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Lynn Lempel’s New York Times Crossword — Eric’s Review
Lynn Lempel’s New York Times Crossword — 7/13/26 (Click to Enlarge)
What’s Monday without a punny revealer aimed at theater fans everywhere?
Theme material:
- 17A [Meccano offering for budding builders] ERECTOR SET “Meccano” is new to me. Wikipedia indicates it was the original British building toy with metal strips and nuts and bolts; the Erector Set appears to be a later imitation that Meccano purchased in 1990. I can remember spending many hours building stuff with a hand-me-down Erector Set, but I have no memory at all of what my little brother and I actually built with that.
- 25A [Human’s earliest phase, according to Freud] ORAL STAGE
- 35A [Metaphorical Cold War barrier] IRON CURTAIN The Berlin Wall came down in 1989. That seems like a long time ago and like just yesterday.
- 48A [Small aircraft for short flights] TURBO PROP
- 57A [Toys … or the ends of 17-, 25-, 35- and 48-Across?] PLAY THINGS
Sets, stages, curtains, props — all things you might often find in a play. The theme answers aren’t particularly sparkly, but they’re good enough.
Other stuff:
- 19A [Taj Mahal city] AGRA What better day of the week than Monday to introduce newer solvers to the 23rd most populous city in India?
61A [Treat for Winnie-the-Pooh] HONEY Nope. As all true fans of Edward Bear know, it’s HUNNY.- 2D [Martial art in which folks get their kicks] KARATE Cute clue.
- 6D [Mimic] PARROT Not PARODY.
- 10D [Minimal] SCANT Not LEAST.
- 29D [Humorous parody] SEND-UP Not SATIRE.
- 58D [Salmon on a bagel] LOX That’s not a particularly amusing clue or answer, but it gives me an excuse to share a photo of our latest Saturday breakfast ritual. (Technically, this is not lox.)
