Man, I’m ready for this week to be over, and it’s only hump day… At least the upcoming weekend is a holiday here in the US. We had a wicked storm come through and it looks like we may actually get snow this weekend – possibly it will be the first real snow in this area in nearly two years. Fingers crossed… Until then, let’s turn to this week’s puzzle and see what we have.
- Name: It’s a Jumble Out There
- Size: 16×15
- Entries: 75
- Difficulty: Medium Hard (my solve time: 7:39)
With “jumble” in the title, I knew the theme would include an anagram in some form. I just didn’t know exactly how until I got only the first half of a few themers, then took a second to think about it and it all fell together – the themers are two-word phrases where the second word is an anagram of the first, clued punnily:
- 18A: [Lunch hour for a pastry chef?]: BAKER BREAK – There’s a shop nearby that has seen at least four different bakeries open in the 10 years we’ve lived in the neighborhood. The interregnum between shops was also a baker break, I guess.
- 23A: [Most optimistic tales?]: ROSIEST STORIES – Keeping with the theme of local shops, I bet our neighborhood florist could tell some of the rosiest stories as well.
- 36A: [Product pitchers with no I.D.?]: NAMELESS SALESMEN – I wish the salesmen who call at dinner time were voiceless as well as nameless. The first thing that came to mind for some reason was Shoeless Joe, rather than “nameless.”
- 46A: [More mean-spirited wood finisher?]: NASTIER STAINER – I got stainer pretty quickly, but a few of the crosses of nastier had me guessing.
This was a larger-sized grid, but had fewer than usual entries, which meant that the entries were generally longer. The themers were all quite long (including the impressive central 16-letter grid-spanner), and there was a good amount of longer fill, which can be harder to get. However, I had the most trouble with two three-letter entries (42A & 55D), including one that had me running the alphabet (see below). But I can’t complain too much, as my solve time is only slightly slower than my all-time average (7:32).
Canadian content:
- 34D: [Part of Y.T.: Abbr.]: TERR – “Terr.” is an abbreviation of “territory,” which is indeed part of “Yukon Territory.”
- 49D: [Opera’s Ben Heppner, e.g.]: TENOR – Ben Heppner was born in Murrayville, Langley, BC. I wonder if I saw him when I went to see “The Pearl Fishers” in Vancouver back in the mid 1990’s?
- 55D: [Osgoode Hall focus]: LAW – Well, I had no idea what or who Osgoode Hall was so I ended up with LA_ crossed with _ALL and had to run the alphabet to get it – after I finally was fairly confident I had 42A right.
Other stuff:
- 7D: [Black bits in ice cream]: OREOS – As
Isomeone does for the New York Times Crossword, I’m going to start keeping track of how often OREO appears in this crossword. Which reminds me I need to compile the 2023 ClassiCanadian solve statistics. - 8D: [Like Dahl’s peach]: GIANT – James and the Giant Peach was one of my favourite books as a child – I may have to re-read it, as I also came to love Roald Dahl’s works aimed at an older audience, and I bet JATGP would reveal some subtle wickedness I missed as a kid.
- 30D: [“General” of Chinese food]: TSO – Missed Canadian content opportunity…
- 42A: [Saturday churchgoers: Abbr.]: SDA – This was the second-hardest entry for me to get, as for some reason I was flummoxed by 38D: [Wrapped up]. I had “EN_ED and all I could think of was “enwrapped” or “enrobed” and I found myself wondering if Barb had snuck a rebus in here. Eventually I stopped and thought about various religions (an unusual activity for me), and hit upon Seventh Day Adventist.
Quote of the week:
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”
– Martin Luther King, Jr.