Ryan and Brian Do Crosswords

And I did it with the CAPS LOCK button pressed the whole time. Who knew?

Before I forget, here’s a link to our latest podcast. The weekly interview was with constructors Dave McLeod and Barbara Olson. Take a listen.

As to today’s puzzle, this had just the right kind of theme for a Wednesday — something that didn’t make sense at first, continued to not make sense, and actually required me reading one of the entries out loud before I knew what the hello was going on. Granted, Ryan reminded me at 2am that I had to live up to my half of the title billing on this blog, so I was a bit bleary. Forgive any typos that stray into this post.

We remember constructor Michael Blake most recently from his last puzzle collaboration with our podcast friend, Andrea Carla Michaels. Mr. Blake previously appeared only one other time on a solo effort, but if he constructs puzzles like this one, he should be back again soon.

The theme appeared in these entries:

• 17A. Elegance in road construction? : PAVING GRACE
• 23A. Desirable guy to rent from? : PLUM LANDLORD
• 40A. Hit “snooze” with force? : POUNDED THE ALARM
• 50A. Council of Guinness drinkers? : PUB COMMITTEE

And everything was explained with:

• 63A. Feature of some intersections … or a five-word hint to 17-, 23-, 40- and 50-Across : FOUR-WAY STOP, or FOUR-WAY S TO P

It wasn’t until I said the last part out loud that I saw what was going on. This is awfully clever, and the sort of theme that makes me wonder if I actually have any brains in my head at all. How does he come up with this? (In case, in my bleary state, I’m not being clear — he has taken a normal phrase, like “saving grace” and made the S into a P [S-to-P], thus resulting in “paving grace.”)

Pia Zadora appears for the 44th time overall — 41 times for her first name (although not always clued in reference to her), but this is only the third ZADORA sighting in the Will Shortz era. Another DORA is here as well at 26D. TV explorer. I’m surprised that made it through the censors. I thought that sort of repetitive answer thing was a no-no. But what do I know-know?

President-elect Barack OBAMA makes his seventh appearance in the puzzle, this time as 8D. Winner of 2008. If I can take a mild political stance here, I’d like to believe that the whole country is a winner in 2008 thanks to this election. Even if Mr. Obama does not make the world 100% perfect by the time his term(s) is/are finished, he’s an awfully smart guy with a whole lot of positive, progressive passion about the world. That’s a good recipe, and I hope we all begin to feel like winners soon.

I’d like to end this post with a wish of good health to my friend Adam, who’s under the weather. Adam is another awfully smart guy with a whole lot of passion. Perhaps my belief in the good future ahead under the leadership of Mr. Obama is a result of seeing such good things come from people closer to me, people like Adam. So let’s wish him well, wish him a speedy recovery.

See you Thursday!