Sunday October 21st 2018, NY Times Crossword

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Time: 40:30
Sunday Average: 49:58
Best Sunday: 21:55

Solving a Sunday crossword on a bouncy school bus in Jaipur is a unique challenge. Getting TOSSED side to side might have LED TO a slightly slower time, but mostly it just gave me a headache. I was thrilled to see BRATZ right at the center of the grid, since Bratz: The Movie is one of the best bad movies of all time.

Today’s theme, I guess, was to have fun with literal meanings of common phrases and, to be honest, I’m not sure I understand some of them.
  • “Headline after a toddler C.E.O. resigns, literally?:” BABY STEPS. Does that work? “Walk” seems like the verb for leaving a position, but maybe “step” is as well?
  • “Car failure only a block from the mechanic, literally?:” LUCKY BREAK. Sure.
  • “‘For a massage, go that way!,’ literally?:” THERE’S THE RUB.
  • “Like the dress shirt that’s just adorable, literally?:” CUTE AS A BUTTON. Again, I don’t think this quite works. 
  • “Dissed with flowery language, literally?:” ELEGANTLY PUT. I thought the “literally” bit would have something to do with flowers, but not so far as I can see. 
  • “Punch vs. Judy, literally?:” PUPPET SHOW. I mean, yes, that’s right. What else would it be?
  • “One answer to the question ‘What’s your favorite music genre,’ literally?:” JAZZ HANDS. Wince. 
I’m not sure there’s enough fun with literal answers in this one to justify an entire Sunday theme. There was some tricky fill that really slowed me down in the end, such as ASHLAR (“Squared building stone”) and NOLITA (“Manhattan neighborhood next to the Lower East Side”). I’m sure those are straightforward enough for many solvers, but they’re not in my wheelhouse. The crossing that cost me 5-8 minutes, I’d estimate, was ENT (“Certain med. specialist”) and AMARNA (“Where cuneiform was discovered”). I had EmT and didn’t see anything in particular wrong with AMARMA, so that was just an extended search to close out the puzzle, which may be the least fun part of crosswords. THERE I GO again.

Time to return to being an attentive conference attendee. TATA!

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