The New York Times crossword puzzle
Across
1 Lawn game played with a ball known as a pallino 6 Thin snack 11 Formal words of commitment 13 Omitted, as
a syllable 15 Toyed (with) 17 Neighborhood in lower Manhattan 18 Exhibited heliotropism, as a flower 20 Plus-or-minus
one?
21 Joe’s co-host on “Morning Joe”
22 Part of a
Tolkien army 23 Big fuss 25 What gives a
gin fizz its fizz 26 Novelist
Brontë 27 Prepared for
an oral exam? 30 Construction
beam 32 Abolitionist who wrote “Twelve Years a Slave”
37 Fantasy sports scoring standard, informally 38 Bygone phrase
for “gone by” 39 “Enough!
I get it!” 42 Overly proper 44 Cambridge or Oxford, to a Londoner 45 Big initials
in theaters 46 Dip that might be made in a molcajete, informally 47 Poor
review
49 Went uneaten, as some groceries 54 Classic Asimov
collection 55 Part of a calendar septet, and a phonetic hint to this puzzle’s theme 56 Florida’s “Sunshine City,” for short 57 Futile
58 Philly basketball player
59 Leafs (through)
Down
1 Bully in “Back
to the Future” 2 Home for the artist Edvard Munch
3 Spicy ramen
condiment 4 Monte ___ 5 John who sang “Bennie and the Jets” 6 Exploded
7 Lei man’s
term?
8 Rank’s counterpart, on a chessboard 9 New Jersey city named for its most famous former resident 10 Come back 12 ___ Alcindor (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, formerly) 14 Ballet or
ballroom, e.g. 16 First phase of
a home reno 19 Finished off 23 Word after
kick or bad 24 “The Way,” in
Chinese Pinyin 25 Track-and-field athlete with a strong arm 26 Pretentiously
avant-garde 28 Dweeb
29 Te ___
(“I love you,” in Spanish) 31 Yap from
a lap?
33 Jazz singer
Jones
34 Elvis hit that was the B-side of “Don’t Be Cruel” 35 Caterer’s
container 36 Smallest Canadian province, for short
39 Stop in a desert 40 Once-popular
big box stores 41 Ocean creatures with nearly triple the neural wiring of humans 43 Rapper whose name sounds like a beverage 46 Thousanddollar bill, slangily 47 Before surgery, informally 48 Writer/ podcaster Harris 50 Mountain goat 51 A good time 52 Be wide-open 53 Parts of the “Mona Lisa” that seem to follow you around