Thursday, May 26, 2022, Blake Slonecker
Armed and Quite Punny There is a first time for everything, and just like one of my fellow bloggers admitted a week or so back, this is the first time I was stumped by two clues. But upon loading the HTML listing all the clues and fill, I did a head slap for missing a clever pun on a pluralized cephalopod (see 8D below). Had I sussed it, I would have simply learned that the crossing natick was a new bit of slang for the "fuzz". Our constructor today Blake Slonecker , is an LA Times veteran, having debuted on Christmas Day, 2019. He has also had puzzles published in the New York Times , The Wall Street Journal , and Universal Crossword . In this puzzle he presents us with a visual theme with the payloads for the 8 themers in carefully arranged triplets of circles stacked in two rows. Given the obscurity of the reveal clue (which I did happen to know), I think the theme w...