Ryan solves the NYT, Sun 7-27-8
It’s very late at night/early in the morning so this will be an abbreviated entry today. Fun puzzle by Mike Nothnagel, Penpal Extraordinaire and Constructor of the Friday Puzzle and David Quarfoot. Well, fun except for one area that I couldn’t figure out. Actually there wasn’t anything to figure out as the answers were made up of a bunch of facts/trivia that I didn’t know. Brian calls this phenomenon Trivia Boxes while I have named it The Nexus of Ryan’s Ignorance.
It was the bottom right middle section.
126D. Tristram’s love (ISEULT). I read this initially as Tristan’s love so I put in Isolde. Tristan and Isolde, that’s something right? Tristram and Iseult? I’ve never even accidentally heard of them.
148A. The second “R” in J. R. R. Tolkien (REUEL). There are limits to my nerd IQ.
152A. Africa’s ___ Mountains (ATLAS). Funny, I’ve heard the words Africa, Mountains and Atlas many times in my life. But put them together and they become something completely unfamiliar.
156D. Unesco World Heritage Site in Jordan (PETRA). I don’t think I understand any part of this. I tried putting in my standard Jordan answer, Noor, but it didn’t fit.
139D. “Bridal Chorus” bride (ELSA). I figured this was referring to an opera. An intuition that was maddeningly unhelpful.
So those 5 clues were packed into one area. I could have stared at it forever but I wasn’t going to spontaneously learn these facts so I begrudgingly turned to google.
Other than that, I had a good time with this puzzle. The them was Going Every Which Way, a familiar theme where direction words (left, right, up and down) were packed into one box or replaced with arrows. There were lots of fun theme answers including:
16D. Barely fair, maybe (down THE right FIELD LINE)
29A. Popular 1970s British TV series (upSTAIRS downSTAIRS)
72D. Secured, in a way, with “on” (left A down PAYMENT)
70D. Sentiment suggesting “Try this!” (ITS right up YOUR ALLEY)
137A. Missing glasses’ location, usually (right WHERE YOU left THEM)
My favorite one was definitely 92A. Slangy street greeting (Sup DOG). I thought the whole theme was very well done.
Other clues that caught my eye:
56A. “Think big” sloganeer (IMAX). Fitting clue as I saw The Dark Knight: Imax today. I thought the movie was great although I got confused a few times. And the Imax was awesome. Everything should be in Imax. I highly recommend seeing this movie in Imax as there were scenes that they shot with an Imax camera that fill up the entire Imax screen. I like the word Imax.
15A. Hollow center? (DOUBLEL) and 87A. Building component? (SILENTU). I like these type of clues. They always take me a while to figure out but are always satisfying when I do.
130A. Kids drink from them (TEATS). This one is slightly disturbing. Yes, I know it’s about goats.
80D. T or F, e.g.: Abbr. (ANS). Ok, I just got this. True and False are Answers.
53A. Opening screen option on many an A.T.M. (ESPANOL). I tried to fit FASTCASH in here but it just wouldn’t work.
75A. Keats, e.g. (ODIST). How do I know I’ve been doing a lot of crosswords puzzles? I got this one right away with no crossings.
That’s it for today. I’ve got to head to bed. Did I mention Mike Nothnagel is constructing a puzzle for Lollapuzzoola 2008. I did? Well, it bears repeating.
Next stop, Monday.
