Sunday January 20th 2019, NY Times Crossword

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Time: 52:52
Sunday Average: 48:44
Best Sunday 21:55

Today's puzzle has the title of "Question of Responsibility" and, as the name suggests, describes various occupations (somewhat) wittily using (occasionally) common phrases. Once the theme was apparent to me, I was able to patch together the theme answers without too much difficulty and those tricky answers ended up being considerably easier than a good deal of the fill.

  • "Copy editor:" IS THAT A FACT? I've always been more aware of the grammar and spelling aspects of the copy editor job, but fact-checking is part of it too.
  • "Political strategist:" WHERE'S THE PARTY? I assume that members of the Republican party are asking themselves this. Or, I hope so, anyway.
  • "Museum curator:" HOW'S IT HANGING? Seems a bit reductive.
  • "Football line judge:" WHOSE SIDE ARE YOU ON? Does football have line judges? Probably. I don't know anything about football.
  • "Maternity room nurse:" WHO'S CRYING NOW? I find something very dark about this one. I'm imagining a maternity room nurse on the verge of a breakdown.
  • "Parisitologist:"WHAT'S EATING HIM? Hilarious and the first theme answer I got. 
  • "Baseball scorekeeper:" ANYBODY HOME? I know baseball though! I get it!
Anyway, I enjoyed those well enough and I hope you did too. I got stuck a bit in the east with not knowing "'The,' in Milan" (GLI?) or "Spongebob's pet snail" GARY. I also had a ridiculous amount of difficulty parsing the clue "Dress like for a Halloween bash" for GO AS. That is a tortured construction. Finally, I have to confess that I didn't know what "Sartorial" means for "Sartorial choice for Lieutenant Columbo" and just kept muttering to myself, "Ah, that makes a lot of sense, but, uh, one other thing..." I will now remember that "sartorial" means "relating to tailoring, clothes, or style of dress" and, obviously, Columbo wears a RAINCOAT.  

Sorry, Paul Anka, I've never heard ESO BESO. 

Finally, I wasted about 20 minutes in the northwest, where I met a few of my scourges in desserts (Spanish desserts, no less) and 1980s skiing twins Phil and Steve who have a completely uninferrable name as the MAHRES. I'm sure there were people older than two in 1984 who were all over that clue. Also, a clue like "Whipped" when you're looking at -AS-ED has maybe two thousand possible answers. I tried out basted, wasted, bashed, and probably quite a few more before ending up with LASHED, which was very far down my list. I'd also written sHIsHI instead CHICHI because I don't know these things. Oh, I eventually remembered CHURROS. 

But I won't SEETHE about this puzzle because I mostly quite enjoyed it, give or take that NW corner. And now I've knocked out my Sunday crossword and blog entry on Saturday evening, which means that I can take a break from my phone on Sunday. 

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