David Steinberg’s Sunday puzzle hits us in a sweet spot.
SUNDAY PUZZLE — This grid, like yesterday’s, is from a longstanding member of The Times’s constructor community: David Steinberg. He’s been making grids for every day of the week — as well as variety puzzles — since 2011, when he made his debut at 14 years old. According to its print introduction, this puzzle is his 101st.
Mr. Steinberg is the puzzles and games editor for Andrews McMeel Universal, a media company, and edits the Universal Crossword , which appears in newspapers including The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Boston Globe.
Today’s puzzle has a theme twist buried deep in its core and a puzzle note that may also be well hidden to many electronic solvers. The notes, which is also where the Sunday puzzle’s title hides, say: “The middle letter of the answer to each starred clue can be replaced by a different letter to form two new words, across and down. Read the new letters, in order, for a bonus.”
Maybe it’s because I got quite close to finishing this grid before recognizing its theme, but I found this puzzle to be ruminative. The name trivia is brainy and classic — AVOGADRO, AUDREY Hepburn, GOYA, CHER — and there are a lot of other nice touches that merit a second look.
78A. It’s that time of year, and in the category of best original clue, OSCAR has never before been hinted at using this “Uncle” factoid. It refers to the gold statuette’s resemblance to a relative of someone who was a librarian at, and eventual executive director of, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
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