Ryan and Brian Do Crosswords

Oy vey.  I’m sure everybody else thinks this puzzle is a Wednesday but I’m having much trouble with it.  Constructed by Tyler Hinman [insert kickass nickname here] and Byron “Mike Nothnagel knows my middle name” Walden, it’s tying my brain into knots.

I got two great answers right away.

1A. Exuberant gesture with splayed fingers (JAZZ HANDS).  This is just awesome.  I have no other words.

20A. Sideshow Bob’s last name on “The Simpsons” (TERWILLIGER).  This is something I just know.  I’ve always enjoyed that his last name is TERWILLIGER.  (I don’t have all the crosses for this yet so it’s very possible I’m spelling it incorrectly.)  I have to admit, the only episode of the Simpsons I’ve seen in the past couple of seasons is the Shortz/Reagle show.  It’s such a shadow of what it used to be that it’s difficult to watch now.

It’s taken me a while to get crosses for those two answers.  So far I have:

1D. Traditional March birthstone (JASPER).  Is this right?  Or do I just have The Simpsons on the brain?

2D. Sharp (ASTUTE).  This is exactly how I don’t feel right now.

3D. Antiallergy brand (ZYRTEC).  I had ZANTAC for a while.  Pickles assures me it’s ZYRTEC.  Allergy suffering  is one affliction I have not been saddled with…yet.

4D. Common field trip destination (ZOO).  Baby rhinoceros just born at the Bronx Zoo.

5D. Kind of club (HUNT).  Hey!  Stay away from that rhinoceros!

6D. “You shouldn’t have” (AW GEE).  As in, “Aw gee, Tyler Hinman [insert kickass nickname here] and Byron ‘Mike Nothnagel knows my middle name’ Walden, you shouldn’t have made this puzzle so hard.  There are other things I need to get done today.”

7D. Location of the 44-Down (NEBRASKA).  I believe the 44-Down is the PLATTE river but I’m not sure about either of these answers.

8D. Suffers through a boring meeting, maybe (DRAWS_S).  I must have something wrong here.  This makes no sense to me.  I get the R from AS YOU WERE (15A. Captain’s command) which I think is correct.  I get the A from STRONG BAR (17A. Safe) which is probably not correct but I have no idea what the answer could be.  The first S is from EASELS (24A. Studio props) which, even though I do tons and tons of crosswords, still took me over three hours to figure out.  Applied knowledge, where were you when I needed you?  The last S is from SOAKS (30A. Registers, with “in”).  So that leaves me with DRAWS_S which means nothing to me.  Great.

I have the whole bottom half which is populated with some great entries: COFFEE BREAK, BEEN THERE, HOBNOB, TAKE FIVE, CARRERE.

The top right is a complete mystery to me.

12D. Bars for a cell? (___G_O__).  Gaahh!  What is this?  I assume it’s referring to a cellphone but who the hell knows.

18A. Something gays and straights have in common? I have no crossing letters for this yet.  I bet the answer is pretty clever.  Wait…is it LONG A?  Possibly.

RINGTONE!!  Bars for a cell.  Very clever.  Yes, it was referring to cellphones but not in the way I thought.

…Ok, just no-googled.  Woohoo!  Safe is STRONG BOX.  Suffering through a meeting is DROWSES.  Closer to 10 is SEXIER.  Another great clue/answer.

Great puzzle guys.

Next stop, Sunday.

Well, I hate to tell everybody this but the applet is broken.  I can think of no other reason why it won’t accept my perfectly fine solution to this Byron Walden puzzle.  I worked on this thing for over 3 hours, filled in all the boxes with all the correct letters and, as Britney Spears famously sang, I can’t get no satisfaction.

Ok, maybe not all of the letters are correct but it really should be close enough.  For crying out loud, I figured out FIG TREE (1D. Jesus cursed one in Matthew 21) and GROUND SQUIRRELS (17A. Marmots and prairie dogs) and LE QUARTIER LATIN (8D. Home of la Sorbonne).  My god, that’s a 15-letter answer!  And it’s in French!  A language I simply do not speak.  À qui pensez-vous que je suis, Marcello Mastroianni?

Ok, there are a few areas where I may be a little, shall we say, iffy on my entries.

…oh, wait…hold on…wait, wait, wait…and…yes!  I figured it out!  Woohoo!  No google!  Ok, maybe the applet isn’t broken.  I still don’t think it likes me but it appears to be working fine.

Here’s what I just figured out.

49D. It may give you a buzz (PAGER).  I had LAGER which still seems like a fine answer.  PAGER is much better and, as it turns out, much more correct.  I’m unfamiliar with “The Far Shore of Time” so even though it was written by Frederik POHL it could have been written Frederik LOHL and I wouldn’t have made a fuss.

My other trouble spot was 30D. Protection: Var. (EGIS).  I figured it was a variant spelling of AEGIS but it just didn’t look right to me.

The rest of the grid was filled with great stuff.

1A. They lack private parts (FISH BOWLS).  I was quite sure “private parts” was not referring to anything anatomical although I did have NIGHT OWLS in there at one point.  I consider myself a bit of a night owl and I can assure you I do have private parts.

22A. Wranglers, e.g. (JEANS).  Didn’t fool me on this one.

29A. The 1965 William Shatner film “Incubus” is in it (ESPERANTO).  This one took me a long time.  I was expecting it be something like SENSE-AROUND, or CINERAMA or TECHNICOLOR.  Something like that.  Never heard of this film.  Anybody seen it?

35A. They may be thrown over the shoulder (SARIS).  Took me 3 hours to get this one.

44A. Fraternity letters (RHOS).  Wasn’t RHO in yesterday’s puzzle?

47A. Early advocate of bloodletting (GALEN).  I still say bloodletting is bad idea.

53A. Source of Caravane cheese (CAMEL). One hump or two?

7D. Where M.S.T. and P.S.T. can be found (WESTERN US).  Oh boy, I tried and tried to squeeze a state name in here.

11D. New York’s Five ___ Bike Tour (BORO).  First answer I put in.  I’d love to do the tour one day.  Seems like a lot of fun.

12D. Ant-Man, Iron Man, Wasp or Thor, in Marvel Comics (AVENGER).  Poor Ant-Man.  He’s just so small.  So very, very small.

13D. 1999 A.L. Rookie of the Year Carlos (BELTRAN).  Uck.  Hate the Mets.

35D. Shows contempt for (SPITS AT).  Ok, so one thing about this grid.  The word AT shows up 3 times.  SPITS AT, AT TWO and PULLS AT.  Is that kosher?

Great puzzle by Byron.  We hope to have him on the show soon.

Next stop, Sunday.

Okay, who has gone and switched around Fridays and Saturdays on me? This is the third time in the last four weeks that I’ve been able to complete the Saturday and not the Friday puzzle. Confounding this further, today’s puzzle was co-created by Mike Nothnagel, Penpal Extraordinaire and Constructor of the Friday Puzzle (along with Byron Walden, who has not yet been given a nickname). I credit Mike’s nickname with all the clues I was able to get easily.

Oh, yeah — no-Google, baby. No-Google.

The big obstacle for me, and the last part to fall, was the top left. I had four clues (three downs and one across) that all collaborated at keeping me at bay:

• 1D. Hindu musician’s source material for improvisation : RAGAS
• 2D. Methyl orange or Congo red : AZODYE
• 3D. Woman’s name meaning “peace” : ZULEMA. Okay, this is ridiculous. Who the hello is Zulema? I have 978 friends on Facebook (most of whom I haven’t spoken to in years), and none of them is named Zulema, as far as I know. Perhaps I would know more if I spoke to my friends occasionally.
• 17A. “Haw” : GO LEFT. I’m going to use this on Ryan. Just wait.

The big standout feature of this grid is that it does not have crossword’s standard 180-degree rotational symmetry. Instead, it has a self-referential design, mildly clued as follows:

• 5D. They may be seen on a lake’s surface : REFLECTED IMAGES
• 23A. Rectangular array that’s identical when its rows and columns are transposed, as this puzzle’s grid : SYMMETRIC MATRIX

This only confirms for us that Mike Nothnagel knows everything about all levels of math, pie-thagorean squares be damned.

It’s late, and I’m tired. But I finished the damn thing. And my no-Google streak is now back at one. Hooray.

Go register for the ACPT. Come see me and Ryan on a panel. We’ll say something witty. Just for you. Also, even sooner than that, episode 42 of Fill Me In will happen in the next couple days, featuring an interview with four-time ACPT champion, Tyler Hinman [insert kickass nickname here].

See you Sunday!

For those of you who are not aware, the Dodgers won a postseason series last night for the first time since I was 15.  I spent most of last night watching the game, watching highlights and reading articles about this watershed event of my adult life.  Because of all that I did not start this Byron Walden puzzle until very late.  And, as it happened, I found it be extremely difficult.  I woke up now to finish but I had to restart my browser and currently find myself staring at an empty grid.

Soooooo, that’s were it stands now.  I did figure out the clever theme.

117D. What each starred clue — and its answer — contains (TYPO).  This fooled me for a while as I thought the answers were going to contain an actual typo but instead they contain the letters TYPO.

And there ends my remarkably uncomprehensive write up.

In slightly related news, Brian and I will be recording a long distance podcast tomorrow.  And a week from tomorrow we’ll do an in person podcast with, hopefully, another interview subject.

Happy Sunday to all and Go Dodgers!

30D. “Yikes!” (HOLYSMOKE). That’s the best I can do to describe this Byron Walden puzzle. I have one corner remaining (the bottom right) which has me totally stumped. Dan Feyer, Winner of the C Division, The Great Howard Barkin, Knower of All Things and Orange all took almost 10 minutes to solve this one. What the heck chance do I have?

I’ve been at it on and off for about 4.5 hours now. My favorite parts so far are the two corn dog themed entries. 3D. Like corn dogs (ONASTICK) and 14D. Corn dog alternatives (CONEYS). I love corn dogs and I love Coneys. As I know them, Coneys are an Ohio area treat. Delicious little wieners topped with Cincinnati-style chili and ridiculous mounds of shredded cheese.

I’ve also enjoyed:

1A. Pacer pacer? (SHOTCLOCK). I was sure this about a car.

29A. Reed ___, Mr. Fantastic of Marvel Comics (RICHARDS). One of two gimmies for me.

23D. “Silver Spoons” family name (STRATTON). That’s just awesome.

42D. Jerry who wrote “Hello Dolly!” (HERMAN). The other gimmie.

Here’s what I’m stuck on:

53A. James Birdseye ___, Union general in the Civil War (MC_______). Good god, this could really be anything.

57A. Columbus’s flagship. I’m convinced this starts with OHIO and has nothing to do with Christopher Columbus. Other than that, I’ve got nothing.

59D. Fancy entrees? Okay, I think this starts with VI because of 44D. “Pebble in the Sky” author (ASIMOV) and 39D. Greta of “The Player” (SCAACHI). I just had a thought that it might have something to do with Fancy Feast cat food but I don’t see how.

39A. Protection from someone on the run? I’m relatively sure this is SKI something. It’s the something part that has me confused.

Actually, there’s a lot more that has me stumped but it’s late and I’m heading to bed. I’ll update this later today and hopefully Brian will add his two cents.

Just a reminder, Lollapuzzoola, our puzzle tournament in Jackson Heights, is only a week away. August 23rd, 12pm. Admission is only $10 dollars. Hope to see you there. Follow this link to sign up.

Gaaahhh!  One box away from a no-googling this Byron Walden puzzle.  Same old story.  The grid was complete, it wasn’t accepted and I couldn’t find my error.  I finally had to look at Orange’s blog to figure out where I went wrong.

30D. 100 aurar (KRONA).  I put KRONE.  Krone is the standard unit of currency in Norway and Denmark.  Krona is the standard unit of currency in Sweden and Iceland.  Seriously?  That’s like going to Canada and paying for everything in dollers.  This error also gave me SECRUM for 45A. Pelvic bone (SACRUM).  Again, very close, as you see a sacrum forms the posterior section of the pelvis and a secrum is the standard unit of currency in Finland.

I got everything else in this very enjoyable puzzle.  Perfect Saturday offering as I knew exactly 2 things on my first pass through the clues and gradually the whole thing came together.  What were those 2 things?

22A. “Lost” actor Somerhalder (IAN).  Just one of those names that’s stuck in my head.  I know Brian doesn’t want to hear it but Lost really got good again this past season.  It’s still totally ridiculous but very engaging.

31A. Playwright Peter of “Equus” (SHAFFER).  I was a little iffy on the spelling but I know this playwright well.  Amadeus is one of my favorites.

Hey, it’s Brian here, tacking on a few additional insights and/or useless wastes of space. I also knew these two answers on the first pass, although I couldn’t be sure I knew how to spell SHAFFER — could have been Schafer or Shaefer, for all I know.

This puzzle had a lot of great clues and answers.  My favorite section was the top left (Kretinga on a map of Lithuania).

1A. Holder of many a sandwich (ZIPLOCBAG).

15A. Piquant base for a sandwich (ONIONROLL).  I love onion rolls.  Seriously, what’s better than an onion roll?  You know what else I like that has onions?  Bialys.  They don’t get nearly as much press as bagels do but I’ll take a delicious, oniony bialy over a bagel every time.  Get yourself some.

17A. 2005 reality show hosted by Fabio (MRROMANCE).  There are a lot of competitions for which I’ll never be asked to participate.  World’s Tallest Triathelete, Neatest Vertical Handwriting, The Snowman who can Bench Press the Most Weight.  The list goes on.  But the top of that list is certainly reserved for Mr. Romance. (Ryan, I really want to photoshop this picture to have it include you.)

1D. Corps of corpses (ZOMBIES).  So what’s scarier?  The fast zombies or the slow zombies?

Over in the Kupiskis area I enjoyed:

10A.  They come with strings attached (HARPS).

18A. They come with strings attached (YOYOS).  I knew one of these was going to be YOYOS.

12D. The “I” of Elizabeth I? (ROYALWE).  Hands down, my favorite clue in the puzzle.

The Vilnius area had some good ones also.

57A. Ingredient in a mojito highball (SPEARMINT).  Why do I think this is spelled Speariment?  Have I been pronouncing it wrong this whole time?

59A. Goes yellow, say (TURNSTAIL).

61A. Will work? (OPEDESSAY).  I’m assuming this refers to George Will.  We also would have accepted the answer MOST BORING BOOK EVER WRITTEN ABOUT BASEBALL.

Here are the things I absolutely did not know.

19A. Steam-driven devices that pump water from mines (BEAMENGINES). For the longest time, I could not parse this answer… Be a mengines? Beamen Gines? I couldn’t figure out if it was a proper name, a person’s name, whatever. And even now that I know what it is — I don’t know what it is.

35A. “Gilgamesh,” e.g. (EPOS).  A word I have never heard before.

39A. Heart failures? (RENEGES).  I’m not sure I totally get this.  Oh wait, I think it has something to do with cards.

46A. Eponymous oilman Halliburton (ERLE).  Interesting little fact to know.

49A. Janissary commander (AGA).  The free dictionary tells me a janissary is a soldier in an elite Turkish guard organized in the 14th century and abolished in 1826.

51A.  Item called a geyser in Britain (WATERHEATER).  Well, I figured it had something to do with water.

4D. 1785 invention of England’s Edmund Cartwright (LOOM).  Looms have only been around since 1785?  That doesn’t seem right to me. Was this any loom? Or a particular kind of loom? I did a couple quick internet searches to try and be more smarter about things I didn’t know, and I may have seen (under duress of being very, very tired) that it was an electric loom…?

28D. “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” instrument (CELESTA).  This clue brought together 2 of my absolute favorite topics: Music and Things I’ve Never Heard Of.  Here is a picture of a celesta.  Explain to me why this isn’t a piano.

A celesta isn’t a piano because of a number of things. While both instruments use a mechanism in which pressing a key triggers a hammer to swing back (inside the console), a piano’s hammer strikes against strings that have been stretched to achieve certain pitches. A celesta’s hammer strikes back against metal plates, shaped and cast as to be certain pitches. I’m not 100% certain, but I think that the material of the hammer itself may be different as well — a piano’s hammer is a stiff felt-like material; the hammer of the celesta might also be metal (?).

And what I think makes this such a good puzzle is the obscure clues where positioned in such a way with the more gettable clues that a not more smarter person like myself was able to figure out the grid.  Great job.

A quick note about the live crossword battle royale.  I think it’s going to happen.  Somewhere in NYC and hopefully this summer.  More details to come on the blog and podcast.   Please continue to email us or comment about your interest in atttending, constructing a puzzle or both.

Next stop, Sunday.

Unlike Brian I did not go to the Yankee game tonight. I spent the evening at my soul-crushing job sneaking peaks at the Dodgers beating up on the Pirates. Much like Brian, Byron Walden stumped me in the bottom right. Very frustrating as I had solved everything except that little section in about 13 minutes. It took me another 13 minutes and some googling to finish off the rest.

I got the theme fairly quickly. A puzzle all about:

• 17A. With 18-Across, “In the Arena” autobiographer (CHARLTON)
• 18A. See 17-Across (HESTON)

He got a pretty bad rap later on in life and I’m not sure it was entirely deserved and he was a bit of a cheeseball actor but these movies were great:

• 58A. 1959 movie starring 17- and 18-Across (BENHUR). One of my all time favorites.
• 44A. 1968 movie starring 17- and 18-Across (PLANETOFTHEAPES). This one I haven’t seen for years. But it did spawn classics lines, classic scenes and a classic Simpsons episode: “I hate every ape I see, from Chimpan-A to Chimpan-Z. No, you’ll never make a monkey out of me. Oh my god, I was wrong, it was Earth all along…”

Now, these movies I’ve never seen:

• 27A. 1956 movie starring 17- and 18-Across, with “The” (TENCOMMANDMENTS)
• 39A. 1961 movie starring 17- and 18-Across (ELCID)
• 60A. 1971 movie starring 17- and 18-Across, with “The” (OMEGAMAN). This one was part of that bottom right corner. Made doubly frustrating as I had a feeling it was going to be the one based on I Am Legend but I could not think of the name.

What I didn’t know:

• 1A. Run-of-the-mill computer, in tech slang (BEIGEBOX). Never heard this before but I guess it makes sense.
  
• 9A. Part of a dirndl (BODICE). A full-skirted dress with a tight bodice and low neck, that is either sleeveless or has short full sleeves.
• 16A. Town near Metuchen, N.J. (EDISON). If you don’t live in either Metuchen or Edison how are you supposed to know this.
• 1D. “English Suites” composer (BACH). Yes, I know, I am a musical ignoramus.
  
• 4D. Long-snouted fish (GAR).  From what I can tell, a gar is a long-snouted fish.
• 9D. Like Sydney Carton at the end of “A Tale of Two Cities” (BEHEADED). I have not read this but thanks for ruining the ending Byron.
  
• 14D. Elevated Sicilian city (ENNA). Also known as the Navel of Sicily.
  
• 40D. German tennis star Tommy (HAAS). He currently dates actress Sara Foster. I know what you’re thinking. “THE Sara Foster from Bachelor Party 2: The Last Temptation? That Sara Foster?” Yes, that Sara Foster. And, wait a minute, how can they make a sequel without Adrian Zmed?
• 42D. Material for Voldemort’s wand, in Harry Potter books (YEW). Haven’t read the books, haven’t seen the movies. Don’t know anything about the wand.
  
• 46D. State capital originally called Crabtown (HELENA). Good decision. Nobody wants to live in Crabtown.
• 55D. Czech runner Zátopek (EMIL). I’ve seen this in many previous puzzles but I still don’t know it.
• 62D. Jungfrau, for one (ALP). Thought this had something to do with psychology.

Here are various wrong answers I put into the bottom right. I leave you to decide which clues they belong to. CHAPTERS, HONOREE, AMEN, OLGA, LEER, TIP, PAWK, EGO, SOYLENTGREEN (really had to squeeze that last one in).

Good puzzle. And, even though I needed to google, it seemed a little easy for a Thursday. Not that I’m complaining.

Got home from the Yankees/Red Sox slugfest at about 12:45 am. Exhausted. Wife went to sleep, I went to try and tackle the Thursday in under 20 minutes. And I barely made it, with two cheats and a nearly frozen Firefox window.

New York Times – 19:35
Los Angeles Times – 13:10
(more…)

New York Times
by Byron Walden; edited by Will Shortz

As usual with the Friday/Saturday family, I needed a lot of help. This one seemed a little more doable than yesterday’s puzzle (Manny Nosowsky might be my crosswording nemesis — I will never rest until I solve a Nosowsky alone!!!). I got a couple of the lengthy answers, but I was guessing at so many others that I never felt very secure on anything.

This fleet of answers seemed to suggest to me that part of the challenge with the harder puzzles is not that the answers are all going to be obscure — some are really quite natural. But the blend of natural and obscure and everything in between leaves me constantly questioning my instincts. My wife has been asking me to question some of my instincts — for example, it’s instinctual to ignore the location of the toilet seat upon, er, completion, but I now must pay attention to that.

I never like it when a music clue (it’s what I do for a living) or a sports clue (it’s what I watch when I’m not making a living) completely eludes me. In this case, 33A. Player coached by Hank Stram was a complete baffler. I didn’t know who Hank Stram was, so I figured that as I got the crossings, I’d eventually see the name of a recognizable athlete. Nope. Instead, the “player” coached by Mr. Stram is any old KANSAS CITY CHIEF. Here he is, celebrating what was no doubt a victory of some sort. Probably an important one.

And I also got stuck at 51A. A musician might pick it, because I was sure it was spelled UKELELE (and not UKULELE). And believe it or not, on July 27, 2002, it was spelled that way — although the clue suggested it was a “Var.” on the original.

I’ll go along with answer ideas if only one or two of the crossings seem to fit, especially on a difficult puzzle, because I don’t have a lot of answers that I actually know. 49A. Tub handle? seemed like it might be FAUCET — which fit for 50D. Word with flute or horn (ALTO) and for my wrong choice at 45D. Ventriloquist’s prop (DUMMY for this dummy, but TRUNK for everyone else). Unaware of anything else in the lower right, I left the faucet running there for about an hour, leaking crap all over the rest of the grid. The correct answer to 49A? PARKAY.

Other News, Puzzles, Etc.

I began work today on Frank Longo’s 25-Foot Crossword Puzzle. Just did the first page. It’s truly astounding. Mr. Longo — you are impressive. If you’re reading this: I am a fan.

The trick with this puzzle, of course, is that Hamlet’s famous soliloquy runs through it. The first few words are one short-ish clue, the last few words are a short clue near the end, and the rest of it is about twenty-five feet long. I may hang this on my wall when I’m finished, as something of a puzzling trophy. We’ll see. It gets more difficult from left to right, and I’m only on page one.

Also, I was pointed to a few puzzles created by the great composer Stephen Sondheim about forty years ago. They are a challenge and then some! I have completed the first one, but not even begun the other two. In time, perhaps… We’ll see.

And I’m a new member of the National Puzzler’s League, and received my first three copies of their puzzle magazine, The Enigma. I think the first enigma here is how to decipher one of the issues — one side of every page was printed upside-down, so the magazine reads: page 1, upside-down page 23, page 3, upside-down page 21, etc. I have to say, I’m intrigued by all these challenging puzzles, but I don’t know if I’m up to the task…

Our Tuesday-through-Friday podcast will be up later today. Monday night, we’ll do Episode 5, which will cover Saturday, Sunday and next Monday.

I’d like to open by saying that Ryan is with his family this weekend. His father took ill, so Ryan and his wife left today for California. Let’s all hope for good news in the days to come.

And in the meantime…

New York Times 32:22 (with internet help)

New York Times
by Byron Walden, edited by Will Shortz

There is no way in the world that I’d ever finish a Saturday. Period.

There is really no way I could do it without help. Last week, I helped Ryan complete his partially-done puzzle. This week, I let Wikipedia help me complete mine. I really only needed a little bit of assistance, though. I got the whole upper left on my own. (Aside: I tried using compass terms for puzzle-square location for a while, but I don’t like it. I’m going back to normal words.) Little bits of things came into place until I had a few breakthroughs and got the four big 9-letter down clues:

• 1D. Jigger that jiggles? (JELLO SHOT, pictured at right)
• 2D. Alternative to a water ski (AQUA PLANE)
• 3D. Begin to blossom (BURST OPEN)
• 4D. Lance Armstrong foundation? (BIKE STAND) — this was the hardest one to wrap my head around. His actual program is called Livestrong, I think. At least, that’s what all the yellow bracelets say. But I knew “strong” couldn’t be part of it. And for a while, I actually had BIKING in the last six spots (thanks to the compound 22D/24A. Number one position, which I thought was TOP RANK — it’s TOP SLOT)

This all set up the rest of the top left, which looked awfully impressive to me. Down to the bottom right area, which got off to a good start when I guessed almost correctly on 29A. Salt with the maximum proportion of element #53 (PERIODIDE – I had PERIODINE in there for a while, which hurt my work on 33D, but otherwise was a good start). Incidentally, I think this clue is rather clumsy, but maybe appropriately so, in that the answer itself is also clumsy.

But as I got 26D. Minute Maid drink brand (HI-C), 32D. Lifeless (INANIMATE) and 34D. Parts of makeup kits (EYELINERS), I thought I also had found 37A. Star of “London After Midnight,” 1927, of which I knew nothing but still guessed CARNEY. I have since learned that Art Carney was only nine in 1927, which made him a much less likely movie star than, say, Lon CHANEY.

I have never heard of 51A. Volkswagen Polo, for one (SUPERMINI), and even now that I have and know the answer (and see the photo), I probably still wouldn’t be able to pick one out of a lineup. I made a handful of other random guesses, but eventually found several across answers in this area, including 55A. One suspended in adolescence (BOY-MAN), 57A. Split personality? (EX-MATE — maybe my favorite answer on the grid), 59A. Street lighting specialist? (RIOTER – not sure what this means), and 61A. Claim of convenience in ads or otherwise (NO MESS — also not sure what ads would use this phrase; I’ve never seen it). Once I replaced Art with Lon, I made sense of the rest of this zone, and moved onto other otherwise blank squares.

18A. Geographic feature depicted on the Armenian coat of arms was quite a doozy. Here, we are mixing together a plethora of things I know and care nothing about: geography, Armenia (is it actually a country? I never know!), coats of arms and truthfully, general depiction. In fact, aside from the definite article the, there’s not a single word in the clue that even appeals to me. Should I feel like a fool, then, to find the answer (MT. ARARAT) and recognize it oddly as the name of a school I used to play high school sports against? Yes, my tiny little school in Maine had to find other tiny little schools in Maine to play Class D sports (soccer, basketball, lacrosse). I have a vague recollection of having a generally lousy basketball game against Mt. Ararat during my senior year. I had 25 rebounds and 6 blocks (along with a paltry 8 points) when I fouled out with two minutes to go. We lost by three. The fouls were stupid little ticky-tack things. The final one was an over-the-back foul I apparently committed against a player who had tripped on his own left foot.

And a comment: Where on that thing is Mt. Ararat? Is it the blob in the center section that looks more like a sack of gold coins? I’m not happy with this one at all. However, plugging in the crossword-friendly MT. ARARAT, I was able to get the downs in that area and complete it.

My last bit of internet help came on 53A. Shrub also known as Russian olive. And once I looked it up on the internet, I could barely find the answer anywhere. Apparently, it’s more “common” name is OLEASTER. But by “common,” I mean that maybe two people have heard of it (as opposed to the one person who had heard of a Russian olive in the first place).But like the other sections of the puzzle, this one answer was enough to trigger the rest of the solution.

So while my time is skewed by my internet help, I still feel good that I only needed to really hunt for a few things to otherwise make it through a Saturday. Truthfully, I would have never solved it without the help, as there were crossings against these words which I also did not know. 47D. First Justice alphabetically in the history of the Supreme Court (ALITO — I am ashamed not to have known this) and 48D. First African-American golfer with 12 P.G.A. Tour wins (PEETE) would have left me partially vacant in the lower left. In the upper right, without Mt. Ararat, I’d have never found 12D. Spanish festival (FERIA – which I know only as a hair dye, for I have a wife) and 13D. Animal in Poe’s “Murder in the Rue Morgue” (ORANG – with which I am not satisfied; upon later review, I discover that when I read “Rue Morgue,” the animal was called an “Ourang-Outang,” clearly a different spelling).

In the end, a relatively satisfying puzzle. I think looking up three answers is good for me for a Saturday.

In other news, I am practicing my skills on Monday and Tuesday puzzles, going through the New York Times archives. I will not blog about them here, but I am tracking my solve times. Currently, my Monday average is about 5:52, and my Tuesday is about 8:04. I hope to get those down to under five and seven minutes respectively by, say, June.

Again, my thoughts are out to Ryan and his whole family. Be well, my friend.