Author: Bill Weber
Theme: Phrases with "OK" in them, twice.
- 20a: In any way possible (BYHOOKORBYCROOK).
- 38a: Falsifying financial records (COOKINGTHEBOOKS).
- 54a: Southeastern wetland (OKEFENOKEESWAMP). Home of the Pogo comic.
A nice triple set of 15s. I especially like by hook or by crook, which is such a great phrase. Easy enough, especially if you can spell OKEFENOKEE right the first time.
Sunny Spots:
- 4d: Cheap trinket (TCHOTCHKE). This is not a word you expect to see on a Monday, let me tell you. But wow, what a great word. There were a couple of times I refused to put in the right answer because of the seemingly absurd consonant sequence it would have created. When I finally figured out what was going on, I just smiled. Very nice.
- 27d: British breakfast foods (SCOTCH EGGS). According to Wikipedia: "A Scotch egg consists of a cold hard-boiled egg removed from its eggshell, wrapped in a sausage meat mixture, coated in breadcrumbs, and deep-fried." Hmmm... not so sure about that one. Sounds like a heart attack just waiting to happen. Looks kind of good, though.
Frankly, there's not much to say about the rest of the puzzle, so I'll keep it simple and tack in a few pictures.
Sundries:
- 1a: Surpluses (GLUTS).
- 17a/3d: Wyoming neighbor (IDAHO / UTAH).
- 18a: Cougar (PUMA). My high school mascot was the cougar, which I think is pretty common throughout the United States.
- 24a: One who hears "You've got mail" (AOLER).
- 31a: NBA great Erving's nickname (DR J). Dr J was the Michael Jordan before there was a Michael Jordan.
- 36a: Jazz singer Carmen (MCRAE).
- 44a: Iowa city on the Skunk River (AMES).
- 45a: Dry, as wine (SEC).
- 46a: Former #1 tennis player Stefan (EDBERG).
- 50a: Vietnam's capital (HANOI).
- 61a: Canceled, to NASA (NO GO).
- 66a: Poetic Muse (ERATO). The muse that shows up 99% of the time in puzzles.
- 1d: Smooth-talking (GLIB).
- 2d: 1975 hit by Styx (LADY). Remember it here.
- 6d: Food for Fido (ALPO). Alpo is not a food, it's a brand of food. I don't mind alliteration in clues, but this one seems a bit forced.
- 8d: Bombay, today (MUMBAI).
- 9d: Don't resign (STAY ON).
- 11d: Track for a car race (MOTORDROME).
- 13d: 32,808 152/381-ft. footrace (TEN K).
- 33d: Relief pitcher Orosco who closed out Game 7 of the 1986 World Series (JESSE). My first instinct was JASON, which was on the right track.
- 37d: Creation of automobile bodies (COACHWORK). I'm not familiar with this term, but it wasn't hard to figure out.
- 39d: Peace goddess (IRENE). I never even saw this clue.
- 48d: "Ray" or "Shine" (BIOPIC). Cute.
Suns of Bitches:
- 55d: Fashion designer Michael who's a judge on "Project Runway" (KORS). There's always one, isn't there. Good thing the crossings were easy, because this is not a name that even rings familiar.
Nice theme. Great word in TCHOTCHKE and a couple of other interesting fills. Most of the rest was pretty common fare.
Thanks for listening.
- Pete M.
3 comments:
nice puzzle, and my fastest NYS solve ever. i did think the theme was going to be multiple *OOK words after solving the first two, but it works fine anyway (and apparently i hadn't looked at the title, which i should really start doing).
lots of nice sports here. JESSE orosco is still the MLB career leader in games pitched, and frankly, it's not obvious if any active player will pass him--it would pretty much require somebody pitching until he was 45, like orosco did. stefan EDBERG was one of my favorite players growing up and the only guy i can think of who hit a one-handed forehand using the continental grip. (yes, his forehand sucked, but he used that grip for everything else, and his everything else was pretty darn good.)
Had a good time with this puzzle, though I also thought it was easy (well, it is Monday, after all).
I do have a minor quibble with 34 a: Paris landmark (ARCH), since it's really ARC de Triomphe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_de_Triomphe. I suppose it's OK to use the English word, but isn't "Paris" also the French name for the city?
Anyway, Eiffel Tower wouldn't fit, so "ARCH" it is.
Alpo may be a brand name, but I can think of others we use day to day to refer to the underlying food product, and I'm not talking about ones that have been generalized to other brands of the same product (like Kleenex, for example). Call it commercial metonymy. Do you only refer to Doritos as tortilla chips or Oreos as sandwich cookies?
Whether those are food or not is another question.
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