This New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle by Adam Wagner features six rectangular gray boxes arranged in a 2×6 grid pattern with arrows indicating clockwise or counterclockwise movement. Solvers must decipher six seemingly nonsensical clues that, when combined with adjacent entries and the puzzle's geometric system, reveal an elegant theme based on shape manipulation and letter arrangement.
Maud Stevens Wagner, born in Emporia, Kansas, became one of the most recognizable figures in early American tattooing after running away to join the circus and marrying tattooed performer Gus Wagner. Her iconic 1907 photograph displaying her elaborate tattoos is one of the most downloaded tattoo images in the Library of Congress, and artifacts from her life were discovered in an abandoned Kansas farmhouse.