ST×NLB Cross-References: It might be served on a conveyor belt

SINGAPORE – This week’s ST×NLB Crossword was constructed by ST Features Correspondent Grace Yeoh, who is part of a team of 40 volunteers from both organisations. Here’s her message to solvers:

Especially in the world of TODAY (18D), the notion of the INNOVATOR (8A) – [One who introduces new ideas] – is often seen as adjacent to, if not synonymous with, that of the technological visionary. When you hear the term, perhaps the first IMAGE (16D) that comes to mind is Thomas Edison or Steve Jobs, introducing the world to some revolutionary new device.

As a humble crossword constructor, editor and occasional columnist, I tinker more with grammar than gadgetry; my inventiveness is limited to punnery, and my devices are only literary. Still, I’d like to think that the work of wordplay is also a kind of innovation, even if its effects are somewhat subtler than those emerging from Silicon Valley.

Thankfully for aspiring innovators like me, this week’s grid offers plenty of food for thought about how to get started, and proves that not all innovation has to be technological.

Lesson one: Don’t be a COPYCAT (13D). As the popular schoolyard rhyme goes: “Copycat, kiss the rat, go home let your mother slap!” 

Though we certainly don’t endorse bullying of any form, there is a reason this expression lambasting imitators – and suggesting that they engage in behaviour which defies the natural order* – has persisted through the generations. From a young age, we are taught to admire originality and spurn imitation. So don’t simply look at what has already been done; try to imagine something different, and better.

*If the version you grew up with replaces “kiss the rat” with “chase the rat” – behaviour which does comport with the natural order – you can disregard this bit.

Lesson two: Question the OBVIOUS (3D). The greatest innovations are often revolutionary precisely because they uproot something everyone else takes for granted.

Consider conveyor-belt SUSHI (5A) restaurants. In the 1950s, Osaka restaurateur Yoshiaki Shiraishi began searching for a more efficient alternative to chefs preparing and handing each morsel directly to customers.

Struggling to keep up with orders at his popular sushi shop, he found inspiration at a beer-bottling plant, where he watched bottles travelling along a conveyor. After several years of development, he opened the first conveyor-belt sushi restaurant, Mawaru Genroku Sushi, in Osaka in 1958.

Funnily enough, it is now the conveyor-belt model which may seem intuitive to the modern diner. Another way to approach innovation then is to ask: What might feel obvious to someone in the future, but has yet to be invented?

Lesson three: Find new possibilities in familiar things. Introducing an existing product to a new audience can be a form of innovation too – take UBE, a [Purple yam popular in the Philippines]. The crop has long been used in Filipino desserts such as halo-halo and ube halaya, but began attracting wider international attention around 2016.

Its dramatic purple hue proved a natural fit for the Instagram foodie community, helped along by fashionable restaurants such as New York’s Manila Social Club, whose ube doughnuts became an online sensation.

Well suited to the visual economy of the social media age, ube soon took root in international cafe menus in the form of cakes, waffles, ice cream and lattes. Trend forecaster WGSN named it a top flavour trend in 2023, while more recent commentators have touted it as a possible successor to matcha in fashionable cafes and bakeries.

The innovation was not ube itself, of course, but the new ways in which it was presented, allowing a long-established ingredient to reach a new audience.

So, as this week’s grid shows us, inspiration can come from many sources, and innovation can take many forms. Here are a few other clues from this week which caught our eye:

1A. PANDORA is the [Infamous box opener in Greek myth, or charm bracelet brand]. The mythological Pandora technically opened a jar rather than a box – the familiar “box” arose from a later mistranslation. The jewellery company, meanwhile, began in Copenhagen in 1982 and launched its signature charm bracelet concept in 2000.

10A. MARIO is the [Iconic Nintendo mascot originally named Jumpman], making his debut under that name in the 1981 arcade game Donkey Kong. According to Nintendo’s official history, he was later renamed after Mario Segale, landlord of Nintendo of America’s warehouse.

13A. CODE-SWITCHING is the term for [Alternating between English and Singlish, perhaps]. In practice, this might mean revising one’s “Ya, confirm can” to “We’re confident that we’d be able to execute on that” upon realising a business call is with international partners rather than local ones.

4D. One’s ATTENTION SPAN is what social media may shorten. If yours has lasted this far into the article, you may be interested in NLB’s Reading in the Age of Distraction series or in The Attention Merchants by Tim Wu, one of our book recommendations this week.

Book recommendations

Let the week’s clues inspire your next read, courtesy of NLB. Follow the links to borrow.

20A. “How could I explain that it was not all playacting? That I felt more of the male spirit within me than the female – a fierceness that whittled me down to a sharpened spear of ambition. And as a boy, I was APPLAUDED, not punished, for such raw energy. It was not beaten out of me for my own good, or worn away by women’s chores.” – Eon by Alison Goodman

23A. “Things of themselves cannot touch the soul at all. They have NO ENTRY to the soul, and cannot turn or move it. The soul alone turns and moves itself, making all externals presented to it cohere with the judgements it thinks worthy of itself.” – Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

4D. “Ours is a time afflicted by a widespread sense of attentional crisis... one captured by the phrase ‘homo distractus,’ a species of ever shorter ATTENTION SPAN known for compulsively checking his devices. Who has not sat down to read an email, only to end up on a long flight of ad-laden clickbaited fancy, and emerge, shaking his or her head, wondering where the hours went?” – The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble To Get Inside Our Heads by Tim Wu

Across

1. Infamous box opener in Greek myth, or charm bracelet brand (7): PANDORA

5. It might be served on a conveyor belt (5): SUSHI

8. One who introduces new ideas (9): INNOVATOR

9. Purple yam popular in the Philippines (3): UBE

10. Iconic Nintendo mascot originally named Jumpman (5): MARIO

12. Award contender, say (7): NOMINEE

13. Alternating between English and Singlish, perhaps (4-9): CODE-SWITCHING

15. _______ Card (membership programme for CC activities) (7): PASSION

17. Slang for the real deal (5): LEGIT

19. Chinese tea (3): CHA

20. Clapped (9): APPLAUDED

22. Main idea (5): THEME

23. What’s signalled by a white bar on a red circle (2,5): NO ENTRY

Down

1. Influencer-backed local brand, with + (5): PRISM

2. Negative prefix (3): NON

3. Crystal clear (7): OBVIOUS

4. Social media may shorten it (9,4): ATTENTION SPAN

5. Concentrated beauty product, or component of blood (5): SERUM

6. Taking a narrow view? (9): SQUINTING

7. Cause of Titanic’s doom (7): ICEBERG

11. Service offered by Grab or Gojek (9): RIDESHARE

13. Imitator who may “kiss the rat” in a schoolyard rhyme (7): COPYCAT

14. Big name in oral hygiene (7): COLGATE

16. Publicist’s concern (5): IMAGE

18. Out-of-print newspaper once given away at MRT stations (5): TODAY

21. It comes before com or sg (3): DOT

If you have any feedback, feel free to write to us at stgames@sph.com.sg. See you next week!