Circuitous Crossword

6. Weirdly enough, 5 DOWN’s less weird name is also the USPS abbreviation for this state.
7. While 6 ACROSS is the first state alphabetically, if you combine its usps abbreviation with the first chronological state's USPS abbreviation, you get this word.
9. This state's capital shares a name with 1 DOWN.
10. In this song, a fiddle player makes a 7 ACROSS with the devil down in the state that borders 6 ACROSS.
11. The titular 2 DOWN in this early-1990s film has the same name (although it is spelled differently) as the Scottish groundskeeper at Bart and Lisa's school in The Simpsons.
12. This city, home to the oldest continuously operating university in Europe, shares its name with 4 ACROSS — at least, that’s how 5 DOWN pronounces it.

1. This New England city, home to the Basketball Hall of Fame, was founded in 1636 by an ancestor of a famously reclusive postmodern writer who refuses to show his face in public — so much so that when he voiced himself on The Simpsons, his cartoon version wore a paper bag over its head.
2. The aquatic mammal you get if you combine the USPS abbreviation for the state whose most populous city is a sister city of 12 ACROSS with the USPS abbreviation for the state that, as of 2025, would have the fourth-largest GDP in the world if it were a country.
3. If you combine the USPS state abbreviation of 1 DOWN and 9 ACROSS, you get this word.
4. While 10 ACROSS came in 50th on Billboard’s Hot 100 singles of 1979, this parody song by 5 DOWN was based on that year’s number-one song, My Sharona.
5. This musician’s 11 minute and 23 second song is also the most populous city in 8 DOWN.
8. This state's capital shares a name with a fictional character that gets so much 3 DOWN that the USPS has a special program that invites regular people to legally open and respond to it.