Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle: Chair toted on poles

Constructor: Jeremy Newton and Tony Orbach

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: "You'll Get Through This" — Puzzle note: "The grid represents a maze. Enter the room at the upper left and exit at the lower right, following a path that will become apparent as you solve the crossword. When the puzzle is done, read the circled letters in the order in which the rooms are visited to spell a quote by 153-Across." The "path" is a series of DOORways, where DOOR is represented in certain answers by a black square separating one section of the answer from the next. Circles spell out, "EVERY WALL IS A DOOR," an enigmatic quotation from Ralph Waldo EMERSON.

[I cannot find a source for the quotation. There are a billion quotations sites out there that attribute the quotation to him. Google Books turns up many instances of Camus (and others) *saying* that Emerson said it. At one point I found someone who wrote that Emerson "reputedly" said it. But the big drag of the internet is that I cannot quickly find the actual source of the quotation; instead, I'm drowning in a flood of quote sites and self-help and "leadership" books, all of which quote him without clear attribution. Help me out, please]

[UPDATE: Big thanks to E. Hamori for finding an attribution for the quotation at this site (The Ralph Waldo Emerson Society site, not surprisingly): "(Journal, 15 October 1844)"]

Word of the Day: Emilio PUCCI (19D: Emilio of fashion) —

Emilio Pucci [...], Marchese di Barsento, (20 November 1914 – 29 November 1992) was a Florentine Italian fashion designer and politician. He and his eponymous company are synonymous with geometric prints in a kaleidoscope of colours. (wikipedia)

• • •

This is a wonderful architectural feat and a lot of fun to solve despite the fact that I didn't need to (or bother to) actually complete the maze before (or during) solving the puzzle. I did a little post-solve drawing to see how it all worked out. The quotation seems banal and self-helpy, something

you'd find on a motivational poster, which is why I went in (fruitless) search of its source. Admittedly, I didn't search long, so I remain reasonably confident a valid source is out there somewhere. But back to the grid—it's very cool-looking, with all the little white-square islands. At first I thought I was dealing with some kind of board game. Clue, perhaps. But the grid wasn't quite right so I just plowed ahead, with the understanding that DOORs were somehow involved. Once you pick up the DOOR thing, the puzzle's not that hard, except for the SE, which I found rough—partly because of the basically unclued nature of EMERSON, partly because of the difficult-to-see HARD HIT (149A: Walloped), and partly because I just blanked completely on the Alfa Romeo model (142A: Classic Alfa Romeo roadsters=>SPIDERS). Oh, and I'd never call Ireland EIRE (133D: Home to the sport of hurling). That was a crazy guess based solely on the initial "E."

DOOR answers:

25A: Done for, finito, kaput (DEAD AS A * NAIL)
8A: Go canvassing, say (RING * BELLS)
27A: Auto security feature (POWER * LOCK)
18D: UPS drop-off site, often (FRONT * STEP)
53D: Seinfeld vis-a-vis Kramer (NEXT * NEIGHBOR)
86A: Show a bit of courtesy (for) (HOLD THE * OPEN)
39D: Hush-hush powwow (CLOSED * MEETING)
57A: Some fun in the sun (OUT * GAMES)
75A: Teaser on party fliers (WIN A * PRIZE)
34D: All-weather resort amenity (HEATED IN * POOL)
89D: Involuntary extension of troop tours (BACK * DRAFT) — never heard of this phrase before. I have heard of the Ron Howard movie "BACKDRAFT," though...
146A: Chrysler 300, e.g. (FOUR * SEDAN)
96D: Colosseum entrance, e.g. (ARCHED * WAY)
115A: Hilton or Westin welcomer (HOTEL * MAN)
141A: Burrowing arthropods (TRAP * SPIDERS)

There were a number of little things I liked about this puzzle. Like the clues on AHS (110A: Pre-sneeze sounds) and (especially) CLOSED * MEETING (39D: Hush-hush powwows), or the answers CROSTINI (33D: Italian appetizer, literally "little toasts"), RED STAR (44D: Macy's logo feature), and

NYC TAXI (45D: One in a line at J.F.K. or La Guardia). MARTHA Stewart is just *on TV* in my head, so I had no idea there was anything particularly new going on in her TV life as of 2005 (116D: Daily talk show beginning in 2005). I did, however, know that Seiji OZAWA was a turtleneck-wearer (seen him clued that way before) (136A: Conductor in a white turtleneck). Speaking of AMYS (54D: Author Tan and others), I picked up Amy Chua's "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother" today at the public library. One thing I love about it, and the thing that got completely drowned out by the din of outrage, is that it's really well written and really funny. I mean, so far. I'm like 10 pages in. Anyway, I saw her on Colbert and liked her and saw the book sitting there and thought "why not?" Also got something called "The Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, Professor, Tattoo Artist, and Sexual Renegade," which looks super-awesome and which had me at "gay pulp fiction" (p. 1!).

Bullets:

17A: Cop squad in "Monk": Abbr. (SFPD) — Had SFGD at first because of an understandable (I think) GUCCI-for-PUCCI error. The former mayor of my city is named BUCCI. He is also the new principal at the local Catholic high school. He's *got* to be an improvement over the interim principal, who (according to ... sources) told the student body that sex was not necessary in marriage (yes, that's "in," not "before") because "Jesus wants to be your passionate lover." The principal before that guy was a shoplifter. Sometimes I love this city.

73A: Shrub used in dyeing (ANIL) — a crossword word if ever there was one. I have to be careful not to confuse it with another crossword dye (AZO) or a seed casing (ARIL).
147A: Chair toted on poles (SEDAN) — Weird that this piece of transportation gives its name to my Honda Accord.
12D: Repeating heart monitor sound (BIP) — Really?! I wanted PIT. Or PAT.
70D: Gossipy Smith (LIZ) — a very familiar name and face from my youth, but I have no idea from where, since I'm not a native New Yorker. I assume she was on national TV somehow. Or maybe I'm confusing her with Dr. Joyce Brothers (they live next to each other in my brain; don't ask).
93D: Bygone missile with a tribal name (NAVAHO) — I grew up with the "J," spelling, but the puzzle likes this variant.