Friday December 28th 2018, NY Times Crossword
Friday Average: 27:38
Best Friday: 10:21
Perhaps it was a mistake attempting this one before coffee, but often my tired brain manages better than expected. This Friday themeless was altogether too chock full of near complete unknowns for me to make short work of it. I’m embarrassed that I misspelled MATRYOSHKA DOLLS for a while and, not knowing much about cars, I also had ALFA ROMEro-something instead of ALFA ROMEO SPIDER. I’ve never heard of that car but eventually inferred it and apparently I mix up Alfa Romeo with, I guess, George Romero. Maybe that sums up where my interests lie.
I suppose you can say that I learned a lot from this puzzle. Let’s start with ALAIN RENE LESAGE, who was a French novelist and playwright, best known for his comic novel The Devil upon Two Sticks, his comedy Turcaret, and his picaresque novel Gil Blas. I struck out across the board here but eventually somehow pieced his name together from things that sound French. Probably the trickiest cross on that one was Bert CONVY, a gameshow host from before my time.
The final clues to fall for me, however, were “tar” for OLD SALT and “Court plea, for short” for NOLO. Apparently, Jack Tar is an old English term for seafarers and I guess Old Salt is a phrase for sailors that I vaguely remember. Nolo contendere, of course, is a no contest plea that, again, I’ve heard somewhere, I suppose.
For “Instrument whose name comes from the Latin for ‘heavenly,’” I eventually made sense of the heavenly part and got CELESTA, even if I’ve never heard of that instrument, which looks like a small piano.
There’s still quite a bit that I didn’t know before this puzzle, such as DORSET County or COTY (a cosmetics brand) or actor Christ NOTH to go along with some seriously tricky clueing for DANES (“Many employees of the LEGO company) or EYEPOPPERS (“Things that amaze”). I suppose it goes to show that you don’t really have to know things to muddle your way through crosswords. But I’m fortunate that I knew, and am now singing, “GOING BACK TO CALI” by Notorious B.I.G.
In other news, I’ve switched locations to Évora and can’t wait to make my way to the Bone Chapel.
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