You definitely need an open mind to put this all together. It came to me fairly slowly. My first complete set of entries was at 69-Across, 69-Down and 89-Across, and that was mostly thanks to letters from crossing entries. I also knew the across answers with some certainty. 69-Across, [Not-so-joltin’ joe?], had to be DECAF COFFEE, right? And yet, there was only room for F COFFEE in its allotted spaces. Meanwhile, 89-Across, [Got up and at ‘em], filled in as D THE DAY. Time for some actual caffeine and some help from neighboring entries, which supplied the letters to 69-Down. This one is an actual word: FACED. This creates a bracket:
F C O F F E E
A
C
E
D T H E D A Y
Now, 69-Down and 89-Across together make a satisfying solution to that across entry, FACED THE DAY. Similarly, 69-Up and 69-Across reads DECAF COFFEE. The puzzle’s title, “Have It Both Ways,” describes the action taken with those unclued down entries, which are all words when read forwards or backward.
Once I knew the tactic to take, I found the rest of the theme’s examples without too much trouble. I will say that the brackets, which are not marked by anything special in the grid, sort of melt into the background, but the concept is impressive and makes for a great solve.
The last set of entries I figured out is actually at the very top, at 1-Across, 29-Across and 5-Down. This is a tricky one, because there’s a perfectly good answer to 1-Across that fits in its allotted spaces: [Jeans material] can certainly be DENIM. Also, 29-Across isn’t that easy: [Dug through for digital analysis] solves to DATAM, which doesn’t exactly look right, but what could this be? It turns out that 5-Down solves to DENIM, and 1-Across is BLUED:
B L U E D
E
N
I
D A T A M
DATA MINED is therefore the logical answer to 29-Across.
Tricky Clues
18A. This is a pretty form of verse: The [14-line poem with only two rhymes across three stanzas] is a RONDEL, from the Old French word for a “small circle” because it runs the same rhyme at the poem’s start and finish. Chaucer’s “Merciless Beauty” is an example from the 14th century with a first and third-to-last line, “Your eyes slay me suddenly,” that wouldn’t sound out of place in a modern pop tune.
84A. [Sounding as if the speaker has some swollen glands] solves to ADENOIDAL. Is this word onomatopoeia? It’s impossible to say it aloud without sounding like you’re afflicted with the condition in the clue.
16D. This was one of the puzzle’s harder factoids for me: The [German soccer legend Manuel who innovated the “sweeper-keeper” role] is Manuel NEUER. The “keeper” part is stopping goals from scoring; the “sweeper” part is risky and involves a goalie moving onto the field to push the ball into opponents’ territory.