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SATURDAY, Apr 25, 2009 - B Wilber (Introducer of math symbol e / Battle of Cabra victor 1071 / Act of Supremacy institutor)
Friday, April 24, 2009
Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging
THEME: Names I Don't Know (or, NONE)
Word of the Day: PETCOCK - n. (1A: Runs through a petcock, e.g. => DRAINS OFF)
A small valve or faucet used to drain or reduce pressure, as from a boiler. (wik.)
This was tough. The SW and NE in particular gave me fits, with the NE being the toughest part of the whole grid for me. The only thing worse than a B'way clue is THREE B'WAY CLUES. Criminy, it's like the constructor personally hates me. FRED EBB? Nope (8D: "New York, New York" lyricist). Garson KANIN? Oh hell no (18A: Garson _____, writer and director of Broadway's "Born Yesterday"). A song from "Hair?" Well, thankfully, I'd heard of it, but I needed crosses to jar it loose, and they were Not Forthcoming (13D: "Hair" song with birthday wishes to a president). For a while, the only thing I had up in the NE was Peppermint Patty's damned SANDALS (14D: Wear for Peppermint Patty). I threw MERGED across that section at 21A: United, and that gave me the "G" in what I thought was DOUGHNUT at 12D: Thing with a sweet ring to it? Mother of Pearl, how could those very, very plausible answers both be wrong? Well, they were.
WASHBOARD ABS (31A: Desirable trunk feature) took forever to appear because of yet Another very believable wrong answer: GO NUTS instead of GO WILD (23D: Lose it). Thank god for grad school, because somehow I was able to see SCIPIO (35A: He crushed Hannibal at Zama) even through the wrongness of GO NUTS, and SCIPIO pretty much saved my life in the (to that point) barren SW. I figured "THE LAST METRO" (38A: 1980 Truffaut film that won 10 César awards) would be in French, given the "César" reference in the clue (I realize it's an award, and it's not being used as a French word, but still ... seemed Frenchy). I had METRO, but was surprised when THE LAST showed up. ISAAC who? (56A: Shorthand inventor Pitman) ... ERI what now? (46A: European conductor _____ Klas). My god, if I weren't a longtime solver, OAKIE (learned from xwords - 7D: "The Great Dictator" Oscar nominee) and EULER (learned from xwords - 42A: Introducer of the math symbol e) would have hurt me too. And here I started out so confident, with ANDRES Gallaraga as a flat-out gimme (3D: 1993 N.L. batting champion Galarraga). "The Big Cat." Thought the puzzle would be right in my wheelhouse. Boy was I wrong. All in all, a healthy Saturday workout. I think it's a little cheap to rely so heavily on proper nouns for your difficulty, but I still enjoyed the ride.
Bullets:
- 16A: Setting of Queen Beatrix airport (Aruba) - another reason the NE was a bear. I was looking for some kind of Swedish city. Maybe Danish. Who the hell is Queen Beatrix? What? The Netherlands still has a @#$#ing Queen? Democracies with royalty = people with third nipple or vestigial tail. Puzzling.
- 20A: City founded during the Cherokee Strip land run (Enid) - city blah blah somewhere in the west blah blah four letters long = ENID! I love that this crosswordy city crosses another crosswordy city in NOME (5D: City east of Saint Lawrence Island).
27A: Food giant based in Springdale, Ark. (Tyson) - Not a fan of factory-farmed meat/poultry.- 47A: Unagi restaurant suppliers (eelers) - one of my few gimmes today. Not sure why we don't see UNAGI in the puzzle more often. Terminal "I"! 60% vowels!
- 57A: Act of Supremacy institutor (Henry VIII) - established the English monarch as the head of the Church of England.
- 4D: Christian trigram (IHS) - INRI I know. This, I don't. Iesus Hominum Salvator - hey, is that where the "H" in "Jesus H. Christ!" comes from?
- 9D: Most famous resident of Warm Spr., Ga. (FDR) - Warm Springs was the site of a hospital for polio patients founded by FDR.
- 28D: Vacation spot for some oenophiles (Napa) - virtual gimme. Had the "N" in place and so no problem.
- 32D: Alfred _____, "Footbridge at Argenteuil" artist (Sisley) - another name that gave me fits. I've heard of SISLEY, but that didn't help a lot today.
- 39D: Who said "I'll try anything once, twice if I like it, three times to make sure" (Mae West) - didn't *know* it, but given the spirit of the quotation, the answer was pretty obvious.
- 43D: Cause of a dry spell in the Midwest (La Niña) - whoa. Total guess that paid off.
- 47D: Battle of Cabra victor, 1079 (El Cid) - I have this eerie feeling I Just Did a puzzle with this very clue. EL CID is a relatively frequent puzzle denizen, though usually just his CID makes it in.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. Had an even harder time with the LAT. Orange's write-up here.
P.P.S. I'm a clue in a puzzle! Thanks, Ben Tausig
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64 comments:
Heavens!!! I'm first on a saturday??? Was pretty tough but a lot easier than yesterday.
Love to make bundt cakes!! Much nicer that a regular cake.
Met Ron Howard once. He lives in Greenwich
Had a tough time with this one. So many proper names! The only ones I knew at first glance were KANIN, FDR, SCIPIO, and SISLEY. ASSONANCE was a gimme from my English teacher days. But I learned many new names today. Now if I can just remember them for future puzzles.
bookmark
Knew Euler, Scipio, Kanin and Mae West, Fred Ebb and [of course] Mozart. Had "happy birthday abie baby" in my head, but I STILL don't buy that as the title [just looked it up on wikipedia, it was "Yes, I's finished/abie baby]. Got Ron Howard and Oakie from crosses, but no surprises.
So, I'd say this was pretty easy.
Not easy for me - knew all the B'way stuff, MOZART, got SISLEY off the EY - then stared blankly. Started it last night, picked it up again at 7 this morning and just finished. Thankfully, I had Barry Silk over at the LAT today to keep me sane.
ETHICS in business? Please.
@chefbea That's funny, I had the opposite reaction: I thought it was a lot harder than yesterday's puzzle. After complaining that Fri was too easy, I got what I asked for with a tough Saturday workout.
Eventually got there except for several words in the NW. I stupidly wrote STOP IT instead of DROP IT for 1D. Thus for "Best Director of 2001" I had TON__W_RD. So I went TONY AWARD. Knew something was amiss with SR to start 1 Across and no Srini in sight. ODDS WAGER instead of ODDSMAKER didn't help either.
@imsdave - I heard there was once a B-school application form that asked for a short essay on an ethical dilemma the applicant had faced and how s/he had resolved it. It was removed the next application cycle because so many students said they had never experienced an ethical dilemma.
IHS = in hoc signo (vinces) also, but basically it is "iota eta sigma," the first 3 letters of Jesus's name in Greek.
An OK puzzle but more slog with a little less fun than Friday for me. More medium than challenging IMO. "PEBBLY" avocados? Well, OK. I suppose..... 58D was ILE and EAU before the correct VAL emerged. Looked for a Dutch city for Queen Beatrix Airport and A???? didn't' ring a bell. Enjoyed finding ARUBA late in the game.
I don't get the link between tubas and big bells?
The large flared end of a horn is called a bell.
@hobbyist - I think it means the bell shaped part of the tuba where the sound comes out. Am I right?
This on was a challenge for me to the tune of 79 minutes (includes feeding the dog, letting the dog out and in, feeding the cat, making two soy lattes and getting a sweater).
Saved by ARUBA as I had been there. And FDR as I just read about him. And, ABIEBABY as my sister got to go to the original Broadway opening of HAIR and I did not.... but I am over it.
LOL moment:
I had bELETD for United, had BUNt__A_ and for the life of me could not remember a composer named bOZART. I put on my ACME thinking cap (meep meep) and it all became clear.
Favorite boy am I smart fill: EULER.
And as I am KEENON Acme that one was easy.
We watched Hotel Rowanda on PBS this week so TUTSI was top of mind. For all you WASPs who might like another 200 years of guilt for the treatment (or lack there of) of Africans this is a must see film. Pay attention to line: Only the whites leave.
@r_c, but is the flared end of an ale glass called a bell?
Very difficult for me today, especially since I insisted on SAVEIT for DROPIT - a little too much of my own voice...
Enjoyed yesterday's more, for this one moidelized me. Thought of you, Dave, while doing it because I knew you would be whipping through the B'way clues.
Like IMSDAVE, I had an unusual number of good guesses and things I knew, but found this one tough because of the unknown names. One bad guess and I am not sure I would have completed it. WASHBOARDABS was the center of the puzzle and would be for me as hard to get as to name another play by KANIN.
I liked this puzzle a lot. I bet WASHBOARDABS was the seed entry for this one and it was my first entry and, as a result, got my start in the NE. I built this corner around ARUBA which I knew from the Natilee Holloway case that fascinated me.
I lived in NYC most of my life and lived on the Times Sunday edition where I initially got my puzzles. I was a periodic Broadway person most of that time so FREDEBB was a semi-neon for me and I Got the NW from FDR and RONHOWARD.
I moved thru the Midlands into the SW where a couple of good guesses held me in good stead, leaving only the SE corner and some of the East Coast left to do and I was was able to produce the SE corner through HENRYVIII.
This one was a bit of a workout but was as much a memory name game and a guessing match as anything else. It reminded me a little of the Meleska era where recevied knowledge tended to be the key. I would have prefered more wordplay but this one was right up my alley.
I really enjoyed this one, from BRAINY and WITS to ODIOUS and THE PITS... It was the NW that took me the longest to put together, though I knew a Petcock was for draining.
Funny, the other night I saw part of a TV interview with the 41-year-old female Olympics swimmer, decorously clad on camera but with a photo cut in of her in a bikini -- I'd never seen a female torso so washboardy! She said "It's what I do all day, every day, not just an hour a day". Impossibly impressive.
∑;)
p.s. Does anyone care to give an explanation of EULER's "e"?
I have to agree with Rex's "theme". I rocked through the NW and SE and then hit the wall hard. And hit it again. ARUBA seemed plausible, and TAKEN came into view, but I couldn't figure out that "trunk" was referring to anatomy and just stared at ____ABS thinking of taxi cabs. Ugggh.
38D, Something dreadful: THIS PUZZLE didn't fit, but that's what I was thinking...
Five googles, and 1 hour plus. overall an enjoyable solve.
Two interesting things here:
The oxymoron of the day is "Business Ethics". Someday there will be a puzzle with "Honest Lawyer". : -) Meanwhile this was challenging but i got Garson KANIN and RON HOWAD and MAE WEST immediately, which opened uoo the whole puzzle. ANd although there was no obvious theme, East met West on this one because The Battle of Cabra Winner and The Conqueror of Valencia is EL CID who made appearences on BOTH COASTS!!!!!
@artlvr:e is the symbol for natural logarithm in mathematics. Check it out in Wikipedia.
This was hard for me. Googled wildly, madly.
I honeymooned in ARUBA back in '89 and I NEVER get this answer! I know Beatrix is the Dutch queen, but the big airport is Schipol so I was scrambling for the Dutch equivalent of Midway airport.
I got more than I normally do on a Saturday and got hammered by all the proper nouns. 28 after a quick check, or @ 40%. There's a new metric for JimH.
Has my evil counterpart gone on extended leave? Should I fill in with a couple of grouchy observations?
Today I learned that I can't spell ASSONANCE.
I got a little worried when the I's kept piling up at the end of 57A.
"Democracies with royalty = people with third nipple or vestigial tail": What? You mean like Britain or Canada? Don't start a revolution over it or anything.
Challenging but fun. A perfect Saturday.
Peppermint Patty and I wandered all over this grid to the sound of imagined teacher saying "Mwah Mwah Mwah...." probably through the bell of a TUBA, or something (ok, trombone, whatever).
Got most of it w/o Googling but part of the NE was beyond me. I've never heard of BUNDT PAN so I had to leave a hole, which is always frustrating. Much harder than yesterday's I would say.
I was determined to solve this and to do so had to walk away. My big problem was writing in GO BALD, after desperately wanting GO GAGA. I thought, wow, what a great misdirection, this is about losing your hair not going nuts! Well, once I saw BA HBOA DA S I got my WITS about me and saw WASHBOARDABS (which I love!) and changed the "B" to "W" filled in the "S," "R" and "B" and was done.
Thank you, Brad Wilber, for a SWANK Saturday puzzle.
These comments reveal so much about what people do and don't know. My experience and @rex seem to be polar opposites. For example, the NE was a gimme for me, but I knew Garson Kanin and Abie Baby. I had to ask, "Does Peppermint Patty wear sandals?" It fit, but I couldn't picture those sandals. Fred Ebb was, for me a gimme. The rest just flowed, except the second "i" of Scipio was a best guess for me, crossing Sisley (shame on me, after looking him up). That was my Natick crossing me. BTW, there is a beautiful song of a dying mother and her son, set in Natick, Massachusetts. Enjoy!
I thought this was easier than yesterday. I googled liberally but I was able to finish it without coming here for assistance and in less time than yesterday. I feel pretty good about all that.
When I first look at a puzzle, my eyes go to the middle of it and I saw MOZART and ****EBB running down thru 31A and I recognized Alfred SISLEY from my Art Minor days at college and I had seen "Hair" in a community production years ago and ABIEBABY had stuck in my mind and the jumble of letters including a couple of Bs created a Perfect Storm at the center of the puzzle and WASHBOARDABS fairly leaped out at me and I knew, just knew it was the seed entry for this puzzle.
I like making these kinds of guesses and a couple of times a year they prove to be correct and sets the tempo for that particular solving experience and thrills me to no end.
Take a TUBA to ARUBA...man, this puzzle was waaay more difficult than yesterday, for me. So much for not googling. Like Rex, I had GONUTS, then GOBALD (like joho), and finally GOWILD after googling that dastardly defeater of Hannibal.
From Maine on down through the Appalachians, I was blank except for sandals. Thank you washboard abs for appearing like magic.
I need a nap.
Names I don't know. Exactly. Some of which I'll likely soon forget.
Sat outside the original Peet's Coffee in Berkeley this morning, overhearing all the BRAINY banter. Somehow this gave me ASSONANCE. Great stroll around the campus last night which included meeting Michael Pollan after a lecture/performance. Apparrently they're turning The Botany of Desire into a musical.
Quonk.
Didn't know that thing was a TUBA bell. I knew where Queen Beatrice was from, but that didn't help. No idea about KANIN. No idea about URAL or xxxxBABY. If the clue had said Footwear for Peppermint Patty, I'd have had no idea.
TYSON was a gimme, but I tried STOP IT and GONE BY and WENT BY. And I even knew what a petcock is.
Never heard of EBB, SCIPIO, THE LAST METRO, or Queen NIOBE. Or IHS or Warm Spr., Ga. Or ERI Klas. Or VAL-de-whatever.
But I used to play for a team called SWANK, so it's not all bad.
Does it count as solving it successfully if I had to look at a picture of Peppermint Patty to make the NE fall?
On another note, I was surprised how much the emergence of Armando Galarraga as a legit baseball player made me doubt that I was remembering ANDRES's name right.
"The only thing worse than a B'way clue is THREE B'WAY CLUES."
Agreed.
"I think it's a little cheap to rely so heavily on proper nouns for your difficulty"
Agreed.
Where I disagree is that it wasn't an enjoyable workout. It's not very enjoyable when every piece of trivia (and there were many) was focused in the same general area of knowledge (artsy crap), and you've never much cared for artsy crap. This was more the crossword equivalent of a stress position.
I was in the middle of Googling when my bro-in-law came in and filled in "washboardabs" (I was still thinking "suitcase"), Tutsi, and Niobe (which I couldn't even find on Google!)This one was way too hard for me. (Even if I did get "Enid" on my own!) Please tell me it gets easier the more you do!
Seven-Googler for me today. No possibility of finishing it otherwise. Ugh.
@Banjo Grrl: It does get easier, but for me the late-week puzzles are still hit or miss. I'm just happy I can finish them once in a while.
@Banjo Grrl, it does get easier the more you do them. I must disagree with Dough that crossword puzzles and comments upon them are a reflection of what people do and do not know.
There is much validity in being on the same vibe as a constructor; having life's little coincidences cross through your puzzling; and what life experience you bring to the puzzle.
For instance, today my first two entries were KANIN and ASSONANCE,; the first, because I am a fan of Kate Hepburn and ASSONANCE because I was in a conversation about lyricism yesterday.
There is a major solipsistic factor in successful puzzle completion, IMO.
Had a slightly easier time than yesterday but still a slog. I have found that Google is my BFF on Fri and Sat, I know that is cheating and not right but at least I learn stuff and it gets the job done. Whether it counts or not (and I know in Rex's book it doesn't count)but I get the satisfaction of a completed puzzle and a little more knowledge, that's assuming that I can retain it all.
I took the longest time getting BUNDTPAN which is a total embarrassment to me because, oh yeah, I bake. Delivering a Pina Colada Cheesecake tonight. Yummo!
@ XMAN --Thanks for the "e-lucidation"... I'd ask if there's an UNnatural logarithm, but won't!
@banjo girl-
I've been doing puzzles for more than 30 years and, at the beginning, I was only able to complete Mondays and Tuesday. It took me roughly 5 years before I was able to consistently compete on Fridays and Saturdays. But it was worth the trip!
Do as much of the puzzle as you can, read Rex's write up and the Comments and go back to the puzzle.
None of this was available when I first started so Good Luck!
Pretty much what Rex and most of you said. NW was easy with ANDRES and RON... gimmies, but the rest was tough, especially NE. I had it all done but NE and let it sit overnight. ARUBA hit me this morning but it was still a struggle having to guess KANIN and infer ABIEBABY. I also had Patty in STRIPES for too long. Harder than yesterday's for me and not quite as much fun.
I went to bed early last night & had a busy day, so just got to the puzzle. And, it was work! After about twenty minutes, I hit up Dr. Google several times.
My gimme's were Euler and "Abie Baby" and FDR, and that's about it!!
Kept thinking about an automobile trunk (washable ???).
I do like a puzzle like this one, when I have the time and the patience (& internet access).
Waaay too many proper names for this to be even a little enjoyable for me.
Favorite sarcastic clues involved ethical businessmen and celibate clergymen.
I'm with the haters on this one. Too much esoterica for it to be an enjoyable solve for me.
@fikink - I'm curious how the solipsistic factor helps in solving the puzzles? I understand solipsism to be self-absorption - to the point of egotism. To me, puzzles are more easily solved with a broad awareness of the world as opposed to any sort of major absorption with myself. Can you explain your meaning?
Died in the NE and went to Google heaven, which was a real bummer seeing as how the rest was tough, but doable. Oddly remember "EULER" from a math class in college, and ASSONANCE was very easy. From there I went clockwise through the rest.
WASHBOARD ABS killed. Started with INTERIOR DOOR, then tried WASHABLE DOOR. Then the cheating began, and I ended the puzzle with a head slap.
Similarly expected a film title in French and wasted A LOT of time trying to make something out of THELA ET M____. "Mario? That's not a French name?"
I will say I thought the parts I COULD solve without cheating were more enjoyable than the parts I could solve yesterday without cheating.
I had a much harder time with this one than with yesteray's. I finally checked Rex's blog for 1A, sothat I had at least a chance at finishing the NW....
Since I knew there is no Queen Beatrix airport in Holland, I knew it had to be on one of the ABC islands and Aruba fit. I have no idea how I got sandals, for 14d, I can't even envision a peppermint patty! I didn't know Kanin, Fred Ebb, and Abie Baby I had to piece together. Why am I hearing "Santa Baby" in my head? I like the tricky clues to 6d Swank and 57D has.
It's nonsense to call all businessmen and lawayers unethical; every single profession has its creeps and its good guys.
You would think that I, of all people, would be overjoyed by all the Broadway content of this puzzle. Strangely, no.
While I was delighted to see FRED EBB in the puzzle (I am a great admirer of his work), I am less interested in these "gimmies" than I was when I first started working crosswords. I'm now much more focused on the wordplay and clever cluing: for me, the joy now lies in the challenge of the unknown. Anybody can just fill in random bits of trivia they know and I guess there is some satisfaction in that, but I'm learning to love all those rappers and sports figures and the other bits of arcana that fill the daily grids. And you know what? Increasingly, I'm solving most of these beasts through the crosses and all the clever wordplay. That's what I really enjoy.
Now don't get me wrong. I realize the importance of a good "gimmie" in establishing a foothold, but then the real fun begins.
Useless Trivia for @PhillySolver: Garson Kanin also wrote Adam's Rib and Pat and Mike for Hollywood (with wife Ruth Gordon). Most of his other plays for Broadway are unknown today (titles like A Gift of Time and Dreyfus in Rehearsal). Mr. Kanin was well known as a director of Broadway plays, such as The Diary of Anne Frank, and for lousing up the direction of Funny Girl (replaced by Jerome Robbins lurking under a "Production Supervised By" billing).
@mac: I agree about your general observation re. ethics and professions, but it DOES strike me as remarkable that business schools feel the need for specific classes in ethics.
As to the puzzle: It was easier for me than on a typical Saturday EXCEPT for the NE, which was just about undoable w/o outside help--Aruba?--I have to keep mac's ABC rule in mind for future reference when it comes to Dutch locations. And why is bundt cake spelled that way? And I don't care about the name of that big part on a tuba, an instrument I can't take seriously and hate even more after my experience in the NE today.
hazel, I was not speaking formally of solipsism as a philosophy. I was suggesting that much of what we know is limited or substantiated by our individual "realities." This might be interesting to discuss further in light of your ongoing battle. If you are interested, email me via my blog. (I doubt Rex would appreciate it if we discussed it here.)
Ulrich, for what it's worth, medical schools and graduate schools have ethics courses as well.
worked through it entirely, stubbornly without assists, though baseball player was utter mystery. I thought trunk referred to car trunk at first. I had Webern in stead of Mozart at first also, took a long time to arrive at Nome. but felt it was very good puzzle, basically no brand names, which I like.
TYSON ... is a brand name.
rp
The fact that it took me overnight to come up with ARUBA is a tad frustrating as I've had more the one Amstel in that airport. One of the joys of aging is that it takes longer for stuff to float to the surface.
Second Saturday in a row in which I've had to google. I was getting it slowly, but finally was terminally stuck in the northeast. bundtpan? Abie Baby?
I could have thought forever without getting them.
Rats -- I meant to hit preview -- that should be "more than one" ...
@anonymous at 6:40: Thx for the illumination.
The university where I taught had very strong engineering schools (esp. computer science) and AFAIK there was no ethics course anywhere except in our business school. Now, I taught in the architecture school, and a colleague of mine developed an ethics course, which I considered remarkable b/c architects pride themselves for belonging to the "second oldest profession in the world".
@fikink and Hazel - Two words for you - "Slumdog Millionaire." (Of course, if you haven't seen the movie, that will require further explanation!)
I worked my way through this puzzle in an unknown amount of time today at the beach - nothing special if you live in Florida or California, but I can't remember ever going to the beach in New Jersey in April before! Just two write-overs - COLLARED before CELIBATE and PEARLY before PEBBLY.
Ethics courses are quite valuable in fields where individuals have a lot of personal responsibility in terms of their ability to affect others, as well as the magnitude of their responsibility. Each person has a different scale for measuring what is ethical, based on their environment, so it's helpful to be exposed to a formal benchmarking process that clearly lays out rules. Of course this all goes to hell if there isn't independent oversight because humans are human...
@doug, we had to take ethics-like classes in psychology school. It helped.
@Greene, wow I did not expect you to have had any trouble with this puzzle. I was fuming along on it (running on empty), thinking "oh yeah, Greene knows this, everything else will pop up, no prob."
I'm with you. I like the happy solve, one that's challenging, like climbing a monolith, with footholds here and there. But for me, there's that oogly-googly thing that tempts me when I simply can't GET it!
In the syndicated puzzle today, Orange spoke of her solving style and how she simply solves quickly, that's how her brain works. Wow. Makes it clear to me the levels of understanding/solving.
The clue to 8D was incorrect. FRED EBB did not write the lyrics to 'New York, New York'. John Kander (his partner) and Fred Ebb wrote the music and lyrics to 'Theme from New York, New York'. The song 'New York, New York' was written for the 1944 musical 'On The Town', music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green (neither of whom fit into this puzzle).
well, 5 weeks late, I know, but for those of us in syndication: if Mr Wilber meant IHS to stand for Iesus hominum salvator he is in the same company as those who put AGORAE in the dictionary. It is the first three letters of the name JESUS written in Greek majuscules: IOTA, ETA (the H), SIGMA.
I'm another solver from the hinterlands (five weeks late and several clues short). Friday and Saturday puzzles are my favorites because sometimes they take me all day!
Funny how our minds work...got Kanin and Aruba almost immediately, but had never heard of EBB...had Frede.. for the longest time.
We had GO BALD for a while. (Lose . . . your hair?) Wanted GO MAD or GO CRAZY. I knew TBA with no crosses, but my crossword partner wanted ETA (which ="edited to add" to me).
NW had some craziness goin' Had STOP IT, which makes SRALLLIOFFLSR start to look like an answer. Also put LUS for 4 . . . fleur de lys? Shamrocks? I thought it would be a good substitute for the Godhead.
Most baffling, though, was 15A. TONY AWARD seemed like a very, very lame/general answer for "Best Director of 2001," but with so many proper names, nothing was coming.
TONYAWARD
RONHOWARD
Look at that! (Cue Jaws music . . .)
One from Syndication Land -
Wowzers, this was tough! Waaaaay tougher than yesterday; my wife and I took over an hour, and just like Rex the last two areas to fall were Four Corners and New England. I finally thought of "what else has bells? Flowers?" and She Who Should Be Listened To came right back with "no, not flowers - instruments! TUBAS"... Final score, 100% done, 0 Googles, 2 exhausted solvers.
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