen” as a verb, which I’ve never before “yenned” to do.

15D: This clue belongs in a cryptic puzzle! “Gathering clouds” gathers up five vowels in order, AEIOU.

44D: Just noticed this one well after solving — if I’d done it electronically I’d be missing the jingle. I had “Larabar,” perfectly content to use a “cap” to measure some things while baking (vanilla, which seems to have recently become as precious as peaco*ck tears, for example). I couldn’t get away with dolphins and their five “firs,” though, so LUNABAR it is. I know these things are delicious but they still all make me think of “All-Purpose Survival Crackers.”