Ryan and Brian Do Crosswords

Seeing our friend Barry C. Silk (Friend and Confidante of Doug Peterson, Crossword Gentleman and Man About Town) in the byline tells me two things. One, there will be some kind of baseball reference in the puzzle; and B, there will be a crossing that I cannot get no matter what.

Both were in effect here. 3D. Residents of dry, open country in South America (GUANACOS) and 19A. Kings Peak’s range (UINTA) are both words that never existed until today, and incidentally, cannot be pronounced using our standard repertoire of vowels, consonants and diphthongs. Kudos, Barry, for inventing as you do. (Oh, and the baseball? 8D. It has top and bottom parts – INNING. It’s a little tricky, I think, because it has ONE top part and ONE bottom part, but I guess that means it has parts, plural…)

While I’m thinking of it — Alfred Kinsey’s field is ZOOLOGY (7D)? Since when? There was that movie about him where Liam Neeson and Laura Linney had sex the whole time or something. I didn’t see it. I thought his field was sex. And it’s zoology? Hm. Other things I had no clue about:

• 2D. Hooked, as a nose : AQUILINE. I was going to post a picture of an aquiline nose, but somehow my research gave me this image to freak the hell out of you.
• 25A. Rapper ___-A-Che : RIC. According to his website, “There are certain things rap doesn’t need anymore of. Thugs, drug dealers, playas, and pimps are a few of those MC positions that have all been filled–to the brim.” If you ask me, rap also doesn’t need any more rappers.
• 26A. Texas county named for a Civil War general, with its seat in Longview : Whatever, the clue is a book in itself. The answer is John GREGG. Any of the multiple parts of this clue would have been enough to stump me — Texas county (nope), Civil war (nope), general (nope) or Longview (nope). So why make me feel four times as stupid? Mike Nothnagel — if I feel four times as stupid after reading a clue like this, is that considered basic multiplication? Or is there a constant of some sort that is applied because we’re talking about my feelings? Would it be any different if my feelings weren’t hurt, but rather I was, say, complimented?
  
• 11D. Yard sale? : ALE. Oh, I get it. I once drank a yard of something. It’s quite ridiculous, to be honest. Have you seen these things? Look. (I don’t know who the guy in the picture is.)
• 14D. Daniel Decatur ___, minstrel who wrote “Dixie” : EMMETT
• 23D. Plant problem : ERGOT. I couldn’t decide if this was trying to be deceitful because it was about foliage and wanted me to think it was about factories, or that it was about factories and wanted me to think it was about plants. Turns out, it didn’t matter. I was confused by ERGOT a while back when the clue had something to do with cereal. I’m still confused. Is cereal a plant? Mike Nothnagel — what is cereal? Animal, vegetable or mineral? What about Rice Krispie Treats?
• 38D. Transported : JOYFUL. I’m not sure I get this. Is it like when something wonderful happens, and you say, “Wow, that was so wonderful I was transported,” like transported to heaven or something? I need this used in a sentence in a way I understand.
• 44A. Toadlike : WARTY. I did a musical a few years ago where one of the characters sang the word “warty” about twenty times in a row. It was pretty funny. Try it — it’s trickier than you think.
• 47A. Phenomena associated with some dwarfs : NOVAE. Is this about stars and not about Dopey, Sleepy and Bashful? And doesn’t it seem like most of the clues that I don’t know were extra long?
• 55A. Too punctilious : PRISSY, or what I will call anyone who tries to use “punctilious” in a sentence.

Let’s talk about extra-long clues, shall we? It seems that in this puzzle, all the extra-long clues were for things I didn’t know. And it makes me wonder — are the clues extra long to compensate for the notion that most people won’t know the answers? Maybe they’re giving us (the would-be-solvers) a few hints to help us through an otherwise unknown bit of information. And in my case, it didn’t help. No, not one bit. Sad.

I haven’t posted enough recently for my non-existent no-Google streak to matter, but here is the counter anyway, for those fans desperate to find out how I’m doing:

No-Google streak: 0

See you Saturday!