Ryan and Brian Do Crosswords

We’re just 37 days away from Lollapuzzoola 2. And 37 days away is the perfect time to register. Check out the link to the left for your all-access pass to the day’s events. August 22. It’s a Saturday in August. Be there.

Today’s puzzle by Elizabeth C. Gorski (pictured at right) did what most Thursday puzzles to do me. They leave me thinking I’m a complete moron for not knowing enough things, and not being able to dig my way back out of an improperly filled Gaping Chasm of Ignorance.

Let’s start there, with my errors. Down in the lower left, I got really muddled up. For 32A. Signature piece? I put in BIT – like “Have we started?” for those riotous podcast hosts on Fill Me In. Signature bit. Nope, the answer is BIC. I assume it’s like the pen. I don’t know much else it could be. 43D. ___ fog – well, for whatever reason, my brain went to ICE fog. The errant T from BIT led me to nothing but dead ends for 34D. Deep discounts (CUT RATES – of course, I was trying to make words out of TUT—TES, which was useless). I had –WTS for 54D. 100-lb. units, which meant I had to invent an acronym or abbreviation for something I don’t know (i.e. any letter goes here – unless you want to be correct, in which case it’s CWTS). Add to all that the E from ICE (oh, that answer should have been the far more logical IN A fog), I had no idea for the 53A. Destination of Saul when he had his conversion, in the Bible (DAMASCUS – not to be confused with the imaginary and non-existent DEMOSNUS).

Big ol’ disaster.

Otherwise, the puzzle was delightful. Mini-rebus theme at play here, with four inter-active entries:

• 35A = ANAGRAM
• 17A = ELEVEN PLUS TWO (where PLUS all fit in one box)
• 57A = TWELVE PLUS ONE (again, PLUS in a single box)
• 12D = THIRTEEN. Has anyone ever seen the book “Thirteen” by Remy Charlip and Jerry Joyner? I love this book. It’s just gorgeous. Beautiful watercolors, thirteen different stories all told in thirteen chapters.
• And a bonus: 33D. Possible title for this puzzle – IT ADDS UP.

The clues basically said that 17A = 57 = 12D, and that 17A and 57A were anagrams of each other. (I figured explaining it in a sentence made more sense than repeating the inter-referential clues, right?)

The PLUS boxes also worked going down:

15D. 3.3 in a transcript, maybe : B-PLUS AVERAGE

46D. Puzzled : NON-PLUSED. This caught me off guard. I thought this word had two ESSES (19A. Bobsled challenges). “Non-plussed,” right? Maybe not.

The wife is home, so I’m going to cut this short… Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see you all at Lollapuzzoola next month. (Howard Barkin – there might be soup. I have to keep you guessing, though.)

See you Friday!