Persian Flaw

Saturday, December 10, 2022

Persian calligraphy and artistry on an old wall corner

Check out the puzzle here

Happy Saturday!

While TGIFs have been a thing for me since I was a kid, my fondness for Friday crosswords has definitely given a whole new meaning to my favorite day of the week. That said, Saturdays have a completely different carefree energy of their own and are definitely a close second in the list.

I have talked about the theme at length on my Crosshare blog; it should show up as it is when you click on the puzzle link. Crosshare is a beautiful open source platform that lets us construct, share and solve all kinds of crosswords. I can never thank Mike enough for coming up with this.

More on the theme later.

Tricky Clues

6A: Those is ESOS in Spanish, hence "'those' in Cuba" would be ESOS. This is a factoid seasoned crossword solvers would probably know regardless of their Spanish skills.

4D: SUSA is an ancient Persian city that was rebuilt by Darius I. Nothing much going, just a small bit of trivia and a subtle reference to the theme of this puzzle.

The Theme

The entire puzzle is rotationally symmetrical: the blocks and the letters. And here's the catch: the circled letter is the eponymous Persian flaw of the puzzle.

I first noticed the phrase from the title in this New York Times Sunday crossword and I never really put much thought into it, but this struck me when I was playing around with palindromes while making this mini.

It's nothing big, but you got to start somewhere. I'm learning.

-- Priya