Ryan McCarty ’14 started doing crossword puzzles at Princeton: “I have always had a penchant for word games, but I can’t say I was too great at crosswords at first,” he says. When he tried creating puzzles from scratch, the music major (with a certificate in applications of computing) found both his creative and analytical skills helpful. McCarty, now a technology consultant at the Securities and Exchange Commission, began submitting puzzles for publication only last year — since then, his work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the Los Angeles Times.
Across
1. Panache
6. Drunkards
10. Trials and tribulations
14. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend network
15. Biblical twin
16. Losing strategy?
17. *Trendy nighttime dancing locale
19. Like a thick custard
20. Suffix with “elect”
21. Hybrid fruit with a pit
22. *Former Indy champ Bobby
23. Horseman?
25. Baby’s plaything
26. *Golden-brown quartz stones
29. Ivy’s support, maybe
32. Some pregame beers
33. Performer yukking it up
36. Sudden takeover
37. *Fiber used to make rugs
38. 2008 Obama catchword
39. Die down
40. Chief Justice in the Dred Scott case
41. Scattered, as seeds
42. *Toys making a comeback?
45. Hannity’s onetime counterpart, on Fox News
47. Wobbles
51. *In the lead
52. Architect who designed the Lewis Library
54. Nada
55. Dog owner’s ordeal
56. Princeton cheer that’s indicated by the beginnings of the six starred clues (with proper repeats, of course)
58. 18.36 square miles, for Princeton
59. Cyclotron fodder
60. ___ calculus (kidney stone)
61. Tilt
62. Funny ___
63. Ring ominously
Down
1. Work ___ (good student’s value system)
2. Sour cream morsel
3. Also-ran in the 2017 French presidential election
4. Katzenjammer cry
5. Makeup of the “dead man’s hand”
6. It’s used to prevent tapping
7. Where to get one’s Nobel Peace Prize
8. Like a drumhead
9. Hero
10. Do some brainstorming
11. Colorful rock concert display
12. Allowed
13. Collegiate Gothic, e.g.
18. Ad
22. They’re caught at the beach
24. Convertible cover
25. Microfilm unit
27. Glee Club platform
28. Like some dads
29. Fly through, as a test
30. ___ Lowe, portrayer of The West Wing’s Sam Seaborn, a Princeton graduate
31. Fruity Yogurt study-break beverage
34. Copycat
35. Pre-___ (undergrad track)
37. Professor Wang and others
38. Princeton Preview volunteer
40. ___ the line (conformed)
41. WWI hero played by Gary Cooper
43. Alumnus Bruce Lauritzen ’65, notably
44. Sociology study
45. Group bent on a 36-Across
46. Alternative to Midway
48. Periodical with click bait, maybe
49. Harvard, for one
50. One cast in a Harry Potter movie
52. First choice, as a strategy
53. Domain of Bowen and Shapiro, abbr.
56. Necessary science-course selection
57. Number of Turing Award laureates affiliated with Princeton University