Saturday March 16th 2019, NY Times Crossword
Saturday Average: 36:30
Best Saturday: 10:34
Andres Ries is probably my favorite crossword constructor and I feel like an enormous nerd just from having given thought to such a subject. In his bi-weekly Aries themeless puzzles, he consistently challenges me with clever wordplay and minimal reliance on trivia. There’s a fair amount of that good stuff today, but also some references so far out of my wheelhouse that, I’ll confess, the puzzle started to seem a bit TEDIOUS. “1947 Hope/Crosby film” yields ROAD TO RIO, which I suddenly want to see after reading its IMDB plot synopsis: “Two inept vaudevillians stow away on a Brazilian-bound ocean liner and foil a plot by a sinister hypnotist to marry off her niece to a greedy fortune hunter.” Actually, is there an X-Men version? This does seem like Mesmero scheme and, obviously, the vaudevillians would be Nightcrawler and Wolverine with Kitty Pryde being the niece about to be married off to... how about Black Tom Cassidy (which means we’ll get some Juggernaut too)? Of course, Kitty is more than capable of rescuing herself.
PA KETTLE... I feel like I only know him from a hip hop song... or does he come up in Back to the Future? I should probably know BARBARA “Boxer who retired in 2017,” the long-serving California senator, cleverly and confusingly clued by Mr. Ries, of course.
I can’t be the only one who plopped in PSYCHEDELIC drugs instead of PSYCHEDLIC MUSIC for “Something San Francisco was known for in the 1960s,” right?
TREF, clued as “Like shellfish,” is pretty brutal. It’s the opposite of kosher in Yiddish, but also an alternate spelling, more commonly seen as “treyf” or “treif.” Not the easiest way to clue it either and that’s why it was the last clue to fall for me. I’ll try to file it away.
I wouldn’t say I totally ATE DIRT on this puzzle, but it was a tough one. TOODLES!
PA KETTLE... I feel like I only know him from a hip hop song... or does he come up in Back to the Future? I should probably know BARBARA “Boxer who retired in 2017,” the long-serving California senator, cleverly and confusingly clued by Mr. Ries, of course.
I can’t be the only one who plopped in PSYCHEDELIC drugs instead of PSYCHEDLIC MUSIC for “Something San Francisco was known for in the 1960s,” right?
TREF, clued as “Like shellfish,” is pretty brutal. It’s the opposite of kosher in Yiddish, but also an alternate spelling, more commonly seen as “treyf” or “treif.” Not the easiest way to clue it either and that’s why it was the last clue to fall for me. I’ll try to file it away.
I wouldn’t say I totally ATE DIRT on this puzzle, but it was a tough one. TOODLES!
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