Right from the start, you’re given a theme clue at 1A: [“Imaginary” creature that could appear in one of the starred answers]. There’s an identical clue nearby in the same corner at 13D. In fact, there are six of these clues throughout the puzzle, and, conveniently, there are six starred clues. The word “imaginary” might put you in the mind-set of creatures like unicorns or dragons, but let’s look at the first starred clue. 20A: [*Making a bundle, as on a farm] has a 10-letter answer. Looking at the crossing Down answers, several of their clues don’t seem to fit. 22D: [Bathroom, for short] is a four-letter answer. JOHN and HEAD are a couple of four-letter synonyms for a bathroom, but neither of them fit in the grid. What’s going on?
This puzzle’s tricky theme is revealed at 104A: [Satirical conspiracy theory that explains why some creatures in this puzzle seem to be imaginary], which is BIRDS AREN’T REAL. All six of the “imaginary” creature answers are birds, and they can fit into the grid in those starred answers. You have to skip over the letters of the birds in both directions for the clues to make sense.
- 20A: [*Making a bundle, as on a farm] is BALING, with an “imaginary” LOON on the inside to make it look like BALLOONING. The crossing Down answers 15D: [Person settling a restaurant bill, say] is PAYER, 21D: [Maker of TVs and VCRs] is RCA, 22D: [Bathroom, for short] is LAV and 16D: [Sensitive spots] is SORES.
- 41A: [*“___, Texas Ranger” (1990s crime series)] is WALKER, with an “imaginary” JAY at the beginning to make it look like JAYWALKER. The crossing Down answers: 41D: [Common wallet bills] is ONES, 42D: [Quite] is VERY, and 43D: [Takes home, as money] is EARNS.
- 45A: [*Excellent] is SUPERB, with an “imaginary” OWL at the end to make it look like SUPER BOWL. The crossing Down answers: 47D: [“¿Cómo está ___?”] is USTED, 48D: [Engagement indicator] is RING and 49D: [Tolkien’s tree people] is ENTS.
- 67A: [*Flammable gas] is ETHANE, with an “imaginary” HAWK on the inside to make it look like ETHAN HAWKE. The crossing Down answers: 56D: [Valuable poker card] is ACE, 57D: [Diner on “Alice”] is MEL’S, 69D: [Be in poor condition] is AIL and 46D: [Blueprint] is PLAN.
- 81A: [*Microwave alert sound] is DING, with an imaginary CROW at the beginning to make it look like CROWDING. The crossing Down answers: 81D: [Area of expertise for a judge] is LAW, 82D: [Crew need] is OAR, 83D: [What seniors may cram for, briefly] is GRE and 66D: [Rosario-born revolutionary, familiarly] is CHE.
- 84A: [*Doily fabric] is LACE, with an imaginary WREN on the inside to make it look like LAWRENCE. The crossing Down answers: 80D: [What seniors may cram for, briefly] is SAT, 74D: [Little hit that may turn into a single] is BUNT, 70D: [Dot on a die] is PIP and 85D: [“Double Fantasy” musician Yoko] is ONO.
In case it’s new to you, BIRDS AREN’T REAL is a fairly recent (and hilarious) phenomenon that’s largely driven by younger people to poke fun at misinformation and more serious conspiracy theories. Peter McIndoe started Birds Aren’t Real in 2017 with the theory that the U.S. government exterminated all birds sometime in the 1970s and replaced them with drones to spy on Americans. In December 2021 the New York Times ran a profile on McIndoe and Birds Aren’t Real, which I’d recommend reading, although the first time I’d heard of Birds Aren’t Real was from a March 2022 interview with McIndoe on “The Majority Report” with Sam Seder. McIndoe stayed in character so well during that “Majority Report” interview that I was nearly convinced he actually believed it, and Seder did a great job throughout the interview of hiding that he was in on the joke.
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There can be a risk in publishing a crossword based on a recent pop culture phenomenon because it may not resonate with people who don’t know about it, and maybe it will just be a passing fad. But I think Birds Aren’t Real is funny enough to learn about even if this puzzle is your first exposure to it. And while this puzzle’s trick may be difficult to spot, one of the reasons I made the six birds their own entries in other places in the grid was to give you a hint, so that you wouldn’t have to play “Wheel of Fortune” with the starred answers and figure out which birds fit in those squares.
Last thing I’ll mention, with a spoiler alert for a year-old independent puzzle: Brendan Emmett Quigley wrote a crossword with a similar theme in 2022, although I’d missed it at the time and only learned about it just after I finished making this one. Quigley made his 21x21 puzzle (called “Fowl Play”) as a bonus for solvers who chipped in some money during one of his donation drives. That’s not a huge surprise since crossword constructors come up with similar ideas all the time, and in crossword years, I’m relatively late to the Birds Aren’t Real phenomenon. But it did surprise me that they were both Sunday-size puzzles and that we had such a similar approach — skip over the letters of birds to make sense of theme clues. Great minds thinking alike, and all that.
What did you think?
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