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Jörmungandr, in Norse mythology / FRI 1-17-25 / First capital of Alaska / Shakespearean counterpart to Logan on "Succession" / Milling byproduct / Borg who co-founded the Institute for Women in Technology / First Pixar film with a female protagonist / 2011 hit by Jay-Z and Kanye West that samples a 1966 soul performance
Friday, January 17, 2025
Constructor: Willa Angel Chen Miller
Relative difficulty: Easy
THEME: none
Word of the Day: CALL option (18A: ___ option) —
In finance, a call option, often simply labeled a "call", is a contract between the buyer and the seller of the call option to exchange a security at a set price. The buyer of the call option has the right, but not the obligation, to buy an agreed quantity of a particular commodity or financial instrument (the underlying) from the seller of the option at or before a certain time (the expiration date) for a certain price (the strike price). This effectively gives the buyer a long position in the given asset. The seller (or "writer") is obliged to sell the commodity or financial instrument to the buyer if the buyer so decides. This effectively gives the seller a short position in the given asset. The buyer pays a fee (called a premium) for this right. The term "call" comes from the fact that the owner has the right to "call the stock away" from the seller.
• • •
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| [48D] |
The puzzle was very easy, so I didn't have much time to dwell on my disappointment. There were several things I didn't know, but the surrounding fill filled itself in so quickly that I blew right through every roadblock. ONE is a horizontal line in Chinese writing? Crosses say "yes," so yes. ANITA Borg is somebody? (14D: Borg who co-founded the Institute for Women in Technology). Kinda sounds familiar. Sure, why not? Crosses say "yes," so yes. Same with Douglas Carter BEANE (38A: Playwright/screenwriter Douglas Carter ___). He has written (or worked on) the book for big Broadway adaptations of movies like Sister Act and Xanadu. It's true he is a screenwriter, but I only see a single credit on his wikipedia page (To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (1995)). He has had a big successful career, but I feel less bad not knowing him after reading his cv. Not sure how I'd know his name from any of it. Did you know who wrote the book for Sister Act? If so, congrats. Anyway, BEANE was a name, a worthy name I didn't know, and it only held me up for a few seconds, so no biggie. The one answer that really had me going "???? is that right?" was 18A: ___ option (CALL). Is that some kind of Wall St. / stock exchange term? Or poker slang? Well, I looked it up (as you can see—see Word of the Day above), and my eyes glazed over the same way they did with BOARD SEATS and DIRECT DEPOSIT (and IPO, frankly). My first guess was (roughly) correct. Commodities trading. I'm sure these answers are getting someone excited, but it ain't me.
Toughest part of the puzzle today was SUSSing out "IT'S NOT A RACE!" (6D: "Take your time!"). The clue is a totally non-judgmental, reassuring statement, whereas the answer is a highly judgmental substitute for "slow the f*** down!" so the cluing, needless to say, did not really work for me. I (mentally) tried a bunch of "IT'S NO —" answers, then at some point (literally) tried "IT'S NOT A RUSH!" before I finally arrived at the correct answer. On its own, it's a good answer. With that clue, and amid two other "NO/NOT" marquee answers, it loses some of its luster. I also struggled ("struggled") with GRANDCHILD because I weirdly insisted on making her a GRANDNIECE at first (going with NIECE of CHILD in this circumstance is an obvious symptom of Crossword Brain—NIECE beats CHILD 257 to 52 in overall crossword appearances, because of its preponderance of common letters, so the NIECE reflex just kicked in—never mind that GRANDCHILD is a thousand times more common a term than GRANDNIECE. Then there was the Great GRAHAME Spelling Adventure. I think my first pass looked something like GRAEHAM. Again, crosses ultimately made this problem insignificant.
Bullets:
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
- 19A: Narrow passage: Abbr. (STR.) — short for "strait" (a (relatively) "narrow" waterway)
- 35A: First Pixar film with a female protagonist (BRAVE) — first thought: Finding Nemo! But Nemo is not "female." I'm just remembering Ellen Degeneres's prominent role (as Dory, the blue tang with short-term memory loss)
- 39A: First capital of Alaska (SITKA) — flexed my crosswordese muscle here. I would've said "you used to see this a lot more in the olden days," but I just looked at its frequency chart and honestly, it appears as much now (infrequently, but regularly) as it ever did. Oddly, no significant abatement in the modern era (not so with most answers I'd tag as "crosswordese").
- 50A: 2011 hit by Jay-Z and Kanye West that samples a 1966 soul performance ("OTIS") — never heard of this "hit," got it entirely from the helpful "1966 soul performance" part:
- 48D: ___ Tokarczuk, winner of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature (OLGA) — absolutely loved Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead. I've got Empusium sitting here on my (figurative) to-read pile. I'll get to it right after I finish this first book in the Reykjavik Noir trilogy by Lilja Sigurðardóttir (Snare) ... and the next book in the magnificent 10-book Martin Beck series by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö (I'm up to number 6: Murder at the Savoy) ... and Box Office Poison and Miss May Does Not Exist and and and. But I will get to it.
See you next time.
P.S. Last week during my yearly fundraising drive I decided to add Zelle as a payment method on the last day, which worked fine ... until it didn't. Several contributions were mysteriously rejected. It is not a big deal, but if you contributed that way, it's possible it didn't go through (this applies to only like a dozen of you). The problem was on my end ("MY BAD!"). I apologize. The bank and I have spoken. I should have the kinks ironed out for next year. For now, it's still just PayPal, Venmo, and snail mail. Thanks!
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55 comments:
Never in my life have I heard the term NO GREAT SHAKES so that was a doozy to parse out
I agree about NO GREAT SHAKES... that took me a while too. This was one of those overnighters for me.... worked on it as the last thing before going to sleep, which got me about 3/4 of the way through and then I just got too tired to think straight. Woke up this morning and everything was much clearer... finished in about 3 minutes. So I guess unlike @Rex, first thing in the morning is great for me for solving, even without coffee! Loved this puzzle, thanks Willa! I guess it's sort of a question of what floats your boat, right? Or as one more colorful friend used to say, whatever blows your skirt up... CALL options and BOARD SEATS are interesting enough for me, and even DIRECT DEPOSIT is a great crossword phrase. Especially loved that SUSS was in the grid, since it gets used on this blog most of the time--and enjoyed SUSSing out ITS NOT A RACE (I can here my grandmother saying that right now) and SHAVED HEADS. Thanks! terrific puzzle : )
Easy for a Friday, yes. The long answers were fairly clued, so NOGREATSHAKES and BOARDSEATS were doable (I had "Houseseats" at first). I also had "It isn't a race" before ITSNOTARACE). The only other sticking point for me was TAHINI (sauce), which I've never enjoyed or even heard of.
It’s so funny sometimes the things that seem easy to some that others have never even heard before. I dropped this in from just the first couple letters (“is this going to be NOGREATSHAKES? Ha!”). Have definitely been on the other side of that divide before, though, too.
I was disappointed in Jōrmungandr just being SEA MONSTER, as I feel like we could have had a more fun answer. He's a giant serpent who encircles the world!
Got to disagree with NOT A LITTLE as a good fill. Felt very uncreative and like an afterthought to me.
Tougher than some Fridays for me. Still outdid my Friday average by about a minute or so, but not really all that fun of a fill.
I don’t get the clue for UBER RATING (What you might get after being taken for a ride). Isn’t the one that is taken for a ride the one who provides the rating. In my universe, the driver is the one who “gets” the rating. There’s no question mark, so I’m not looking for a pun or some convoluted wordplay. Perhaps someone can enlighten me.
Today’s grid and Rex’s write-up highlight a constant dilemma that I face on the weekends - when Rex doesn’t recognize many of the proper names, popular culture, etc, he usually has the crosses to fall back on. With today’s level of difficulty, on pretty much every clue, I have no such luxury. So on Fridays I tend to hunt and peck for familiar crosswordese and then hope for the best.
In RexWorld, I may be one of “those” people - you know, the type who know what a CALL Option is, but have never heard of OLGA Tokarczuk (so gauche, I know - who let that guy in here, anyway?).
Have to say that for a Friday this puzzle was NO GREAT SHAKES. Even with spinning my wheels in the NE finished very close to a personal best for a Friday. Appreciated learning who ANITA BORG is and being reminded of SITKA. But I fear that Succession clues are about to become the Game of Thrones of 2025 and like GOT was not a devotee of that series. Too many mean, power hungry, rich people with no soul, couldn’t get past the second episode.
Pretty easy but also thought the three negatives were odd. Loved seeing Olga Tocarczuk.
Of all the ways you could clue CALL…. so weird.
Try a Falafel with Tahini sauce. Now i'm hungry for lunch and it's only 8 am...
Easy or easy-medium here. Using timer as gauge a little off, as I was solving on laptop, but without mouse - which slows (for me) the toggling between across and down entries.
Had a few wrong second halves of answers - BOARD roomS instead of BOARD SEATS; UBER charge for UBER RATING. But ETS suggested that "rooms" was wrong.
Good enough for a Friday.
Easy but not my PR. "Billy" Beane was the protagonist in Moneyball, which would have a better clue than an obscure screenwriter.
I'm with you, @636, I got it from -KES!
What kept sparking joy for me, every time I turned a corner, it seemed, was wordplay in the cluing. Wit that misdirected, wit that tickled.
Look at [Exchange letters] for IPO. Its lovely double meaning misdirected me for a bit (and I find something very satisfying about being fooled through wordplay). It’s an original clue for an answer that has appeared more than 400 times in the major crossword venues.
Look at [Big whoop] for YELL, which triggered a smile. Once again, here’s an answer that has shown up more than 200 times, sometimes clued as [Whoop], but never with the “big”, which, IMO, makes it infinitely better.
Look at the lovely misdirect [Hint] for NOTE, another never-before-used clue for an answer that has turned up more than 400 times in Crosslandia.
And there were quite a bit more that Willa came up with.
Oh, I loved setting down the beautiful SHARDS, as well as the lovely PuzzPair© of ERAS and a backward AGES.
But what’s going to spark joy when I see your name atop another puzzle, Willa, is the thought of entering another word playground. Thank you so much for making this!
Easy, indeed.
Fastest time of the week and haven't even had coffee yet.
Definitely a wavelength thing, the long ones just popped themselves right in and the only hesitation I had was wanting GRANDniece a la @Rex but didn't put it in because, IDK, spidey puzzle sense? And those split ENDS cleared it up.
Love TAHINI! Make hummus every week.
Hope everyone has a great start to the weekend (not so sure about the ... end).
Uber drivers rate their passengers using the same 1 to 5 star system.
https://help.uber.com/riders/article/rating-faqs/?nodeId=0539e772-747c-49a7-8c26-f28c65e6f14d
I oftentimes feel the same way you describe, so I can definitely sympathize. In this case, however, there's a silver lining!
I recommend you pick up Olga Tokarczuk's "Drive your plow over the bones of the dead", and I hope you love it as much as I did. IMO, her post-Nobel novels have gotten a bit long and dreary, but Drive Your Plow is taut, funny, touching, and many other good things.
Feel like the negatives were a pseudo-theme today. Regardless, No Problem! (The motto of the '20s)
Also feel like @Philly: despite nice construction and cluing, the puzzle was a bit of a letdown. Admired it more than liked it. For veteran solvers, way too easy for a late week puzzle- there just weren't any trouble spots.
Like @Rich, TAHINI was a highlight. When my 3 daughters were in college, they worked at a Middle Eastern restaurant for 7 years (at one point all 3 together) and I was introduced to a whole new wonderful cuisine.Within a few years, when heading into town, I learned to call ahead to order takeout grape leaves or baba/hummus depending on which cook was working . @Bob, you've gotta go try some!
did this very late last night and I am suffering from a bad cold so I think I Googled a thing or two. NOGREATSHAKES is common parlance in my world. TAHItI/BRAt was an error. I used to drive for UBER in between jobs. You're never going to get rich doing that, but I have a bunch of good stories . ERAS seems to pop up more and more these days. Never heard of ANITA Borg, googled her.... I was in a NyQuil stupor. Still feel like crap this morning, so not only am I working from home, I will be working from bed :)
Hey All !
Had ___MONSTER in NW and came *this close* to writing in ROO. Har.
SE corner held me up. I had fat in for SIB, erased fat, but even with SOB in, for some reason, the ole brain couldn't see STUN. Unsure why. Was stuck down there, so Googed for OLGA. Once I put that in, wrote SOB back in, then saw STUN, and saw BEHR, which I'm not sure why I didn't see it before. Strange how you seem to get a BrainBlock on certain things. Finished that corner, went back to the _EANE/_RAN cross, which I had left blank, put in the most likely letter I thought it'd be, a B, and got the Happy Music.
A one-lookup on an unknown name doth not a DNF make, I have decreed! 😁 Ya gotta cut yourself a break every now and again.
I'm sure will not remember SITKA next time it comes around. Couple writeovers I remember having, intro-SALAD, slAg-BRAN, Iou-IPO, fat-SOB.
A good FriPuz all in all.
Happy Friday!
No F's (Two days in a row! NOT GOOD ENOUGH!)
RooMonster
DarrinV
Can anyone explain EAGLE clued as “Quarter back?”?
I also appreciated a number of the clues - a fine puzzle! And I, too, first had GRANDNIECE.
Not as hard as it looked while skimming clues, which were mostly names I'd never heard, viz. OTIS, BEANE, HART, and OLGA, plus the name of the SEAMONSTER and the name of the Pixar movie. No smartphone, so no idea on BEEPING either. Also had E___Y and plopped in ETSY without thinking, which was not helpful. In short, a good day for crosses and thank goodness for experience with Acrostics, which gave me some of the longer answers.
It's always surprising to find things you have known forever being completely strange to other folks. Yesterday it was APRES SKI, and today it's NOGREATSHAKES. Interesting.
I liked your Friday just fine, WA and CM. Wondered About a lot of the names but at least I didn't make a Complete Mess of things, and thanks for all the fun.
This was pretty tough for me actually, primarily due to the names which I just wasn’t GOOD ENOUGH to SUSS OUT. I couldn’t come up with a Pixar movie or a Jay-Z hit of any year if my life depended on it. Jörmungandr and Tokarczuk flew way over my unSHAVED HEAD and the only BEANE familiar to me wrote baseball lineups. I had no idea UBER passengers get assigned RATINGS because I’ve never taken one. In fact, I probably should just get my coffee and go join Southside Johnny in the gauche section this morning.
I found this puzzle to be a pleasant solve and didn’t really think of it as “boring.” My last filled entry was the E in BRAVE and GRAHAME. I mean, it’s not like I’ve watched more than a few of the Pixar movies, but this one…gah…I’d never heard of. Plus, I read The Wind in the Willows as a child but I wanted so much to put GRAHAMm…the superfluous M seemed so much more likely than the unnecessary E. Well, big deal…I figured there was no movie called BRAVm…puzzle complete!
I guess the phrase NOGREATSHAKES is going the way of the dinosaur? Just surprised that there are a few commenters who hadn’t heard it.
Wow. Knock me over with a feather on learning ANY town in the U.S. was up for sale on EBAY.
Oh…and just checked Zelle. Yay to fact Zelle was apparently still working for Rex when I did it. I simply HATE PayPal.
The back of a quarter (as in the coin), has an eagle on it.
I have had the pleasure of having some of THE most interesting Uber drivers in the last few years. A notable one was a man in Los Angeles (about 30) from Svalbard, Norway (who was stunned I knew the Seed Bank was there) who was finishing a doctorate in biogenetic research, and his wife (from the U.S. but they’d met in Norway) was ALSO working on a different but similar advanced degree.
A HEAD cold is the PITS because there’s so LITTLE you can do about it. Sure hope you feel better soon.
Is a BEEPING a text reminder from an apiary? And can you tell the difference between a BEEPING and a SONAR ping? I'd go on with a ping-based joke about the lawn, but I feel like I'm grass-ping at straws.
If a story is AMORAL can it still have AMORAL?
Mrs. Egs used to cater meals for gatherings of company directors. Whenever I'd try to snatch a smidge of something, she'd rap my hand with a slotted spoon and yell, "Egs, those are the BOARDSEATS!"
IMHO, even a BRAVE is better than no rave at all.
Doesn't UBERRATING sound like it should be an adjective? The UBERRATING SEAMONSTER made a DIRECTDEPOSIT on the sleeping village.
I dedicate my initial mistake on 27D to JK Rowling. I had __RAN__CHILD and somewhat implausibly decided it should be tRANsCHILD!
Objectively, I can't disagree with @Rex on the fill, but this was more than counterbalanced by the wonderful cluing as @Lewis says. On the whole, I liked it a lot. Thanks, Willa Angel Chen Miller.
The tails side of a US quarter
The reverse of a U.S. quarter (coin) features an eagle.
Same. I thought world snake or giant snake would be my first entry today. Good thing I waited on that fill.
Lots of damn NAMES in this one. Basically had to guess (correctly) ONE, BEANE, ANITA, etc.
No es una carrera.
Here's a gleaming example of why themeless Fridays can be so disappointing. A relatively bland list of words jam packed between a long list of D-List celebrities. A two smile puzzle (SALAD and SEA MONSTER) on a day when you're allowed to do anything. Sigh.
❤️ SHAVED HEADS.
Propers: 8
Places: 1
Products: 8
Partials: 3
Foreignisms: 0
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 20 of 72 (28%)
Funnyisms: 4 🙂
Uniclues:
1 Sigmund on a cell.
2 Result of hitting the low notes.
3 How to hide a body in your bathroom.
1 SEA MONSTER CALL
2 ALTO SHARDS
3 TILE GOOD ENOUGH
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: The saddest time of day. 9 HALF PAST TACOS.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I’m basking in a sense of relief that my 39-year-old stove will live to cook another day. The oven stopped heating and it looked like it might be curtains for the old dear, but I just said goodbye to the technician who fixed the problem in 10 minutes with a new bake element. Yay!
On to the puzzle. I was on our constructor’s wavelength and flew through this, nearly tying my personal record for Friday. But I didn’t know the first two acrosses (both misdirects, 1A pretending to be about university and 6A pretending to be “IOU,” which I didn’t fall for). So I started with 9A’s EBAY – which I thought had to be the answer although I didn’t know the circumstances referred to in the clue: it’s completely outrageous and loony that a town would be offered for sale on EBAY, so I figured that must be right. And then I started working my way down the east coast, filled all that in and proceeded west across the rest of the grid. I don’t know how I knew that SITKA was the original capital of Alaska, but it came without thought – must be because of all the times it’s been in the puzzle, as @Rex tells us.
No particular problems in my westward march across gridland. I didn’t know HART, BEANE or OTIS but they filled in from crosses, and I made a good guess at BRAVE off the VE.
I noticed the “NOT A”s and the “NO” and they, along with the PITS, SOB and (merely) GOOD ENOUGH, made for a bit of a Debbie Downer. Not only that but BOARD SEATS made my butt go numb. Still, enjoyed what challenge there was and was sorry the whole thing was over too fast.
Very easy for a Friday. I feel that this might have started out as a themed puzzle idea that turned out not to be theme-y enough. I'm looking at you, NO GREAT SHAKES, NOT A LITTLE and GOOD ENOUGH.
A few thoughts: Re SALAD -- I want my salad WITH my dinner, not BEFORE my dinner. Did too-small tables in restaurants bring about this unfortunate trend?
Re: UBER RATING -- I find something creepy about being rated by the driver I sort of think I should be rating.
Re: OTIS. What a truly peculiar title for a song. This wouldn't by any chance be elevator music, would it?
I suppose I could find more to say, but this is GOOD ENOUGH.
Delightful puzzle, nice I got started. Loved no great shakes, haven’t heard that I a while. Remembered Wind in the Willows author and Sussex other names with crosses. Very satisfying, hard enough but no cheating.
I agree with @Beezer - this was a pleasant solve. And easiest Friday of late. That's not to say I didn't enjoy it - I did :). NO GREAT SHAKES was a given for me so I just went from there. Thanks, Willa :)
You're kidding @ Nancy, right? I know you know OTIS REDDING ??
When I finish a puzzle, I usually scout the grid for uniclue potential (hi @Gary J.). This time, I was struck by one of the horizontal rows: SEA MONSTER CALL. When I read that, an entire, complete dialogue sprang into my mind.
CALLER: Ah, hello…is this the…um…have I reached…Mister…Jörmungandr?
JÖRMUNGANDR: ROAR!
C: Oh, right. And…and are you the unimaginably large sea serpent who encircles the world and bites your own tail?
J: ROAR!
C: Yes, I see. Well, thanks for being so forthcoming. Not all SEA MONSTERs are this frank.
J: ROAR! ROAR!
C: Oh my god, did I say MONSTER? That was a total slip of the tongue. I totally, totally meant…um, ah…”Master,” yes, Sea Master, that’s it, because, yeah, you’re the one and only Master of your domain. That’s for darn sure. Everyone knows that. Yessiree.
J: ROAR!
C: Well, whew, now that we’ve got that cleared up, Mister Master…. Um, I was just wondering if you were thinking of releasing your tail any time soon and bringing about Ragnarök. You know, the total destruction of the world and then its rebirth in a purified state? You see, I just thought if that was coming pronto, I ought to prepare by…I don’t know…getting in some matches, canned foods and triple-A batteries.
J: ROAR! ROAR! ROAR!
C: WHAT!! You mean that by talking to me you’ve already released your tail and it’s all happening already! Oh my god – I guess I didn’t think this whole phone call thing through. Yikes and a half! Eek, I see out the window that the waters are rising! Well, bye, Mister Master Jörmungandr, this has been…interesting. Gotta dash!
I very confidently (and proudly) wrote in "Fair to Midland" for the "so-so at best" clue and then confirmed it with ARES only to find that none of the other crosses were working. I next was sure that "There's No Rush" would be the answer for "take your time!" but too many letters. And I briefly had greTA as the Borg (that sounds like a Borg name, no?) before the crosses didn't work. That was the extent of my challenge for the day as I flew through this in nearly record time. Enjoyable, if easier than normal, Friday. 11:05
Yep, easy.
No costly erasures.
I did not know BEANE, OLGA, BRAVE, ONE, GRAHAME, and ANITA.
Thanks to an Alaska cruise I did know SITKA.
Very smooth grid with a bit amount of sparkle, liked it more than @Rex did.
Wow - I didn't realize it has been about 25 years since a quarter was minted for circulation with the eagle on the reverse. There are still plenty in circulation, of course.
Well, gosh darn and by golly that was fun. Congratulations for a solo debut grid. Nice range of clues that kept me mentally bouncing from Grendel to Ukrainian farmers and any number of points in between—not really easy, but a grid that was rewarding breadth of interest certainly.
I was disappointed that Jörmungandr was SEA MONSTER and not the more accurate SEA SERPENT.
Am I the only one who thinks the last letter crossing of Grahame/Brave is a natick?
it is "fair to middling"
Medium for me, mostly because of the names I didn't know and an automatic has-to-be-right Iago for a 4-letter Shakespeare character (I have no familiarity with "Succession."). That G made me wonder if Jörmungandr was a boG MONSTER. But with Norway not being known for its bogs and with uncertainty about whether any bogs actually have monsters, I erased Iago and was able to finish. I had fun with the puzzle, both with the easy "triumphs" of getting the long answers with just a couple of letters and the puzzling over some of the twisty clues (NOTE!).
Do-overs: Iago before LEAR, iRoN before BRAN.. Help from being in a book club: OLGA. No idea: HART, BRAVE, BEANE, OTIS, ANITA.
yep, fairly easy-ish, for a FriPuz. But once again, had some nanosecond snags in the NW.
Tales of the NW:
1. Got ABET right away.
2. Got ARM soon after.
3. Assumed Jormungandr was a SEASERPENT.
4. SALAD's clue fooled m&e way too long.
5. Don't know squat about UBER riders, but PITS finally helped on that.
6. ANITA was a know-no.
7. PITS & DROPLET eventually made my SERPENT sink.
What a m&ess of a start. Then things got much easier.
fave thing: That EBAY town sale clue. Pretty pricey, for a town with no residents.
staff weeject pick: STR. Another nanosecond-eater, in the NW.
honrable mention to ONE, on account of its dig-all-the-way-to-China clue.
Thanx, Ms. Miller darlin. Plenty GOODENOUGH to keep M&A entertained.
Masked & Anonymo2Us
... plus, not NOTALITTLE more ...
**gruntz**
M&A
Good grief, I'm with Rex– what a snoozefest. No sparkle. @Anthony_In_Tx hard agree, imagine my disappointment when I had to erase SERPENT to make way for the far less interesting MONSTER. GRANDCHILD made me yawn, DIRECTDEPOSIT made my eyelids heavy and BOARDSEATS sent me into catatonia.
My personal favorite of hers is Primeval and Other Times, a mystical, magical narrative that coheres more than some of hers.
With 34 black squares the grid looks more like a themed than a themeless puzzle. The resulting slew of short stuff along with a bunch of names I didn't know put a damper on my solve enthusiasm. And then to kick extra sand in my face, even the normally not proper noun BRAVE gets a proper noun Pixar film clue. Bummer.
So I went POC (plural of convenience) hunting. There were several including a couple of two for one POCs where a Down and an Across both get a letter count, grid filling boost by sharing a final S at PIT/PIN and IRIS/END. Even one of the marquee entries needed a POC boost when SHAVED HEAD was a letter short of its slot.
I was a SONAR tech in the Navy and I'm familiar with SITKA spruce wood, so there's that.
I thought this too.
Jeez seemed like a lotta names here, mainly because there is a big logjam of unknown ones right in the middle: ANITA GRAHAME ALAMO BRAVE BEANE. And then a final slap in the face in the lower right with OLGA BEHR.
And sometimes the clues are trying really hard. Today for ONE it's a description of the Chinese character (Japanese is the same). As I suggested yesterday, how about: "Value of Z in Polish Scrabble"?
Aside from that it was fine; went by pretty quick. Hope Saturday is more interesting!
I liked the DIRECTDEPOSIT answer, mainly because I had _I____DEPOSIT and my brain just wouldn't let go of AUTODEPOSIT. When I finally got the answer with more crosses, it gave me a big sense of achievement, like I'd oiled the cogs and things were now working. Thanks for the fun puzzle, WACM!
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