In this picture, he is shown at the post office in San Antonio, Puerto Rico eleven days after visiting all the post offices on the island. He circles every post office on his AAA map and then highlights them once he has visited them. In this picture his right index finger is pointing at the office in San Antonio, P.R.
Sometime during his quests he finds the time to, "put his stamp" on "first-class" puzzles like this and definitely doesn't just "mail 'em in"! Okay, okay I'm through.
When I contacted Evan, he was kind enough to send me a wonderful narrative about how this puzzle came to be. I have posted his response at the bottom of this write-up and I highly recommend that you take time to read it.
Now for our special delivery from Evan (Okay NOW I'm through):
Across:
1. Moisture-catching linings: SWEAT BANDS - My lawn mowing fashion statement
11. Barbecue crust: CHAR - National Cancer Institute says agents in charred meat can cause changes in DNA that may increase the risk of cancer and advises those parts be cut off and discarded. Not good for me to hear!
15. Period that included the Civil War: LINCOLN ERA.
16. Place with rolling pins, perhaps: LANE - Cute clue for our bowlers, Evan!
17. Making a plea: ENTREATING.
18. Present opener?: OMNI - It's an election year so guess what will be OMNIPRESENT
19. Have the chutzpah: DARE 21. Word with interest and error: HUMAN- This 8-second clip is a HUMAN interest story about a HUMAN error for a "hard to sight-read" word
20. Farm structure: SILO - Can hold corn or ICBM's
22. Farm structure: STY - and either can be next to one of these
23. Date night convenience: ATM - Insert $4.25 and you can get your date a Sprinkles Cupcake at this ATM
24. Pauses: LET UPS - Not a good idea when your team is on a roll
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Hélène Dutrieu |
28. Turn: ROT.
29. Informal "Right?": AIN'T IT TRUE - or more commonly around here: AIN'T IT THE TRUTH?
32. Ball, e.g.: GALA.
33. Links legend: SNEAD - Arnie fought to get in here but...
34. It's above lead on tables: TIN - There's Lead (Pb - PlumBum) right below TIN (Sn - StaNnum) in the Carbon family
35. Ring of Saturn?: ORBIT - Cute again! Saturn's ORBIT path
36. Hash ingredient: SPUD.
37. Makes even more gross?: GETS A RAISE - Cute again! My gross teacher salary was $488.33/month in 1968. In 2012 it was $4,883/month - I GOT quite A RAISE!
39. Plural possessive: OUR.
40. Leo is one: FIRE SIGN - If you believe in such, uh, science
41. Jalopies: CRATES.
43. __ wolf: CRY - Aesop had a fable about the consequences of doing this once too often
44. Nasty current: RIP - Swim sideways to the current to escape
47. R&B family name: ISLEY - Otis Day and The Knights covered The ISLEY Brother's song Shout in Animal House
48. Caps on a protective vest: SWAT - Those CAPS are letters not headgear. Fun!
50. Fundació Joan __: Barcelona museum: MIRO - The Joan Miró Museum in Barcelona that contains most of his art
51. Family member: AUNT.
52. Blocks off: BARRICADES - The "construction" of the BARRICADE on stage in Le Miserables often draws applause on its own.
54. Level: TIER.
55. Gerald Ford and Glenn Ford, e.g.: FREE MASONS - Mason symbolism on the $1 bill
56. Blues first name: ETTA - Her ETTA Is Betta Than Evah album led off last Friday's puzzle
57. Intermediary's compensation: FINDER'S FEE.
Down:
1. They often have runners: SLEDS - Mine was a Flexible Flyer
2. Succeed in: WIN AT and 3. Contest form: ENTRY - To WIN AT Power Ball after you make an ENTRY has a chance of 1 in 292,000,000
4. Estate unit: ACRE - Highclere Castle (used in Downton Abbey) was originally set on 5,000 ACRES in Hampshire, England
5. __ the line: TOE.
6. "Dang!": BLAST IT.
7. Part of the Enterprise's power source: ANTIMATTER - It was also in Dan Brown's book
8. Diamond of song: NEIL.
9. Bond classic: DR NO - My first image that DR NO evokes for me is of Ursula, especially on this cold, winter's day
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| Ursula Andress in Dr No |
10. Decline: SAG - None spotted in the picture above
11. Leverage: CLOUT.
12. Early code name?: HAMMURABI - One of his 282 rules from his code of ~1754 B.C.
13. Alphabetically second on a list of U.S. state capitals: ANNAPOLIS - Oh yeah, it's the capital of Maryland AND the home of The Naval Academy
14. Put back: REINSTATE - It may be a while before AJ Hinch is REINSTATED into baseball because the Astros got 44. No longer forced to deal with: RID OF him. Hinch didn't 24. Whopper you can't eat: LIE - He admitted he knew of the cheating, didn't approve of it but did not stop it
21. Curse: HEX.
23. All in: AVID - I would say Evan is "All In" on his post office avocation.
25. Ever so slightly: A TAD.
26. Not remotely fresh: TRITE.
27. Flees in a panic: RUNS SCARED - I would if he were 30. Chasing, with "of": IN PURSUIT of me
31. Artificial intelligence framework: NEURAL NET - Explained from MIT
32. __ Torino: 1970s Ford: GRAN - The producers of GRAN Torino (a 53. Ford product: CAR) found the car they wanted on Ebay. Clint Eastwood bought the car after the movie was done for his collection
35. Bacchanalia: ORGY - Curious?
37. Beneficiaries of a 1944 bill: GI'S - A well-deserved benefit for The Greatest Generation and military men and women that followed
38. PAC's election season purchase: AIR TIME - INFLUENCE had too many letters
40. "30 Rock" creator: FEY - Can you find the "creator" in the More Info area below?
42. One-third of dodeca-: TETRA - One-third of twelve is four
45. Sherlock's foe Adler: IRENE - Based on a real person?
46. Term in Old West and hip-hop culture: POSSE.
48. Indian garb: SARI.
49. Chirpy bird: WREN - They are a drab addition to our winter landscape but their songs can lift my spirits
50. Keyword in Newton's second law: MASS - Bigger masses are harder to speed up
52. Texting partner, like, srsly!: BFF - Part of the modern lexicon by now
Here is what Evan wrote to me about the genesis of this puzzle:
The origin of this puzzle dates back six years, to when I was effectively filling grids manually and with a distinctive lack of success. Here is an early draft of the grid. I love reading about scientific developments and try to keep my word list updated accordingly. This grid was originally developed around the HIGGS BOSON, front and center (well, top and left). You can see the origins of the current puzzle in the SE corner, with fill that included FISA Courts—which were in the news at the time—and some other short entries that I find unsatisfying today...
Back then I left several half-filled versions in a folder (including a version with the NE and SE corners of the grid as they stand today). I remember being excited to include HAMMURABI, ANNAPOLIS, and FINDER’S FEE because they hadn’t appeared in a modern NYT crossword before… (and indeed they still haven’t!) Fast forward to July 2018 and this puzzle came to life. I had to scrap HIGGS BOSON, but was able to get my sci-tech fill with ANTIMATTER and a NEURAL NET from AI research. Other than that, I tried to make all the longer answers radiating from the center interesting while keeping everything smooth.
Favorite submitted clues: “Spot with rolling pins?” = LANE, “Present opener?” = OMNI, “Like fans you can’t turn off?” = AVID, and “Early code name?” = Hammurabi. Glad to see my clue for ORBIT made the cut!
