Friday, October, 16, 2026 — No, You Can't Play an EBOW With An ELBOW 🙄😂

Today's crossword was a debut for Adam Shapiro — but it wasn't for a lack of trying. He has had 15 previous submissions to the NYTimes rejected, so today's puzzle is a monument to perseverance as well as crossword constructing excellence. An example of the latter may be seen in 39D, Holder of all the digits, from 1 to 0, KEYPAD (awesome!); 57A, Losing causes? DIETS (delectable!); and the astounding 17A, Mail-centric fiction, EPISTOLARYNOVEL (so that's how you spell it!). For the record, Jean ...