Puzzle Notes

Hi everyone,

You're in for a treat this week: a cryptic from crossword legend and icon Trip Payne!  We hope you enjoy the puzzle and marvel at all its smooooth surfaces and clever bits of wordplay.

From the constructor: "Trip Payne lives in the suburbs of Los Angeles and is senior editor for the daily pop-culture crossword app Crosswords With Friends.  He had his first puzzle published in Games Magazine in 1983 at the age of 15, which is surprising given that he is currently only 39."

And a note from AVCX, in case you haven't seen it yet in our other offerings: "As of January 1, 2025, the AVCX will no longer be linked with Puzzmo, the company that supported us with pretty dang remarkable generosity for the past two years of our expansion. With gratitude to them, we are now preparing to adjust our funding model to continue our expanded content at a sustainable level. And we want to listen to what our solvers want as we decide how to do so. If you're down to fill out a humanely brief survey, we'll not only be grateful, but it'll help us follow your lead."

If you haven't responded to the survey yet and feel passionate about cryptics, please let us know in the survey.  We appreciate you!

See you next time, when we'll have a cryptic from another crossword legend!

Nate + the AVCX Cryptics team