Time and Space

I’m back! Though barely. I had a great, restful vacation (ask me how many rounds of disc golf I played 😎), but I came home right in time for Folk Fest weekend to start. I’m managing Stage 5 again this year, so it was a hectic week of getting ready for that, putting together a puzzle, printing, and waking up early this bright Friday morning to crank out a newsletter and run deliveries before heading to set up the stage. All in the name of fun!

P.S. - check out Puzzmo on Monday - you might see a familiar name 👀

This week’s puzzle is weirdly shaped! Why think outside the box when you can just adjust the box to whatever size and shape suits you?

Discussion (and spoilers!) below the break.

Play

Time and Space by Brandon Cathcart

Discussion

A bit of an easier one this week! Even though it has about the same number of words and felt about the same making it, my test solver and I agree - this grid shape somehow lent itself to being a fast solve. Hooray if you got a new PB and sorry if you were hoping for a big, meandering puzzle!

This song never fails to get my energy through the roof!

Today’s Theme

A series of shaded squares hides this puzzle’s theme, with count ‘em - three revealers! These revealers show a pattern when viewed together

10A. Line, e.g. (or a description of the top part of this puzzle)
21A. Square, e.g. (or a description of the middle part of this puzzle)
35A. Cube, e.g. (or a description of the bottom part of this puzzle)

You might notice we increase the dimensions in the shape, from ONE-D (line) to TWO-D (square) and THREE-D (cube). That also happens to be the number of squares containing a D in each third of the grid, as highlighted by the shaded squares :)

The title Time and Space is a reference to the dimensional nature of the theme.

Behind the Clues

9A. [Sounds heard a lot in the second half of "Jurassic Park"] you may think would be ROARS or, um, DINO NOISES or something, which would be true but not fit. Here it’s SCREAMS, which I can confirm is true because I watched a YouTube supercut of all the screams just to make sure there were a lot of them. There are.

16A. I’ll admit, I’ve seen my fair share of great TED Talks over the years. They are also the [Host of informative presentations like "How to use a Paper Towel"], which is a joke because it sounds like a bad presentation but is not a joke because it’s serious.

26A. [Wireless audio technology whose plural should include 27-Down: Abbr.] is BT for BLUETOOTH, but I say do away with “bluetooth connections” or “bluetooth-enabled devices” and go with “blueteeth connections” and “blueteeth-enabled devices.” Actually, writing that down, I don’t.

12D. Ah, what could have been. [Modern-day "carpe diem" that narrowly lost to GIF for Oxford Dictionary's "Word of the Year" in 2012] is YOLO. I love seeing what different dictionaries choose for their WOTY. Oxford’s 2025 word was “rage bait.”

19D. You might want to bring a [Helpful bit of rain gear] to Folk Fest this weekend. Coat maybe, poncho sure, but don’t forget a BOOT or two to battle the wet and mud.

27D. Speaking of facts that I don’t know if I love knowing, [Umbrella slugs produce approx. 750,000 of them in their lifetime] is TEETH. They hold the Guinness World Record for “Most Teeth (Lifetime),” which I will not be attempting to challenge.

Until next week,

Brandon

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