Author: Jeff

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Themed Uncategorized

American Songbook

puz | pdf | solution

Word Count:  69 (14×15 grid)

Average Length:  5.04

Difficulty:  2 out of 5

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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Themeless

June 29 Themeless

puz | pdf | solution

Word Count:  70

Average Length:  5.51

Difficulty: 4.5 out of 5

See 24 Across

After last week’s excursion into immoderate inanity, here’s a straightforward themeless.  Please share with gusto and flair; please comment if you’re so inclined.

17A:  I believe this is a universal phenomenon; I’m only slightly embarrassed to admit we have three of these in our kitchen.

24A:  The proud home of Lagavulin, which crafts wonderful whiskies.  I love their 16 year old offering (see photo above); that and the Balvenie Double Wood (non-peaty) are my go-to Scotches.

50A: “It’s better to burn out than to fade away” – one of my favorite Neil Young lines, though not as good as “This much madness is too much sorrow,” which could have been the theme song for the administration of he-who-shall-not-be named (45).

8D:  Notable example:  the turtle from Kentucky

53D:  This was a new one on me, but apparently, it’s a disparaging term aimed at the less physically gifted (such as yours truly).  I checked its currency with my younger son, who is a baseball player and has heard it before.  It’s “in the language,” just not one I speak. By the way, it stands for Non-Athletic Regular Person.

55D:  Suboptimal fill, to be sure.  I thought that there was a current famous person with this surname (not Matthew of The Americans fame, who spells it Rhys), but other than a bevy of Welsh rugby and football (soccer) players, I was wrong.

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Goofy Themeless

Goofy Themeless

puz | pdf | solution

This has nothing to do with the puzzle. It’s the tiniest rabbit I’ve ever seen, happily munching on our front lawn yesterday.

Word Count:  72

Average length:  5.44

Difficulty:  Um, all I can say is it’s probably an easier solve if you’re in the same state of mind I was during much of the construction process. 

Here’s the idea:  the 3-letter answers are common words and abbreviations/acronyms and should give you a decent foothold in the puzzle.  A significant majority of the 4-letter answers are common words, but each of those words is clued without regard for the word’s actual meaning.  The remaining 4-letter words and all the longer answers are either neologisms or nonsense phrases, the more ridiculous the better. 

I hope you have even a fraction as much fun solving the puzzle as I had constructing it.  If it’s not your cup of tea, never fear; I promise my next puzzle will be considerably less Alice-out-Wonderlandish.

Specific comments:

22A:  I am happy to do my small part for the Indie Constructor Steely Dan Recognition Drive.

39A:  With all apologies to Monsieur Van Gogh, I couldn’t resist the clue

58A:  I’m sure most (non-MOT) solvers won’t get this answer off the bat, but again, I couldn’t resist the clue.  For an explanation, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_(divorce_document).

62A:  One of my all-time favorite movies. How do you know he’s a king … I’m not dead yet … etc., etc.

10D:  My first ever Spanish pun.  (Cura is a Spanish word for priest.)

34D:  Stupid, yeah, but funny, I hope.

Categories
Themed

What Did Edvard Munch?

(Not Ice Scream)

puz | pdf | solution

Word Count:  74

Average Length:  4.95

Difficulty: 3/5

Palette or palate, what’s the diff?  Artists have painted still life arrangement for centuries.  You might ask, though, what happens when artists become one with their food?  Solve and see!  And please, share bountifully.

34 Down: My Selmer Mark VI

The seed for this puzzle was an earlier incarnation of 23A:  my wife, who is a punster extraordinaire, came to me last week and suggested using “bialy” as the second word, which I like because it is inherently funnier than the actual second word in the answer.  Alas, the exigencies of symmetry stamped their feet after I came up with the other two theme answers and bialy was toast, so to speak. 

Special thanks to my test-solver (son Adam) on this one – he always has good input, and here he suggested some edits that I think greatly improved the final product.

Categories
Set List

Set List 2: The Who/Cat Stevens/The Beatles/REM/Andy Williams

puz | pdf | solution

Word count:  84 (grid is 17×15)

Average Length:  5.07

Difficulty:  Between 3 and 4 out of 5, depending on the overlap between your musical memories and mine.

Statue of The Beatles, taken in July 2019 in Liverpool.

Enjoy this musical mash-up, and please share freely with kith and kin alike.  Comments and suggestions are welcomed.  Question for constructors using CrossFire:  is there a way to specify the type of symmetry, or are you stuck with rotational unless you hand-insert the blocks to create central symmetry?

26A:  The long-ago anthropology major in me finds it fascinating how various cultures have disparate takes (and bestow different significance) on very similar foods, as with the dishes in this clue and answer (cousins of which appear in cuisines from around the world); crepes/blintzes/blini/enchiladas are another example. 

62A:  The last song in the set list was first performed by Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, but Andy Williams is most closely identified with the tune.

71A:  In cluing this, it just occurred to me that several common synonyms for “try” are pretty violent – this answer, “shot,” and “tackle” come immediately to mind.  I wonder if that’s true only in English or whether other languages have similarly aggressive formulations.  Any ideas?

76A:  My favorite Steely Dan album, containing my favorite Steely Dan song (the deliciously paranoid and gentrification-bemoaning Kid Charlemagne). Several years ago, I saw them on back-to-back nights at DAR Constitution Hall.  They played this complete album the first night and Aja the second.   I’m (Can’t-Buy-a) Thrill(ed) to see the recent proliferation of Steely Dan references from independent constructors.

45D:  My apologies if you like this stuff, and no offense intended, but this is one unappetizing flavor combination as far as I’m concerned.

Categories
Set List

Set List 1: Swift-Dylan-Robinson-Clapton-Summer

puz | pdf | solution

Word Count:  72

Average Length:  5.08

Difficulty:  Between 2 and 3.5/5, depending on the breadth of your musical knowledge

I hope you all enjoy solving this as much as I enjoyed constructing it.  After 63 years immersed in rock, jazz, and classical music I figured I’d zero in on something I love, which accounts not only for the theme but also 8 of the non-theme answers.  Anyway, please have fun and share the puzzle extravagantly if you liked it.  Constructive comments and suggestions are always appreciated!

On the road to Nordkapp, Norway, the northernmost inhabited point in continental Europe. The surrounding area is populated by 31A and their reindeer herds.

Specific comments:

20A:  The Dylan album in the answer is way up on my top 10 all-time favorites.  The first two cuts (Tangled Up in Blue and Simple Twist of Fate) are brilliant; Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts is fantastic; and Shelter from the Storm is a classic. 

23A:   In my first draft of the puzzle, the final letter in the answer was an “L,” which made both 23A and 21D dull.  Then I realized I could change the last letter and give a shout out to a world music giant, while also marginally improving 23D.

27D:  This song has the most hilariously self-deprecating lyrics I’ve ever heard, starting with the first verse:

I have a mansion, forget the price
Ain’t never been there, they tell me it’s nice
I live in hotels, tear out the walls
I have accountants pay for it all

30D:  For the most part, Joan Baez has interpreted other artists’ songs, but she wrote the gorgeous yet scathing song (about her ex-lover, Bob Dylan) whose title forms the answer.  She truly deserves her recent Kennedy Center Honor.

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Themeless

June 7 Themeless

puz | pdf | solution

Word Count:  68

Average Length:  5.56

Difficulty:  3.5 out of 5

Here’s a straightforward themeless for y’all.  Solving notes (which I just realized read more like homework assignments) are below the photo.

Budding hydrangea in my backyard this morning. (48 Down)

14A:  I understand this phenomenon from the player’s perspective, but it truly dismays me as a college basketball fan.

15A:  Oz was a wonderful author of both fiction and non-fiction and a voice of wisdom, reason, and humanity.  Check out Dear Zealot, Judas, and A Tale of Love and Darkness.

27A:  18 lines, 62 words, and as lyrically powerful as anything you’ll read.  Check it out on the Poetry Foundation’s web site (poetryfoundation.org).

34D:  All the corvid birds (e.g., crows, ravens and the species in the answer) are amazingly intelligent animals.  See https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/the-more-we-learn-about-crow-brains-the-more-humanlike-their-intelligence.

Categories
Themed

Worldly Wisdom

puz | pdf | solution

Size:  16×15

Words:  79

Average length:  5.01

Difficulty:  3 out of 5

I’m not generally a fan of quote puzzles, but when I read the passage that forms the theme of this puzzle, I thought it deserved to be enshrined in a crossword – surely the highest and most enduring memorialization possible!   It pithily reflects, in an exasperated way, a fundamental facet of human nature.  The quote comes from the last essay in Seeing Further:  The Story of Science, Discovery, and the Genius of the Royal Society, edited by the incomparable Bill Bryson.  The essay’s author, Martin Rees FRS (Fellow of the Royal Society), is an august cosmologist and past-President of the Society.

La Jolla 29 Down

18A: To quote Anna Russell, “I’m not making this up, you know”:  the answer is a real thing and, in fact, is studied in academia (not a particularly exclusive distinction) and used in art installations.  (If you’re into classical music and comedy, check out Anna Russell’s very funny analysis of Wagner’s Ring Cycle.)

27A:  Shout out to ZZ Top.  Fun fact:  ZZ Top’s drummer, Frank Beard, for many years was the only member of the band without cascading facial hair.

47A:  I love this factoid; it sounds like a 3-year old came up with the name.

64A:  My favorite clue in the puzzle.  For those who are unfamiliar with this meaning of the final word in the answer, it refers to the mold on which a shoe is constructed.

70A:  Apparently, Kanter is about to become an American citizen following his years-long battle with Turkey’s leader (Erdogan).

4D:  Yes, yet another Harry Potter reference.  Sorry, but I love these books and will cite them where possible.  Deal with it.

31D:  This usually isn’t ideal fill, but I figured it was ok here because this puzzle is a pangram (my first).

Categories
Themeless

May 23 Themeless

puz | pdf | solution

Word Count:  64

Average Length:  5.72

Difficulty:  4

Mountain lake, Qaqortoq, Greenland (see 26 Down)

I started this grid with the triple stack of 11s in the middle, which uses two entries from my “need to put these in a puzzle” list (28 and 35 Across).  The middle entry in the sandwich came naturally because it’s a frequent and scrumptious presence in our house.  Please enjoy, please share, and please feel free to shoot me an email or submit a comment if you’ve got helpful suggestions/comments.

16A:  The answer is a bit obscure, but I marvel at this passage, where Shakespeare once again cuts to the heart of a human emotion.  Interestingly, the meaning of the answer has changed from its original, time-centered sense to connote a culmination or high point.

25A:  Yuck, I know.  I couldn’t figure out how to redo this section with a less obscure answer; one alternative would have been to change the “T” to a “D” and clue it as a manufacturer of modernistic watches, but that seems just as obscure, and I prefer the existing 26D to the alternative because it conjures up memories of hiking in Greenland (see photo above).

28A:  I first saw this expression in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, where someone at the Ministry of Magic says, “we thought it was a [ANSWER] chicken until it started breathing fire.”  Apparently, the expression also is in common use across the pond in the muggle world.

Categories
Themed

Pope-Pourri!

puz | pdf | solution

Word Count:  76

Average Length:  4.87

Difficulty:  3/5

Detail inside 38 Across

I constructed a version of this puzzle in 2013, shortly after Pope Francis was elected.  Now that I have this blog, I figured I’d look at some of my earlier efforts – which I circulated only among a dozen family and friends – to see if any were worth revisiting. 

This one is intended as a lighthearted riff on the papacy.  Nothing should give offense, I hope.  Enjoy the solve and, if you do, please share the puzzle.

11D:  This clue is based on a true story:  when my oldest son was in 5th grade, his class wrote and produced an opera.  The preparation included attending a dress rehearsal of an opera (I don’t recall which one) at the Kennedy Center.  For several minutes after being stabbed, poisoned, or otherwise mortally attacked, the soprano sang and sang and sang.  My son says, in a stage whisper, “would you just die already?”.