I will cautiously allow that spring is here – we had a gorgeous weekend, and I got some yard work done as well as enjoyed just hanging out on my newly stained deck. Just need to clean and teak oil the deck furniture and I’ll be all set for summer. Now let’s get set for this week’s puzzle…
- Title: After Dark
- Grid size: 15×15
- Number of entries: 72
- Difficulty: Hard (my solve time: 9:38)
Maybe it’s just me, but “After Dark” brings to mind something somewhat racy, along the lines of the old show “Playboy After Dark.” And I think for my generation it’s become a humorous way of implying something is racier than it normally is, like “Crosswords After Dark.” But not this one, it’s perfectly wholesome – The themers are phrases or things (all grid-spanners!) that include a nocturnal animal within them:
- 17A: [Prof’s off time]: SABBATICAL LEAVE – I kept wanting this to be “sabbatical year” as that’s the usual timespan in my experience. So that added to my woes in the NE. Bats are really cool animals and I often see them in my yard around dusk flying around and hopefully eating a lot of mosquitoes.
- 27A: [The good life, metaphorically]: A BOWL OF CHERRIES – I can’t help but thinking about Erma Bombeck’s book “If Life Is a Bowl of Cherries – What Am I Doing in the Pits?” whenever I hear this phrase. Owls are also super cool and I’ve only seen one in the wild that I can recall, though I hear them frequently at night.
- 47A: [America’s “Mona Lisa”]: WHISTLERS MOTHER – The actual title of this portrait is “Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1” but nobody calls it that. I actually though the Mona Lisa of the US would be this. Like a moth to a flame (or a porch light)…
- 57A: [Old sitcom starring the future Sanford player]: THE REDD FOXX SHOW – Redd Foxx was a very funny guy; “Sanford and Son” was funny and fairly wholesome, however some of his stand-up would make Richard Pryor blush. Foxes are regular visitors to my yard, which is why we don’t let our cats out and don’t keep chickens.
2nd week in a row I evaluated the puzzle as “hard” but different from the solve last week, I had trouble really only in one area. The solve went relatively smoothly from NW down the W side and then worked back up, but hit a real snag in NE where I had trouble with 10D (see “Canadian content”), 17A (as mentioned above), and 9D,12D, and 22A (see “Other stuff.”
Canadian content
- 10D: [Brand name for a tomato-growing Ontario town]: AYLMER – Woo-hoo, this one took me forever. Not a lot of Canadian content in this puzzle, but this is a deep cut and counts for at least 5 more entries, IMHO. To begin with I had NO LIE in 15A for a long time, and the previously mentioned trouble with 17A. Then the fact that I had never heard of Aylmer, Ont. and Googling “Ontario tomato-growing town” only brought up this town. Needed all the crosses and 22A was a complete guess.
- 43D: [Body off the Maritimes: Abbr.]: ATL – I know very well that the Atlantic Ocean is off shore of the Maritime Provinces.
Other stuff:
- 9D: [“Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-___]: RAL – I don’t know this song very well, but always though that last syllable was “RAY.”
- 12D: [Viciously berates]: REVILES – I guess I learned something with this one, because I always though “revile” meant to intensely dislike something, not necessarily to tell it that in words. So that added to my NE woes…
- 22A: [Perfume name suggesting transgression]: MY SIN – “Easy! It’s TABOO!.” Uh, no, and it’s spelled Tabu. And it’s not that either. This was the last entry I made, in the 10D/22A square and I was shocked when I got the “Congratulations” pop-up. I figured I’d have to run the alphabet, and was going to start with “L” since I figured “Lysin” was a cromulent name for a perfume.
- 44D: [Her “man cave”]: SHE SHED – This elicited a smile as I think it is a perfect phrase – perfect counterpoint to a man cave and it has that nice alliteration – “chef’s kiss.”
- 46D: [Space between two buildings]: AREAWAY – Never heard this term before, and would have called it a breezeway, which of course is covered, which a space between buildings isn’t necessarily always.
Tip of the week:
For the perfectly crusted pan-fried salmon filet, leave it in the pan on the first side for twice as long as recommended, then flip it and cook the other side for a minute or less. Dee-licious.