Ryan and Brian Do Crosswords

The editors of the New York Times Magazine hear us knocking on the door and they know we’re coming in.  Twenty-seven signatures on our Save the Second Sunday Puzzle petition.  Just 473 signatures shy of our goal of 500.  So close and yet so unbelievably far.

Very enjoyable puzzle today by our good friend Ashish Vengsarkar.  It took me quite a while to figure out the theme.  I had a feeling there was some sort of word play going on but it took me at least 15 minutes to figure out what it was.  Turns out, all the theme entries are anagrams of their clues paired with a word describing how they came to be anagrams.  (I’m nominating the preceding sentence as the all-time most confusing way to describe a theme.)

19A. TROT? (TORT REFORM).

21A. HATER? (HEART TRANSPLANT).

36A. RIFTS? (FIRST AMENDMENT).

52A. GATES? (STAGE ADAPTATION).

56A. HOSE? (SHOE REPAIR).

Well done theme and lots of fun.

Other highlights:

11A. Joe Friday’s employer, for short (LAPD).  You know, I’ve never seen even one episode of Dragnet.  I’ve seen part of the movie which was pretty bad except for that scene where Tom Hanks and Dan Ackroyd are describing to the police chief what happened to them the night before.  You know what scene I mean?  It’s funny, right?

23A. Bursts of energy? (ERGS).  I don’t get this.  Why the question mark?

25A. Westerns (OATERS).  Westerns seem to go in an out of popularity more than any other genre of film.  There won’t be any for a few years then five will come out on the same weekend.  I think they’re great and they should make more of them.  Growing up, the only big-time Western that I can remember being in the theaters was Silverado.  Such a good movie.  Check out this cast list: Kevin Kline, Kevin Costner (before he became ridiculous), Danny Glover, Scott Glenn, Brian Dennehey, Linda Hunt, Jeff Goldblum and John Cleese.  You know what? I’m moving it up to #1 in my Netflix queue.  Yes, it’s just that good.

40A. Cold shower? (RED NOSE).  Ok, here I understand the question mark.  I enjoyed this clue even though it doesn’t make total sense.  A RED NOSE shows a cold?  I guess.  It’s certainly evidence of a cold.  Is that the same thing?

44A. Mother, in British dialect (MAM).  I thought this was MUM.  Speaking of places in Europe, as I’ve mentioned before Pickles and I are going to Italy in September.  We finally got approved for the time off and are buying plane tickets this weekend.  Has anybody had any experience with Eurofly?  They’re super cheap and they fly nonstop from NY to Rome but are they reliable?  Do their planes have roofs?  They’ve got to be cheap for a reason.

59A. Two-time Banderas role (ZORRO).  I must take issue with this clue.  You have ZORRO who has been played by all kinds of wonderful actors (Guy Williams, George Hamilton, Douglas Fairbanks, etc.) and Ashish goes with Antonio Banderas?  Bleh.  Anybody ever seen Zorro, the Gay Blade?  There’s another movie I watched over and over as a kid.  I had no idea it was a comedy.

8D. First senator in space (GARN).  Interesting fact, a scale of spacesickness is called the Garn Scale with One Garn being the highest level of spacesickness.  I wonder how he feels about that?

30D. Racket makers? (TENNIS PROS).  Here’s another one that doesn’t make perfect sense to me.  Do TENNIS PROS make their own rackets?  I thought they just used rackets.

50D. Renaissance ___ (FAIRE).  I had a teacher who made us go to a Renaissance Faire.  We got dressed up in period costumes, brought a boom box and did this ridiculous dance in the middle of the parking lot as passersby pitied us.  I guess I was about 11 or 12.  It was horrible and I can still remember exactly how embarrassed I was.  Our field trips always had a catch.  A trip to the library involved studying the card catalog.  We had lunch at a Mexican restaurant and were forced to order in Spanish.  Now, this was an El Torito, not some authentic Mexican place.  The worst part of the field trips was the ever present clipboard.  We couldn’t just enjoy ourselves, we always had to be taking notes.  Ugh!  Drives me nuts thinking about it 25 years later.  Oh sure, you can go to Sea World but you’ll have to write down your thoughts on the theme of the Shamu show.  Just the thought of it makes me feel One Garn.

Great puzzle.

Next stop, Friday.