Ah, the triumphant return of everyone's favorite QVXwordz running gag - this time in the form of a somewhat difficult 72-word themed puzzle. (It's about as hard as a trickier NYT Wednesday, I'm told.) I was going to make a joke about how the grid shape on this one was brought to you by the letter S, but - and forgive me if this gets too inside baseball - then I checked the stats on this one and was surprised to find that there were very, very, very few instances of the letter "S" in the grid, relative to most other puzzles. E.g., Themeless 17 on this blog has as its final four across entries TENETS, CASTLES, OP-EDS, and KISSERS. And those are crossing JARS, CUTS, and HURTS. That's seven plural entries in just the final two rows! This is quite typical of crosswords - you hardly notice the surplus of plural entries unless you're solving a themeless where the final entry is SEERESSES or whatever. But this grid only has three plurals in the entire grid (and one is a theme entry so it doesn't count). S is only the third-most common consonant in the puzzle! Quite weird. Anyway, shout-out once again to John K. (who has today's NYT, incidentally) for test solving, as well as to Will Nediger, plus Louie and try_kach from Crosscord who were also very helpful with their feedback on which clues needed a polish pass.
It looks like we're settling into me posting grids every Sunday this year, which means I'll have to update the top header on this site... and the whole theme, honestly. (It's been four years! About time for a remake, I think.) People really hate the color scheme on this site, although I have to say I kind of like it. But I also like the terrible MacPaint-ass theme on my personal website, so what do I know?
Applet, as always under the cut. Enjoy!
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