OK, I may have been a bit optimistic last week when I said that spring was definitely here. We had freezing temperatures last night and it’s going to be cool and wet until next week. April is being April, I guess. My excursion to the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament last weekend was fun and I finished slightly better than I had expected, in the middle of the pack overall, and in the top 5% of my skill division. I’m still not clear if this means I’ll move up a division if I compete next year; the criteria for the different divisions is kind of confusing. While it’s named “American,” the tournament has competitors from around the world, and Canadian Will Nediger won the “Foreign” division and took 2nd place overall. So consider participating next year – I’m likely going to. It’s more than just the competition – there are other games, social events, and an expo selling puzzle-related stuff. It’s also cool to meet puzzle constructors and other solvers, and you get to see (and possibly meet) Will Shortz in person. Luckily the competition and events didn’t make me sick of doing puzzles, so I’m still motivated to get this week’s ClassiCanadian done – let’s get to it.
- Name: Don’t Be So Diacritical
- Grid size: 15×15
- Entries: 72
- Difficulty: Very Hard (my solve time: 9:31)
“Don’t Be So Diacritical” pretty much gave the theme away, though I wasn’t sure if the diacriticals would be the themers or if the themers would have diacriticals in them. It’s the latter, and Barb has helpfully provided circles to indicate the letters that have the circumflex (^), which we discover in the revealer:
- 17A: [Some canapé spreads]: LIVER PÂTÉS – Though I missed it while solving, there was the potential for misdirection here, since the clue has a diacritical itself and the answer has two. Liver pâté is a bit too rich for me to eat regularly, though I have fond memories of a special house-made pâté served at a restaurant in Paris, and my nephew’s wife is from France and she has given us several cans of pâté that are yet to be opened.
- 23A: [One’s purpose in life]: RAISON D’ÊTRE – I think “reason for being” is the direct translation of raison d’être, which is used in English to mean a person or organization’s purpose for existing, so that’s pretty straightforward. It’s not my cup of tea (well, beer) but a nearby craft brewery offers this.
- 36A: [Head waiters]: MAîTRES D’HÔTEL – The “master of the house” manages the “front” of the restaurant – i.e., the staff interacting with diners, such as greeter, waiters, busboys, etc.
- 48A: [Parisian “But of course!”]: MAIS BIEN SÛR – Again, a pretty straightforward translation into English, but apparently in French mais bien sûr can be used as an emphatic “yes!” whereas in English “Of course!” is more restricted to something that is considered obvious.
- 57A: [So-called “little hat” worn by the circled letters]: CIRCUMFLEX – The revealer. I didn’t realize that each of the themers had the same diacritical in them until I got this answer. Apparently circumflex also means “bending around something else, or curved.”
Until I was reviewing the puzzle I completely missed that not only do each of the themers include the circumflex diacritical, each one is a different vowel, all in order (AEIOU). That’s a really nice touch in constructing the puzzle – it would have been fine to just have themers with diacriticals, and even all five vowels not in order, but to put them in order is nice and clean. I had a bit of trouble breaking in to this puzzle, tentatively entering a few things until I got a few entries I was sure of in the middle of the grid, and built from there. I had two main snags – I’m unfamiliar with hockey gear manufacturer CCM, and had to run the alphabet at 57D/64A since I don’t know what COS is and had forgotten Robert Service’s poem.
Canadian content:
- 7A: [___ Bay (Victoria’s “most British” area]: OAK – Oak Bay is a suburb of Victoria and looks to be pretty swanky and I imagine housing costs are astronomical – I’m not going to depress myself by looking them up.
- 7D: [Thanksgiving mo.]: OCT – I almost put NOV in here but caught myself in time…
- 9D: [Odometer readings: Abbr.]: KMS – Caught myself initially thinking MPH, but again remembered what puzzle I was solving. And the difference between and odometer and a speedometer.
- 15A: [Big inits. in hockey gear]: CCM – CCM – originally Canada Cycle & Motor Company – has its headquarters in Montreal, and a history rooted in the Canadian bicycle industry before transitioning to hockey equipment.
- 52A: [Subj. taught by Anglos abroad, maybe]: ESL – I’m calling this Canadian, as I believe it is Canadian English to refer to Canadian English-speakers as “Anglos.” They would be most likely to teach English as a second language classes.
- 58D: [Bruce Cockburn’s “___] Tree Falls”: IF A – Bruce Cockburn was born in Ottawa, and “If A Tree Falls” is from his 16th album “Big Circumstance,” released in 1989 and remastered in 2005 with a new acoustic version of “If a Tree Falls” as a bonus track. Bruce’s 80th birthday is next month, so he gets this week’s quote.
Other stuff:
- 8D: [Deck top or bottom]: ACE – I couldn’t get the nautical meaning of “deck” out of my head so spent far too much time trying to envision what was both on top of and below deck on a ship. Finally I realized I should have been thinking of a deck of cards.
- 20A: [Orbital peak points]: APOGEES – Playing the pedant here, an orbit has an apogee only if the body being orbited is the Earth.
- 43D: [Minute part of a minute, for short]: PSEC – A picosecond is indeed a teensy measure of time, but I’m so used to seeing the abbreviation for nanosecond that I reflexively put NSEC and it took a while to figure it out, which in turn kept me from getting 42A for longer than it should have.
- 57D: [Romain alternative]: COS – This is new to me – I guess cos lettuce is an alternative name for Romain.
- 62A: [Pope of 765-816]: LEO III – There is no way I will ever memorize the reigns of all (or any) of the popes, but if a pope appears in a crossword, odds are it’s one of the Leos.
Quote of the week:
“A sane person doesn’t think war is a good idea. I’m not a pacifist. I feel that there are situations where fighting is inescapable, but we don’t go looking for those things.”
– Bruce Cockburn