Sausage king Froman in Ferris Bueller's Day Off / FRI 1-11-13 / Tennyson title lady / Key discovery of 1799 / College town on Stillwater River / Mr Clue-like board game / Feather source

Constructor: Ian Livengood

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none

Word of the Day: THE SITUATION (7D: "Jersey Shore" co-star) —

Michael Paul Sorrentino (born July 4, 1981) known by his nickname The Situation, is an American television personality. He has appeared on the MTVreality show Jersey Shore since its premiere in 2009. (wikipedia)

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Wonderful work, but just too easy. Cluing needed to be a little demonified. I got THE SITUATION off of THE, DRUNK-DIALED off the -UNK-, TICKET STUB off the -UB, PERSIAN GULF off the PER-, etc. Only hang-ups that I can recall came in the NE, where I couldn't remember if the verb in question was RICES or DICES, so I waited for crosses. Got the -AN- at 9A: Anger and went with [drum roll] RANCOR! Only after EIDER made RANCOR impossible did I finally work out DANDER. Otherwise, this puzzle just rolled over. Maybe I'm just particularly in tune with Ian's work. I mean, I read [Looked into?] and without any crosses the first thing I thought of was XRAYED. This instantly made MANX CATS obvious, and things just flowed from there. There were a couple of moments where I had to think a little bit. I wrote in CULL for 29D: Cut down (CURB) and so had to work quite a bit to figure out 36A: Some crisscross patterns (TARTANS). And while I *knew* that there was going to be some tricky play on words in the clue at 20D: Key discovery of 1799 (ROSETTA STONE), I thought the "Key" was going to be Francis Scott ... but then I couldn't figure out what he could have "discovered" (to my slight credit, he *was* in fact alive in 1799, so the guess, while preposterous, was not impossibly preposterous). I remembered the Sausage King Froman in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" (ABE) (I don't think he actually appears in the film—he's someone Ferris impersonates at a restaurant), but he wasn't really necessary since the crosses were all easy (although HOKE is not a word I see, ever) (31D: Bunkum). I managed to remember Mr. REE (it's a pun!), whose existence I learned of from crosswords gone by. [Elevated lines?] stumped me a bit because I wanted only ELS. But it's the non-plural ODE. I wish there'd been a few more of these speed bumps, because the grid is highly enjoyable. Entertaining and contemporary. Expertly made. Really nice work.


Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld