Lucky for me, I checked my facts before firing off an indignant letter to Will Shortz and Jeremy Newton, author of the June 15 crossword (answers.) I absolutely knew the Ford Model A came out after the Model T so it couldn't be the First Ford. I know a lot about A's because I nearly bought one a few years ago. It turns out a large percentage of them are still on the road. Parts are available from several suppliers. They're incredibly re:liable vehicles. And they came out in 1927, well past the introduction of the Model T in 1908. The problem is that there was an earlier auto produced as far back as 1903. It's pictured here, and it's also called a Model A. This was before Mr. Ford hired branding experts, I guess. It's probably before branding experts even existed. Anyway, the moral of the story is that Mr. Shortz is right, as usual. Damn.
I got the memo early on this one and wrote in RE at the start of all the long clues making this Sunday a particularly quick solve despite the fact that there was yet another TV show I had never heard of. Straightforward theme. Straightforward clues. Some of the theme answers were cute. Solid puzzle.
Reverse Engineering in software refers to trying to regenerate the source code (what programmers write) from the binary formats that computers understand. I had to reverse engineer the Across Lite binary format for xwordinfo.
"Apple gadget" was a fun clue since there's a company with that name that makes many cool gadgets but not, in fact a CORER. "Some are Dutch" is OVENS. "Fourth members of musical groups" is FAS, coming after dos, res, and mis.
Not a lot more caught my eye in this puzzle so I'll tell a story about my friend Dan who, when he first bought his BOXY "Honda Element", used to like calling his friends on the road from his cell phone. "Guess where I am?" he'd shout as he hurtled down he highway keeping only one hand on the steering wheel. "Yes, Dan, I know, you've told me already. You're in your Element. Ha, ha." Everyone has their own reasons for the vehicles they choose to buy.
This seems to be a New York Times debut for Mr. Newton, so congratulations!
Update: Not only is this Mr. Newton's NYT debut, it's his first published puzzle. That's quite a feat to have your first crossword in print be a Sunday NYT. Everyone here at The JimH Crossword Blog (ok, that's me) wishes him great future success.
The next day’s post has some biographical info on the constructor.
