Jeffrey Martinovic’s New York Times crossword, “I Think Knot” — Dave’s write-up
01.12.2025 Sunday New York Times Crossword
First order of business is to let those of you who don’t already know that Nate, who regularly reviews the Sunday NYT puzzle, and his husband Ben have lost their home and belongings in the ongoing LA wildfires. A friend of theirs has set up a gofundme page, which at last check has raised over $65,000 that will help them start over again. Please consider donating if you have enjoyed his commentary here and all his other contributions to the Crossword Community.
Today’s puzzle features mirror symmetry and 3 groups of circled letters that represent various types of string “intertwined” (or ALL TIED UP, clued as [Even … or like three pairs of answers in this puzzle] at 94A):
45A: MUST R/EADS crossing 9D: GROWTH R/ING – STRING takes a 90 degree turn when meeting THREAD
92A: PLAY/ABLE crossing 48D: QUEEN OF C/ARNIVAL – YARN takes a 90 degree turn when meeting CABLE (my ear wants a definite article in the latter entry)
104A: BAR /ORDERS crossing 44D: SPACE TELESC/OPES – ROPE takes a 90 degree turn when meeting CORD (been loving the images coming back from the James Webb Space Telescope recently)
A couple of other bonus entries:
3D: [Devices worn by informants … and what can be found inside three pairs of answers in this puzzle] is HIDDEN WIRES
15D: [Bit of embroidery … or what’s depicted literally three times in this puzzle] is CROSS STITCH
I like how the 3 “knots” pretty closely follow the mirror symmetry and two of them feature long down entries. We’re currently watching Britain’s famous DIYERS’ Escape to the Château, and last night’s episode featured Angel making a seat which hung from the ceiling by macraméd cords, so this puzzle quite timely arrived in my solving queue!
A few other things of note:
- Parsing 23A: MODEL UN ([H.S. club with student “diplomats”]) was a bit “knotty” at first
- 79A: [Oxford institution, familiarly] was not Oxford, England but Oxford, Missouri or OLE MISS (recent victors over Duke in the Gator Bowl)
- 102A: [Foe of the SAXON] wasn’t PICT but our local b-ball squad member CELT
Until next week, and please keep Nate and his family in your thoughts.
The print NYT magazine has, for its weekly Patrick Berry contribution,
“HEX NUTS”. There is an error in the 3rd hexagram where “role model”
crosses “doodle.” The “el” and “le” only jibe phonetically. Either one
or the other is incorrect.
Unless I’m missing something (and I still think I am), this seems to be an outright error – and by Patrick Berry no less. I’m thinking perhaps Mr. Berry had 6 of
these on a page in one of his puzzle pamphlets with the instructions:
“each of these HEX NUT’s contains an error. Find these errors and combine
them appropriately to get the theme for this section (the “EL” and
“LE” suggest the magazine “ELLE”.”)
He was facing a deadline and, rooting around hurriedly, dashes this off to the Times.
On the NYT end of things, if you were also in a hurry, one might just this one time skip editing a Patrick Berry puzzle.
It should work if you read it counterclockwise, I think.