Ryan and Brian Do Crosswords

I had a tough time with this C.W. Stewart puzzle. I eventually finished it without help but it wasn’t easy. Brian has already detailed the Ball theme so I’ll leap right into the trouble spots.

In the top right I had 8D. “Hey, over here!” (PSST) and 16D. Hide-covered abode (TEPEE) and 31A. Chef Boy-Ar-___ (DEE). But the rest was a mystery until I was somehow able to come up with BUTTERCUP and 12D. Nail down (SECURE).

In the bottom right I, too, got super stuck on SOFTSOAP. According to the freedictionary this means flattery designed to gain favor. I feel like I’ve heard this somewhere before but I cannot think in what context it could possibly have been. The three that really threw me were:

50A. Completely behind (ALLFOR). I have just this moment figured out what this means. I’ve been thinking “behind” as in “last”. But it’s really “behind” as in “supporting”. And ALLFOR is parsed as ALL FOR. This may be painfully obvious to anyone reading this but did not make one bit of sense to me while I was solving.

60A. Goes for (COSTS). Another case of a phrase with more than one meaning. Much like Brian, I was thinking “goes for” as in “goes for the brass ring”. As frustrating as these types of clues are, I like them. When you figure it out you get a nice “aha” moment.

51D. Aqualung, e.g., in the 1971 Jethro Tull album (LECHER). I understand that 1971 is referring to a year in the Gregorian Calendar but, other than that, you could have replaced the words with abstract representations of the lesser Smurfs and this clue would have made exactly as much sense to me. Now, doing a little bit of research, I see that Aqualung is a character featured in a album by Jethro Tull, which is a rock band. I am assuming that this, also, was obvious to everyone but me. I had ZEPHER here for a while, thinking that was a type of instrument. It’s actually a misspelling of a blimp-like craft. So, in short, I was close.

Somehow I figured all that out well enough to finish the puzzle.

52A. Play broadly (EMOTE). I don’t think I’ll ever understand this negative connotation of EMOTE. Don’t you want actors to show emotion?

43A. Fancy dancer (STEPPER). I don’t get this one either. What type of dancer isn’t a STEPPER?

53D. Either President Bush (TEXAN). This is not the first adjective that came to mind.

Hey, we were mentioned on another site. Visual Thesaurus put a link to us in their Blog du Jour feature. Thank you very much.

Next stop, Thursday.