Ryan solves the NYT, Mon 10-27-8
After a weekend of fumbling around, staring at blank squares and feeling generally inept I came back today to finish Andrea Carla Michaels and Michael Blake’s Monday puzzle in personal record time. Go figure.
Enjoyable theme:
55D. Twirl … or a cryptic hint to 20-, 36- and 51-Across? (SPIN)
20A. Aerosol tanning? (SPRAY OF SUNSHINE)
36A. Tiffany showroom? (SPACE OF DIAMONDS)
51A. Babble incoherently? (SPUTTER NONSENSE). This is a little odd as I think UTTER NONSENSE would have fit the clue as well.
The puzzle also featured three more clues to remind me the Dodgers are not playing in the World Series:
63A. Dodger or Met, for short (NLER). I continue to actively dislike the crossword-only abbreviations of NLer and ALer.
54D. Baseball’s Hideo (NOMO)
25D. First, second, third or home (BASE).
One clue to remind me of a rough night last night:
7D. Bloated, as the stomach (GASSY). Not to get too detailed but Pickles made some deliciously spicy chili last night but I ate it too close to bedtime. The result was horrible, zombie-filled nightmares. Does anybody know what the connection is between spicy food and bad dreams?
And I enjoyed the two Shakespeare clues:
8D. “___, Brute?” (ET TU). I have yet to see a good production of Julius Caesar.
32D. “Much ___ About Nothing” (ADO). One of my favorites. I saw this in the Park a few years ago with Jimmy Smits as Benedick. Who the hell knew Jimmy Smits was funny?
A new podcast will be recorded tonight! New mics! New topics! New other stuff!
Next stop, Tuesday.
October 27th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
Fun puzzle today. I had SPRAY-ON SUNSHINE for the first entry until I figured out what was going on.
The official JimH NY Times blog is active:
http://wordplay.blogs.nytimes.com/
He’s got links to this site and the interview you did with him. You guys are huge!
October 27th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
Hey! thanks for the nice write up!
re: GASSY…
First of all, let me say that if I could do a do-over, I would NOT have GASSY in our fine upstanding SPuzzle, but would have gone with CASED/SASSY!
As for your other question, yes, pizza, spicy foods, esp eating them late gives you nightmares bec you’re digesting while asleep and it’s sending these random signals to your brain which is in the process of putting the days activities. thoughts and emotions into coherent patterns in your subconscious.
So you are disrupting that pattern in a lot of ways, and literally sending “mixed signals” which often results in nightmares.
(I’m doing a pathetic job trying to explain this in layperson’s terms, but it’s from an article I once read that expained it perfectly)
Best not to eat after 10pm anyway, you need to be up and active for a couple of hours before you go to bed, so you don’t get fat, have bad dreams, etc.
As for the puzzle, it’s been fun collaborating with different folks…something relatively new for me!
October 27th, 2008 at 11:59 pm
This is sort of a test. I tried to comment this morning, but it must have gotten lost out there somewhere…
Fun puzzle today! I had SPRAY-ON SUNSHINE until I figured out what was going on.