Calling All Treasure Seekers

Wowee! It’s a milestone for YEGwords today: we've reached our 50th issue. Whether you’ve been here since the beginning or just got here, thanks for all the love and support! It’s the stories folks share with me (and occasional eavesdropping of solvers working through a puzzle) that keep me excited to keep making new puzzles every week. Sorry if you’ve been minding your own business in a coffee shop and I’ve done this to you…

I don’t want to say too much about this week’s crossword, just that my test solver enjoyed it and I hope you do too. Have fun!

Discussion (and spoilers!) below the break.

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Calling All Treasure Seekers by Brandon Cathcart

Discussion

Wow! I really wanted a fun theme for puzzle #50 and I’m glad this one popped into my brain. Given how often I ask people to remember Roman Numerals, many of you are likely wondering why I wrote an X theme for what really should be an L theme. I did get to sneak in an L in [The L of "taking an L"], so there’s that! A little easter egg for all the ancient Romans out there.

Remember when Katy Perry was good? Before she made songs like Woman’s World? Me too. Let’s go back to that time together.

Today’s Theme

32-Across is our revealer today - [With 37-Across, a clue to where treasure be buried - and to 3 squares in this grid]. Together these two entries spell X MARKS THE SPOT, but what does that mean?

There are three squares where the word “spot” will naturally complete a word or phrase - BLIND SPOT, SPOT ON, etc, but it doesn’t fit - you need to put an X there! BLIND X, X ON… X marks the “spot”!

Behind the Clues

4A. [Component of some boats] will no doubt confuse you if you aren’t familiar with BANANA boats (not to be confused with banana hammocks). Now that you’re familiar, give one a go next time you’re sitting by a campfire!

23A. It’s about time we had a Hairspray reference in a puzzle. [When tripled, Hairspray's "Front step, ____, back step, ____"] is CHA, as in CHA CHA CHA, a line of dance instruction fed to us by Miss Baltimore Crabs herself! Great musical, great movie… Good Morning Baltimore gets stuck in my head regularly.

39A. I really like [Word before monkeys and horses] - I don’t know if I’d call it a misdirect, but it’s certainly meant to be misleading! Given both these animals’ tendencies toward land, you might not think of SEA being a word that can come before either of them. I had several bouts of sea monkeys growing up, none of which prospered, unfortunately.

6D. Who is this tricky guy! This clue got scrapped from an earlier puzzle, but I liked it so much I kept it in my notes to use later. [You'll need more than one to make an "announcement" in Scrabble] is N TILE. You’ll need 4 in total (of the 6 available), though not all of them will come from you. Probably just one, as you add “ment” onto the end of “announce.”

11D. Listen, I don’t really want to revisit the troll face era of meme culture either, but we’re going to, just briefly. [Text that often accompanied a Troll Face, in early internet memes] is U MAD? and now we can go back to modern meme culture. Which I guess is mostly TikToks these days.

29D. [Captain Hook's boatswain] is not how you’d usually refer to Mr. SMEE, but when I googled what his actual title was, I knew I had to include it in the clue. All this time I thought he was first mate! The more you know.

I hope you enjoyed this puzzle!

Until next week,

Brandon