Ryan and Brian Do Crosswords

Took me a while to get going on this Henry Quillen puzzle. But once I figured out the theme: 39A. Theme of this puzzle (ATOZTOA) the rest fell into place fairly quickly. Not Howard Barkin quickly but I did finish up in less than 20 minutes. The grid features an interconnecting series of circled squares (the circled squares do create a rather questionable shape) and each answer contained in those squares either starts with A and ends with Z or vice versa. Except for the two middle answers which both start and end with A and have an interconnecting Z.

1A. Coors product (ZIMA). I can’t be the only person who immediately put in BEER here. ZIMA is actually still around although I’ve never seen anyone drink it. Did this come out around the same time as Crystal Pepsi? Crystal Pepsi, Just Like Pepsi Only Clear and Worse Than Ever. Anybody remember that Crystal Gravy SNL commercial?

4D. Ingrediente en paella (ARROZ)

23A. Keebler cracker brand (ZESTA). I like all things Keebler. My favorite would have to be Fudge Stripes. Perhaps we’ll have to have some at our Crossword Puzzle Tournament here in Jackson Heights on August 23rd, Lollapuzzoola 2008 (registration now open).

24D. Flagstaff’s place (ARIZONA)

52A. Madison Ave. trade (ADBIZ)

53D. Ethan Frome’s wife (ZEENA)

70A. Animated film hit of 1998 (ANTZ). I know this shows up in puzzles alot but was it really a hit? Ok, just looked it up. It made $90,000,000 in the US and cost $60,000,000 to make. So I guess that’s a hit. Here’s something I find very interesting about the movie. Woody Allen voices the lead and two of the main supporting characters are voiced by Sylvester Stallone and Sharon Stone. Oddly, back when Stallone was a nobody he had a cameo in Woody’s Bananas as Subway Thug #1 and before Stone was a star she had a cameo in Woody’s Stardust Memories as Pretty girl on train. And now they’re starring with him in this movie. Not only that but both of their early cameos had to do with rail travel. And to top it off everybody I tell this to finds it to be extremely uninteresting. Not sure why.

68A. Ball’s comic partner (ARNAZ)

39D. The Rock (ALCATRAZ). We visited Alcatraz last year. I highly recommend it. The audio tour is great. Here we are, poorly lit, approaching the prison.

9D. Cubic ___ (gem) (ZIRCONIA)

9A. Frank in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (ZAPPA)

Other clues that caught my eye:

21A. Madden, and how (INCENSE). This one really confused me for a good long while. I thought it was referencing either the football guy or the video game.

30A. Assumed name (ANONYM). I don’t think I’ve ever come across this word before. Is there a reason someone would use this instead of pseudonym?

66A. Sacramento’s ___ Arena (ARCO). Neil Diamond will be appearing here in September. I had no idea he was on tour. Think what you want of me, but Neil Diamond is awesome. He’ll be at Madison Square Garden next month. I may have to get some tix for me and the wife.

67A. “___ as I can tell …” (NEAR). I put in AFAR here. As in “A far as I can tell” which is not actually a saying. This was a source of much confusion to me.

11D. Unit of loudness (PHON). Never heard of this before. Just looked up the definition which has only confused me more: A unit of apparent loudness, equal in number to the intensity in decibels of a 1,000-hertz tone judged to be as loud as the sound being measured. I understand “a unit of” but after that I’m totally lost. I would appreciate if someone would demonstrate a phon in the comments. Thank you.

28D. N.Y.C. country club? (THEUN). Great clue.

31D. Cubs, but not Bears, for short (NLERS). This and ALERS need to be done away with. I watch hundreds of baseball games every season. I have never, ever heard either of these terms used. They are icky and gross.

32D. When said three times, “et cetera” (YADDA). What came first? The phrase or the Seinfeld episode?

43D. Ancient Cretan writing system (LINEARA). I’ll admit it, I parsed this incorrectly and didn’t know what LINE ARA was. Turns out it’s LINEAR A, a writing system that hasn’t actually been fully deciphered. Fascinating. The best book I’ve ever read on code cracking was The Code Book by Simon Singh. Highly recommended. There’s another great book about the guy who was the first to decipher Egyptian heiroglyphs called The Keys of Egypt. Good stuff.

64D. Schubert’s “The ___-King” (ERL). This one showed up last week as well. I remember I blogged about it. And yet I wrote in ERT. Puzzling.

Next stop, Thursday.