Greetings from Chicago O’Hare airport – I’m on my way to the west coast (Washington and California) for a quick trip to visit family. I may be able to see Canada across the Strait of Juan de Fuca but won’t have time for a visit – maybe later this year. Only about 30 minutes until my plane boards so let’s get to the puzzle.
- Title: It’s About This
- Grid size: 15×15
- Number of entries: 74
- Difficulty: Medium Easy (my solve time: 6:33)
I got the theme pretty quickly, somewhat helped by the title. The themers are all words starting with “re” that are clued punnily as if they are memo headings (e.g., “Re: 2023 Budget”) based on the remainder of the word:
- 17A: [Memo heading at at tire store?]: RETRACTION – “This memo is about the gripping capability of tires.”
- 26A: [Memo heading at a bike store?]: RECYCLING – “This memo is about two-wheeled human powered transportation.”
- 35A: [Memo heading at a shoe store?]: REPAIRS – “This memo is about the way shoes are normally sold.”
- 37A: [Memo heading at a cathedral?]: RESPIRE – “This memo is about the tall pointy thing attached to the church.”
- 52A: [Memo heading at a massage clinic?]: RETENSION – “This memo is about what we’re trying to alleve here.”
- 60A: [Memo heading at a media outlet]: RECOVERING – “This memo is about the stories we’ll be running today.”
A pretty theme-filled grid, but even with multiple uses of the same two letters it didn’t seem forced. I didn’t have any real problems, though there were several areas that had me mildly stumped. 21A was last to fall as I blanked on 18D and was thinking KOED but obviously it didn’t work with 5D and 6D that I was sure about.
Canadian content:
- 1D: [Canoe carrier, as a coureur des bois]: PORTAGER – I was not familiar with the “runner of the woods”; according to wikipedia “an independent entrepreneurial French Canadian trader who travelled in New France and the interior of North America, usually to trade with First Nations peoples by exchanging various European items for furs.”
- 45D: [Dickinson, formerly of “Dragon’s Den”]: ARLENE – Though born in South Africa, she apparently resides in and is well known in Canada for “the CBC business reality show Dragons’ Den.” She’s the source of this week’s quote.
That’s all I could find, but as mentioned I was in a rush. Feel free to point out anything additional in the comments below.
Other stuff:
- 10A: [Defunct automaker now into aerospace]: SAAB – I actually got to visit SAAB headquarters in Linköping, Sweden and tour the Swedish Air Force Museum, where I learned that SAAB was into aerospace long before they were into autos. I remember their ads in the mid 2000’s included the tag line “Born from jets.”
- 29A: [“Happy Days” hunk, with “the”]: FONZ – I never considered the Fonz a hunk, but then I’m a cis-het guy, so… I grew up in the Washington DC area which is home to the National Zoo, and they
havehad an organization called Friends of the National Zoo, and in the 1970’s and 80’s you would see bumper stickers all around that said “Be a FONZ.”
Quote of the week:
“There’s a tendency to attribute magical skills and knowledge to people who’ve been elevated in some way – appearing on TV, or having an impressive title, or coming from a wealthy family. There’s often an assumption that these people possess some rare, mysterious qualities mere mortals lack. What crap.”
― Arlene Dickinson