Some five years ago (see Crossword 127) I found it very fishy that my crosswords were not appearing in The New York Times. Since then, they have continued not to appear there, and no doubt you too are wondering how that could be. It’s not that I’m not sending crosswords to the Times (though I admit it has been awhile since I’ve done so). And it’s not that the crosswords I’m sending don’t deserve publication—anyone can see that they’re much superior to many, perhaps most, that have appeared there of late years.
So what’s this really about? Well, have you ever noticed that, if you zoom in on a digital black-and-white picture until its pixels look like squares, those squares together, in 15 x 15 sets, resemble crossword grids? Okay, so it stands to reason that if you take several crossword grids, arrange them together, and then zoom out, you’ll get something that looks like a black-and-white picture. Now, have you ever thought that maybe the Times crosswords of the past few years can be arranged so as to make such a picture, for those who are in on the secret, that they might in fact have been constructed for that purpose? And have you ever wondered what that picture might reveal? I don’t dare to be more explicit, but I will say this: there’s definitely something fishy going on here.
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