Ryan and Brian Do Crosswords

Well, would you look at that, another incredibly difficult Saturday puzzle. This one was by Brad Wilber and I got little of it pre-google than I did last week but not much. Here’s what I got:

• 57A. Time of Ta’anit Esther (ADAR). Kind of a guess as I still don’t know all the Hebrew months but this is the four-letter one I remembered.
• 50A. Crispy Twister sandwich offerer (KFC). I stopped eating at KFC years ago when reports came out that they abuse their chickens.
• 33D. High-occupancy vehicles? (CLOWNCARS). My favorite clue in the puzzle despite my highly rational fear of clowns.
• 7D. Letters on a new car sticker (MSRP). Monday clue hiding in Saturday puzzle.
  
• 16A. Title housewife in an Oscar-winning film (MRSMINIVER). I don’t know what part of my tuchus I pulled this out of as I’ve never seen the movie and don’t know anything about it but I had the “S” and it just came to me. Mrs. Miniver is a 1942 Academy Award-winning drama film directed by William Wyler and starring Greer Garson in the title role. The film is based on the fictional English housewife created by Jan Struther in 1937 for a series of newspaper columns, Mrs. Miniver.

And that was pretty much it for the pre-google answers. The first one I looked up was:

• 5A. Play for which Julie Harris won the 1952 Tony for Best Actress (IAMACAMERA). Cabaret is based on this play. Doesn’t change the fact that I’ve never heard of it but interesting nonetheless.
  

So that sat on top of MRSMINIVER and help me get a bunch of the downs. My favorites of which were:

• 5D. Response to “Don’t panic” (IMCALM). Thought this might be a reference to Hitchhikers Guide.
  
• 11D. “Lose” at the office (MISFILE)
• 14D. Get into it, so to speak (ARGUE)

Over in the top left I had to look up:

• 37A. Song title followed by the lyric “Lovers say that in France” (CESTSIBON). Here’s Eartha Kitt performing this song in 1962.

And with that I was able to figure out the rest of that section. It was filled with lots of great stuff including:

• 1D. Techie’s drawing (SCHEMATIC)
• 2D. Cell’s lack (PHONELINE)
• 3D. Indicators of intelligence? (CODENAMES).  My second favorite clue in the puzzle.
• 1A. Pound sign letters (SPCA).  I was thinking of Great British Pounds here.
  
• 15A. Galley output (CHOW).  I put in GRUB here at first.

The bottom of the puzzle was much more difficult as it was filled to brim with stuff I didn’t know.  What areas did my ignorance cover today?

• 32D. Douglas is its capital (ISLEOFMAN).  The capital of the Isle of Man and its largest town. It is the Island’s hub for business, finance, shipping, transport, shopping and entertainment. It is also home of the Isle of Man Government.
• 31D. Some airplane runners (TAILSKIDS)
• 56A. Its currency unit is the ariary (MADAGASCAR).  It is subdivided into 5 iraimbilanja and is one of only two non-decimal currencies currently circulating.
• 58A. O. Henry specialty (PLOTTWISTS).  His wit, characterization and plot twists were adored by his readers, but often panned by the critics. Yet, he went on to gain international recognition and is credited with defining the short story as a literary art form.
• 47A. Swedish soprano noted for her Wagnerian roles (NILSSON)
• 43A. Cousin of the sandpiper (CURLEW)

Many, many other answers I didn’t know like PRADO, STOMP, TREERAT, PULE and PIMA.

Saturday’s are supposed to be hard and this one certainly lived up to the bill.  I’m hoping I’ll be able to file enough of these facts away to be able to get going on these without google.  But, for now the big G is my friend.