Difficulty: You’ll exercise some neurons. They’ll thank you.
Dog and tree (see 55 Down). The squirrel escaped. Again.
The seed for this one was 17 Across, which I listened to a couple of months ago for the first time since it was released back in 1979. I do not greatly regret the 43-year gap and will probably listen to Blood on the Tracks a few dozen times before I listen to 17 Across again. But it is 15 letters long, and it does allow a cutesy pairing with 56 Across (mascot for a candy I hold in similar regard to 17 Across).
Difficulty: Familiarity with Weird Al, Beethoven, and musical notation helps. Unfamiliarity is unacceptable and virtually guarantees you won’t complete the grid.
Organ, Helsinki’s Rock Church (Temppeliaukio Church). See 8 Down (who might have gone there since the church opened in 1969 and he died in 1973).
Here’s a piquant amuse-bouche for y’all. It’s about 2/3 music-related clues and 1/3 other stuff. Please enjoy, and please come back Sunday for a challenging themeless.
Time for a challenging themeless! (I can feel your excitement.) So, 14 Down (which I mentioned in my write-up last week if you want to cheat): It’s home to llamas/alpacas/guanacos (some or all; I saw them from a bus but am not up on my camelids) and one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. To serve out our quarantine, my fellow infected people and I were bused to a small city called Rio Grande and put up in a barebones hotel (more like a dorm, but way cleaner) called Select Inn. The ultra-warm and wonderful mother hen at the Inn, whose name is Cinthia, cared for us as if we were her own relatives, providing food, smiles, conversation, and much-needed laughter. Thank you, Cinthia!!! If you ever find yourself in 14 Down and are looking for assistance or advice, Cinthia and her son run a company called Odisea Fueguensa, which does just that.
I hope you enjoy the puzzle. I haven’t decided what’s coming up next. Guess you’ll have to check back next Sunday.
Chain Bridge with Buda Castle (Budapest) in the background. See 22 Across.
In constructing this puzzle, I wanted most of my grid-spanners to be phrases. That’s one thing I love about Tim Croce’s Club 72 puzzles; many of his long answers are conversational. (Check out his puzzles here. He posts challenging themeless puzzles every Tuesday and themeless or variety puzzles every Friday.)
A couple of other notes: I’m particularly (yet inexplicably) fond of the punny clues for 29 and 52 Down, and I’m always happy to include 41 Down in a grid; she’s one of the very greatest singer-songwriters ever.
Enjoy, share, follow, etc. Next up (1/16) will be a puzzle with tips for where to eat in Motown.
Here’s a mid-week bonus: a themed puzzle crafted by my brother Eric, celebrating a certain land mass where he and I will be traveling in February (assuming Omicron and all other Greek letters cooperate).
Eric is an astrophysicist, world traveler (>110 countries visited), multi-linguist, and avid consumer of films, books, and spicy vegetarian food. I learn something from all of his puzzles – including at least four new words/terms in this one – so prepare yourself for a challenge and emerge enlightened!
Pettah fruit and vegetable market, Colombo, Sri Lanka (see 14D)
This one’s pretty tough, particularly the 1A/6&7D combination. If you’ve never had 1A, you owe it to yourself to try some, preferably washed down with a Medalla. I first ran across 7D while learning to play Rhapsody in Blue way back in high school. There’s a nasty 7D that I never quite got.
If you finish the puzzle, reward yourself with a 1 Down, 16 Down, or 45 Across. If you don’t finish it, console yourself with the same.
Please share this puzzle throughout the metaverse, link to this site, and otherwise give me some free publicity. Next up (11/21) will be a medium-difficulty, Thanksgiving-themed puzzle. Thanks, and enjoy!
Delivery van for a beer brewed by the monks of the Monastery of St. Norbert in Prague. This has nothing to do with the puzzle, other than being goofy in its own right. I was, alas, unable to sample their handiwork.
Back by popular, um, indifference? dismay? … a themeless where, to paraphrase Whose Line Is It Anyway, almost everything is made up and your time doesn’t matter. The rules are simple:
– All 3- and 4- letter words are defined straightforwardly
– Longer words may be:
(1) Normal words clued with little or no regard to their usual meaning. For example, in my first Goofy Themeless (posted 6/21/21), the answer to the clue “’It’s a boy; I can ___,’ said the geneticist with the supersensitive nose,” was SMELLY; or
(2) Made-up words or phrases. For example, in my first Goofy Themeless, the answer to the clue “self-referential, laxative cereal” was METAMUESLI.
I hope you enjoy this 68-word themeless. A couple of solving notes:
My favorite clues are 60 Across and 55 Down. 47 Down refers to “The Virtuoso Pianist, written by the answer. If you’ve ever taken piano lessons, you probably know this — and remember it as the stuff of nightmares. If you’ve never taken piano lessons, the answer almost certainly will be unfamiliar, but perhaps the crosses will help. My apologies for the dreck fill at 20 Down, but needs must, and just be thankful I didn’t clue it as suggested (jokingly, I think) by my astrophysicist brother: “quark components of a Sigma baryon.”
