The main seed for this puzzle was 58A, which occurred to me while I was out for a stifling morning walk. I think there were several subconscious seeds as well: I’ve been daydreaming about once again traveling – we just had to cancel a trip to Portugal in October – and it turns out a handful of entries are places I’ve been and loved. Not surprisingly, the solving notes below (with bonus photos) are something of a travelogue. I hope you enjoy the puzzle. Please share it if you do.
The Little Cathedral, Glendalough, Ireland
21A: Here’s another hint – the Book of Kells is in Dublin. As far as I know I don’t have a drop of Irish blood in me, but I’ve never felt so at home while away from home. What a wonderful island, and what wonderful people!
18D: As Nigel Tufnel might have said about the sights and sounds of this city, “they go to 11.” (This Is Spinal Tap). It’s as vibrant and fascinating a place as I’ve ever been.
The Cliffs of Moher, which should look familiar to Harry Potter fans
25D: The Cliffs of Moher were the exterior for the cave scene in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Typical Tuscan landscape – olive trees in the foreground, a vineyard tucked behind them, and cypress trees in the mid-background (see 65A)
Here’s a little crossword humor for y’all. How little? You decide – and if you find the puzzle amusing, please spread the word about both the puzzle and this web site!
I have a few JeffsPuzzles.com caps left, so please email me at JeffsPuzzles@gmail.com if you’d like one sent your way (for free).
Just a couple of notes on today’s grid:
10A: We have a running joke/lament in our family that whenever we become enamored with a product, it gets discontinued. Most sorely missed: Kellogg’s Product 19, which despite the clinical name was really, really good.
50A: If you’re not familiar with the [ANSWER] variety puzzle, they’re tremendous fun. Unfortunately, I can’t explain them here without giving away the answer. All I can say is I solve the ones from Andrew Ries every week (they come out every Tuesday, followed by a tough themeless every Wednesday) and they provide a great mental workout. His site – ariespuzzles.com – is by subscription but well worth it if you’re up for a challenge.
How about a juicy, not too difficult themeless with references to con artists, schismatics, the best music documentary I’ve ever seen, and a classic novel of anti-colonialism? You won’t find that just anywhere, you know. Enjoy and share!
View from the back of the Summer Palace (St. Petersburg) (see 16 and 19 Across)
Two bits of housekeeping before my usual rambling notes:
First, a big thank you to my son Adam and to Josh Audibert for helping me through an annoying technical issue. Plug time: Adam’s iPhone and iPad app Albums – album focused player is a powerful, flexible, and engaging music player, available on the App Store at https://apps.apple.com/us/app/albums-album-focused-player/id1469948986. Josh publishes fun, creative daily minis on his Odd Bear Puzzles site, oddbearpuzzles.com. Solve them if you’re not already doing so!
Second, in an effort (vain in one sense but hopefully not in another) to drive more traffic to this site, I’ve ordered hats with my site’s logo on it (picture below). If you’d like one —ABSOLUTELY FREE — before they hit the runway in Paris, email me at JeffsPuzzles@gmail.com with your address.
25A: I hope the 33/45 reference isn’t lost on too many solvers. In a world where CDs are as outdated as calculators, the vinyls of my youth (almost all of which I still have, thank you very much, as well as a turntable to play them on) are just so many abaci.
27A: This song charted well in the UK but got little air play in the US, apparently because it references cross-dressing.
38A: The major monotheistic religions mostly share the same admirable ethical precepts. But historically, and still today, many adherents of these religions have ignored their faith’s teachings and clashed violently over what, to the outside observer (e.g., anyone practicing a different religion) is doctrinal hair-splitting with little ethical import. This answer is but one example. Pedantic lecture over (until the next one).
This has nothing to do with the puzzle, but permit me to introduce my dog, Max. The squirrel got away.
The title phrase, if you don’t recognize it, is a line in this puzzle’s revealer. I hope you enjoy the puzzle and share it far and wide. (I had intended to include a PuzzleMe option but I couldn’t get it to work. So, a question for other constructors: do I need an upgraded WordPress account for iframes to work? I just have the basic level.)
14A: Friends tell me my house has walls and furniture galore in this color. Being colorblind, I take their word for it. And my wife, to her delight, has free rein on all color decisions.
20A: Also the title of an irrepressibly catchy tune from Reel Big Fish.
40A: The great Mario Vargas Llosa called this publication “…the most serious, authoritative, witty, diverse and stimulating cultural publication in all the five languages I speak.”
Here’s a challenging themeless built around three grid-spanners: a terrific book from the great Haruki Murakami, a classic line from a very funny baseball movie, and a fervent wish about our nation’s capital. Enjoy and share!
Cologne (Koln) Cathedral at dusk (see 56 Across)
10A: Walter is one of my favorite authors. His characters – labor organizers, reformed criminals, active criminals, movie stars, poets – come alive, and he writes with deep feeling and sharp wit.
45A: I’m not sure how many people remember him – he’s still alive and kicking at 94 – but Sahl is credited as the first modern stand-up comic, and his political satire inspired Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, Richard Pryor, and many others.
60A: I refuse to clue this by reference to my local baseball team so soon after they traded so many stars (especially to the Dodgers!).
4D: Another favorite author of mine, Murakami’s novels brim over with music, magic, and close attention to his characters’ internal lives.
10D: Here’s a link to the clip, which follows the memorable line “He’s a juvenile delinquent in the off-season, in his Major League debut.” The quote is around the 54 second mark. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_wc9JvTXGc.
I’ve done puzzles about music and food, music and travel, and music and art, so the logical next step was music and horticulture, right? In the sage words of the Knights Who Say Ni, “Bring me a shrubbery … One that looks nice … And not too expensive!” (For any culturally bereft solvers, it’s a line from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.)
This one should be on the easy side, as long as you are somewhat musically omnivorous.
46A: I went with the baseball examples here, but other famous alums include astronaut Ellen Ochoa; actors Julie Davner, Gregory Peck, Marion Ross, Cleavon Little, Raquel Welch, and Carl Weathers; radio personality Art Linkletter; football’s Marshall Faulk and Joe Gibbs; and basketball superstar Kawhi Leonard. Impressive!
62A: A great band in the 60s and early 70s; other hits include Carrie Anne (written about Marianne Faithful), He Ain’t Heavy (He’s My Brother), The Air That I Breathe, On the Carousel, etc. etc.
23D: This one might be a bit obscure, but for a while in the 70s they had some very catchy hits, complete with great hooks and soaring harmonies.
As the mat says, Welcome! This one’s a moderately challenging themeless, so put your thinking caps on and remember, it’s nice to share …
34A: I apologize for failing to find a less gloomy quote for this answer.
3D: This is the heart of Miami’s Cuban community
9D: The furor triggered by the Encyclopedie, which was the first largely secular encyclopedia, makes for an entertaining story. An Enlightenment tour-de-force, the Encyclopedie was banned by the Catholic Church and blamed/credited for the French Revolution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclop%C3%A9die
I’ve got a different kind of themed puzzle for you this week. No tortured puns and no classic rock references – the worldwide relief is palpable – just a straightforward trivia quiz about US Presidents. For background, read the spoiler-free discussion below the photo. If you enjoy the puzzle, please share it far and wide. Finally, thanks to my brother Eric for helping me out of a bit of a mess in the middle of a grid.
Presidential bio collection
Over the last several years, I’ve read biographies of every US President. One thing I learned: our country has been blessed with a few superstar leaders (Lincoln, FDR, Washington, Truman), cursed with a handful of awful leaders (Buchanan, Pierce, A. Johnson, Trump), and otherwise mostly muddled along with Presidents ranging from pretty bad to good-but-not-great.
We’ve had some fascinating mixed bags: LBJ was one of our greatest Presidents in terms of domestic policy but embroiled us in Vietnam; Teddy Roosevelt was a Progressive firebrand but an unreconstructed imperialist. We’ve had at least two Presidents whose place near the top of most rankings is difficult to square with their actual achievements, JFK and Thomas Jefferson. And on the other side, there are at least a couple – Truman and Carter – who I think are underappreciated.
Which brings us to this puzzle. None of the names above is a theme answer. Of the ten Presidents included in the grid, some were very good, some were mixed bags, and some were forgettable. All, however, fit symmetrically, which is an admirable attribute.
Specific comments:
1A: This President was instrumental in negotiating the Louisiana Purchase while serving as Ambassador to France, entered several treaties with Great Britain following the War of 1812 that benefited both nations economically, resolved boundary disputes with Great Britain, obtained Florida from Spain, issued a Doctrine warning European nations about interfering in the Americas, and promoted infrastructure improvements. Of course, like every US President before 1850 except the two Adamses, he was a slaveholder, and he only reluctantly signed the Missouri Compromise because he didn’t believe slavery should be restricted anywhere.
63A: This President was a talented and internationally respected mining engineer, and during and after World War I he ran food relief efforts both domestically and in Europe that saved millions of lives. Later, as a dynamic Secretary of Commerce under Coolidge, he sought to improve virtually every sector of the economy and was instrumental in promoting the development and regulation of radio. Alas, upon becoming President he inherited an unsustainable economy from Coolidge and seemingly did everything in his power to make things worse, resulting in the Great Depression.
37D: This President served as governor of the Philippines under McKinley and Teddy Roosevelt and strove to secure land for Filipino farmers, treat Filipinos equally with Americans, and give Filipinos a role in governing their own country with an eye to eliminating the perceived need for American presence. Following his largely unremarkable Presidency, he served as a well-regarded Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, where he markedly improved administration of the federal courts.
The highest-ranking angel, our dog Mia (see the clue for 1 Across)
Word Count: 70
Average Length: 5.40
Difficulty: 5 out of 5
The seed for this one, not surprisingly, was 5D, which I first thought of when constructing my two Set List puzzles a month or so ago. Joni Mitchell has remained one of my all-time favorites since the early 70s, and her fourth album is phenomenal, justifiably considered #3 on Rolling Stone’s most recent list of the 500 Greatest Rock Albums of All Time. My views on Taylor Swift have pulled a “uey,” to use some bad crossword fill. I used to dismiss her as just another bland pop star, but now that I’ve given her a chance, I think she’s an exceptionally talented songwriter and performer. Her first acoustic album from 2020, “folklore,” is really nice.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy the puzzle. Please share generously!
38A, flowing under the Ponte Vecchio, the oldest bridge in Florence
Here’s an easy holiday puzzle for y’all. To mark the 4th, I thought I’d focus on “American” music (gee, that’s a surprise, says anyone who’s solved one of my puzzles). I put “American” in quotes because the music we play, listen to, and create is a hodgepodge, an olio if you will (yes, you can use the word outside of crosswords) of indigenous, European, African, Latin American, and Asian influences. We harmonize our disparate heritages in our music.
In brainstorming – never ideating, which is a horrible word and should be banned from crosswords despite its friendly orthography – possible theme answers, I found the three here. Not only are they symmetrical; they illustrate my “olio point” in an appropriately tinted manner.
Finally, one specific comment on the puzzle: Given the theme, I had to give a shout out to Ms. Russell in 50D, as the co-star (with husband Matthew Rhys) of one of the greatest shows in television history.
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