Double Vision: NYT Sunday Crossword of April 20

April 20, 2025

The New York Times Sunday Crossword Puzzle of April 20, 2025 was a joint creation of Victor Schmitt and Tracy Bennett entitled Double Vision, and it was a doozy.

The theme of the puzzle appeared in clues that ended with “?” for long fills, whose answers were clever repetitive-looking phrases.

I first uncovered the theme at 28-Across: [Group that Tiger hires to install wall art?]. Noting Tiger was probably Tiger Woods, I was on the lookout for something related to him. I could see the middle probably contained WOOD and the end contained CREW, good for the “group” bit. With more crosses and inspiration, I could see the words WOOD and CREW were seemingly repeated, with some S’s in between, which made sense for WOODS and SCREW, as in screwing to a wall. Finally I teased out WOODS’ WOOD SCREW CREW; it’s delightfully clever.

The rest:

• 41-Across [Send fan mail en masse to a Monty Python production?]: SPAM SPAMALOT A LOT. I guessed the answer would involve spam since I knew the term’s junk mail meaning comes from a Monty Python skit. But I hadn’t heard of Spamalot, a Monty Python-inspired musical.
• 60-Across [Angry early president can be seen now in TV footage?]: MAD MADISON IS ON. Hilarious!
• 85-Across [Hotheaded liberal politico who’s eager to hear?]: DEM DEMAGOG AGOG. This is great, but the spelling demagog looked wrong. It turns out it’s a valid alternative of demagogue.
• 104-Across [Pharmacist comes through for customers?]: PRO PROCURES CURES. Brilliant! I originally tried to fit PROCURER PROCURES CURES before finding the answer.
• 122-Across [Editor’s strike?]: RED REDACTION ACTION. This one feels less convincing, since I think redacting is about censoring rather than general editing, and I don’t see how the redaction is doing the strike action. I guess red refers to an editor using red ink? Maybe I’ve parsed this one incorrectly.
• 3-Down [Email era?]: POST-POSTAGE AGE. Great.
• 56-Down [“Suh-weet! I love this sandwich cookie!”?]: This caused me the most trouble, because I’d read an article of crossword tips that said OREO occurs so often in answers that it’s called the “official” cookie of crosswords. I was absolutely sure OREO would appear. In this puzzle, it was a pump fake; the answer was WHOO WHOOPIE PIE. I hadn’t heard of a whoopie pie, a treat resembling an Oreo in construction, made of cake and filling.

I didn’t realize it while solving, but all the answers follow a pattern AABB, which is a nice touch of consistency.

Beyond the theme, the puzzle was filled with unfamiliar factoids and tricky twists. Here are my notes.

Arts and music

• Cyrano de Bergerac is an 1897 play by Edmond Rostand, about a multitalented soldier with an unusually large nose. The play inspired a 2018 musical and 2021 film called Cyrano
• In The Who’s 1969 rock opera album Tommy, the titular character cannot hear, see, or speak. I wasn’t familiar with the album, but I have heard the song Pinball Wizard from it, which has the memorable lyric: That deaf, dumb, and blind kid / Sure plays a mean pinball.
• Strega Nona is a 1975 children’s book, controversial in its time for depicting witchcraft.

Nature

• In botany, a drupe is a type of fruit with a thick skin and single central seed, like a plum or peach.
• Gingko biloba is the scientific name of gingko trees, called イチョウ in Japanese.
• A stilt is a type of shorebird with long legs.

People

• Marcus Loew (1870-1927) was the founder of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM).
• Anne Meara (1929–2015) was an American comedian and actress.
  
• Betsy Ross (1752-1836) was a Philadelphia upholsterer who sewed flags during the American Revolutionary War, though historians dispute the popular story that she helped design the U.S. flag.

Places

• Aswan Dam is a large dam across the Nile in Aswan, Egypt, built between 1960 and 1970 to prevent flooding, improve agriculture, and generate power.
• Enceladus is a giant who according to Greek myth is buried under Mount Etna, which has been featured in previous puzzles.
• [Rocky Mountain state: Abbr.]: IDA. The state most known for the Rockies is Colorado. When I saw COL wasn’t going to work, I thought of nearby states: Arizona? Nevada? I completely blanked on Idaho. The Rockies actually stretch from Canada to New Mexico, crossing through several states including Idaho.

Religion

• Perseus in Ancient Greek mythology was a king whose father was Zeus and mother was the mortal Danaë.

Science and technology

• [Makeup of some metallic bonds]: ARC WELDS. Arc welding is a technique of welding metals. I had not heard of this, and was trying to remember terms relating to atomic and molecular bonding.
• [X-ray doses]: RADS. The SI unit of radiation absorbed dose is the gray (Gy). The U.S. sometimes uses a unit called rad, which is ¹⁄₁₀₀ of a Gy. Perhaps more familiar is the sievert (Sv), the SI unit for effective dose, as seen in this chart by XKCD.
• [RNA base]: URACIL. I had a flashback to my high school biology teacher forcing me to yell this word in class as a means of remembering that RNA has it while DNA has thymine. Don’t ask.

Sports

• In American football, one type of offensive lineman is the right tackle, or RT. The answer to [Offensive lineman, for short], was RT, but I think this clue is misleading without “e.g.” since not all linemen are right tackles.

Tricky clues

• [Liver spot?]: ABODE. Liver meaning not the organ, but “someone who is alive”.
• [Pound sound]: ARF. I’ll be honest, I don’t know what the sound arf would be and how it relates to pounding, and I don’t care.
• [Nursery sight]: BLOOM, using nursery in the garden sense of the word.
• [It is done]: DEED. As in, you do deeds.
• [Jellied fish in an English dish]: EEL. I forgot the lesson I learned in previous puzzles to always consider eel for three-letter fish fills.
• [Portfolio piece, for short]: not about a showcase of work, but a part of an investment portfolio—an IRA, a tax-advantaged investment account in the U.S.
• [Support line?]: I SECOND, as in “I second the motion”. This made no sense to me while solving, and I had to look it up after.
• [Kind of column]: After racking my brains trying to recall Ionic, Doric, and Corinthian types of Ancient Greek architecture, I found the answer to be OP-ED, a perennial crossword favorite.
• [Young boxer, say]: A boxer is also a type of dog, hence the answer PUP.

Words

• Aro is short for aromantic, an umbrella term referring to people who experience little to no romantic attraction.
• A paean is a song of praise or thanksgiving.
• [Hanker (for)]: JONES, slang for “to have a strong desire or craving for something”.
• [Honcho] was NABOB. I hadn’t heard this term. A nabob is a conspicuously wealthy man, especially a provincial governor of the Mogul empire in India.
• Suet cakes are a common bird feed, usually consisting of sunflower seeds and wheat or oat flakes mixed with suet, an animal fat.
• [Corduroy fabric feature] was WALE. Wales are the vertical ridges of corduroy. I was stuck for a while because I filled PILE. Pile also refers to the raised surface, but more about the fuzzy texture than the ridges.
• [Creeping Charlie, e.g.] was WEED. I hadn’t heard of creeping charlie, another word for ground ivy.

Final thoughts

This puzzle was another great addition to the New York Times Sunday crossword trove. The repetitive answers were a delight to uncover. The bottom right region of this puzzle caused me a lot of difficulty, especially since the thematic clue was the non-Oreo whoopie-pie misdirection, but also many of the short answers were tricky clues. I’ll stay sharp on the next puzzle, and let’s see if I can whoop its butt!