Adam Wagner’s New York Times crossword, “Going Off on a Tangent” —Nate’s write-up

Thanks a ton to Sophia, who lined for my final weekend whereas my husband and I have been out of city on trip! We took our first journey to Hawaii and loved ourselves tremendously in Maui. Now that we’re again, I’m excited to dive again into a brand new Sunday NYT puzzle. It was a enjoyable puzzle, although one which was spoiled tremendous early at 20A: IT’LL BE FUN! 🙂

11.27.22 Sunday New York Times Crossword

– 22A: INNER CITY (INNER CIRCLE) [Urban area typically with the tallest buildings]

– 38A: OPEN HEARING (OPEN HEART) [Public court proceeding]

– 61A: RIGHT TRACK (RIGHT TRIANGLE) [What you’re on when you’re making progress]

– 83A: SUPER STORM (SUPER STAR) [Major concern for a meteorologist]

– 101A: LEMON SQUEEZER (LEMON SQUARE) [Certain juicing need]

– 85D + 86D: BENT OUT / OF SHAPE [With 86-Down, very upset … like the answers to five of this puzzle’s clues?]

Wow! The extra I delve into this theme and its execution, I actually prefer it. At first, you discover how the “true” reply to every theme clue veers off at an angle into the circled squares, which appears to satisfy the revealer sufficient … however what are the themers veering away from? Shapes! INNER CITY veers off from the CIRCLE of INNER CIRCLE, OPEN HEARING veers off from the HEART of OPEN HEART, and many others. So, really, every of the themers is actually BENT OUT OF (a) SHAPE. Solid work! The solely actual bother I had in fixing the grid itself was the SW nook – for no matter purpose, I had a satan of a time getting any footholds there.

Other random ideas:
– 16A / 16D: I ponder how many individuals will get caught right here with WAPE / WIGGLE as an alternative of JAPE / JIGGLE, seeing how WAPE and JAPE seem to be equally nonsensical entries? Check right here for errors!
– 81A DANK: I’m guessing this’ll be new to some of us, so right here’s a fast primer.
– There have been various debut entries that felt fairly recent and fashionable, which I loved, together with PATREON (the place the constructor works!), BONG HIT, UPZONE, and YUCKED (somebody’s yum).

That’s all for now – I hope you loved this puzzle as a lot as I did. Let us know what you thought by leaving a remark beneath. Otherwise, be effectively and have an amazing begin to December!

PS: Today’s constructor, Adam Wagner, additionally co-invented a enjoyable new day by day anagram recreation referred to as Anigrams – when you haven’t checked it out but, you must!