Even though baseball season is over, I got to go to Fenway Park this past weekend and see a game. A football game, to be clear. My alma mater was playing a long-time rival and this year they held the game at Fenway. We made a fun weekend of it, taking the train up and back and staying in a lively neighborhood near the ballpark. Unfortunately my team lost, but it was a close game and a beautiful (if chilly) day for football. Fenway is much smaller than I thought, and it’s a rabbit warren inside, with narrow passages, vendors tucked into nooks and crannies, and no real concourse to speak of. I may need to get back and see a baseball game there, but probably only if I happen to be in town for another reason. You thought my baseball-related comments were done for the season, but I’ll find a way to work baseball in whenever I can 😉 Now onto this week’s puzzle…
- Name: Creature Congregations
- Grid size: 15×15
- Entries: 72
- Difficulty: Very Hard (my solve time: 10:32)
Barb gave me a heads up that she had constructed a puzzle back in 2020 with a similar theme. That was before we started blogging about the puzzle each week, so no link, but my puzzle log shows that it was named “Group Mentality”, and my note is: “Simpler theme than I thought.” This week we get “Creature Congregations” and the themers are common phrases where the last word is a collective noun for a group of animals, clued punnily to make the animals fit into the phrase:
- 19A: [Group of whales on K.P.?]: DISHWASHER POD – A dishwasher pod is a dissolvable package containing detergent used to wash dishes in a washing machine. Pod is the collective term for whales, so whales on kitchen patrol would be a dishwasher pod.
- 34A: [Two groups of chicks?]: DOUBLE CLUTCH – I have driven vehicles with manual transmissions my entire driving life, and I never knew what it meant to double clutch. I guess I’ve never needed to. And I’ve primarily heard the phrase used to describe when a baseball player has to get a second grip on the ball after fielding it and before throwing it. A clutch is the collective term for a group of eggs or baby birds.
- 42A: [Goofy group of lions?]: FOOLISH PRIDE – To have foolish pride is to have an inflated sense of self-importance that leads to negative consequences, such as unwillingness to accept help, or a refusal to acknowledge one’s own shortcomings. Pride is the collective term for a group of lions.
- 56A: [Group of fish that keeps to itself?]: PRIVATE SCHOOL – Private schools in North America are supported by a private organization or private individuals rather than by the government. A group of fish is known as a school.
This was a much harder solve than I expected; my inability to differentiate between actors with similar names and non-fluency in French cost me a clean solve. While the theme was apparent pretty early on, it didn’t seem to help much; I could get the last word of the themer fairly easily, but the first word(s) didn’t follow until I got a few of the crosses.
Canadian content:
- 22A: [Ontario’s cap. city region]: GTA – The Greater Toronto Area is the region around Ontario’s provincial capital.
- 23A: [Actor Michael of “Arrested Development”]: CERA – Michael Cera was born in Brampton, ON which is in the GTA. I know there are actors with the last name Cera and Cena and I can never keep them apart. NECU made as much sense to me as RECU in 24D, so had to check all to find my error.
- 33A: [“”Je te plumerai le ___””]: BEC – “I’ll pluck your beak” is the translation of this lyric from the French-Canadian nursery rhyme “Alouette.”
- 40D: [“Sweep! Sweep!” tournament]: BONSPIEL – A bonspeil is a curling tournament consisting of several games often held on a weekend. The sport was the inspiration for this week’s quote.
- 50A: [Parliamentary mtg.]: SESS – Parliament meets in sessions.
Other stuff:
- 8A: [Extra gambling action]: SIDE BET – I knew there was a specific term for this and thought of parlay, but that didn’t fit, so I needed a few crosses.
- 24D: [“PAID,” on a French stamp]: RECU – I’m guessing it would actually look like REÇU as that’s “received” in French. Definitely not NEÇU.
- 26A: [Part of R.E.M.]: RAPID – While it is certainly part of rapid eye movement, the entry could have been Stipe, Berry or Mills.
Quote of the week:
“Curling is a metaphor for life’s decision arcs – after being set in motion, further actions can be taken to alter its course. A combination of finesse and urgent communication is required to play it well.”
– Adapted from this article by Chris Mailander