I’d mostly written the below entry earlier today and intended to post it several hours ago, but got distracted – first by the events happening 35 miles southwest of me, and then by trying to distract myself from those events. I am proud to be American, but ashamed and embarrassed by what is happening today.
Happy New Year! I hope everyone is doing as well as possible and looking forward to a much improved 2021. Brian Tetreault (@DamnUWillShortz) here once again with the privilege of attempting to fill in as best I can for Jeffrey with this first ClassicCanadian Crossword of the new year. I found this one a bit more difficult than Barb’s usual offering, I think mainly due to quite a bit of Canadian content and some other new-to-me entries.
“Linear Thinking” is the theme of this week’s puzzle: four phrases that contain a word that “runs” in a line across the grid, as well as a revealer:
17A [Grass that doesn’t grow]: ASTROTURF
24A [Photo art stretched on a frame]: CANVAS PRINT – I had “PAINT” for the longest time and almost emailed Barb to let her know there was an error in the puzzle, then I realized I had 10D wrong.
33A [One on stage?]: SOLO PERFORMANCE – a very clever clue.
49A [Six-string hybrid played by Springsteen]: BANJO GUITAR – Embarrassed to admit I did not know this, being a fan of The Boss since I was a kid, having seen his show on Broadway and read his book.
57A [Happen upon … or a directional hint to this puzzle’s theme]: RUN ACROSS – the revealer
Canadian content:
2D [Some C.F.B officers]: LTS – You will find many “leftenants” on and around a Canadian Forces Base.
10D [_____ Miss (Ontario lotto game)]: HIT OR – I know little about US state lotteries, much less Canadian provincial ones, so HITOA was plausible to me as a regional reference of some sort, to a lady, maybe? 6D
– 13D [Haisla rap duo ______ Nose Rez Kids]: SNOTTY – I learned several things from this: a rap duo named “Snotty Nose Rez Kids” exists, and they are from the Haisla Nation, which I was also unaware of, though I have always appreciated the culture and art of the First Nations of the Vancouver Island area.
– 18D [Creature on the Canucks logo]: ORCA
– 22A [“___ import” (“No matter,” in French)]: PEU – I presume this is frequently heard in 29A. I initially entered PAS.
– 29A [Sainte-___ (Quebec City suburb)]: FOY – I had a vague recollection of this place; and it helped me correct 11D from my initial entry of EVEN SO.
– 31D [Van. School named for an explorer]: SFU – I had the F already and had heard of Simon Fraser University, so this came easily to me.
Other stuff:
14A [Cookie cream in an Oreo brand]: STUF – If you follow me on Twitter, you know I commemorate every time OREO is used in the New York Times crossword by posting an appropriate picture. So it was odd to be initially stumped by this – first thing that came to mind was “creme” which obviously wouldn’t work, so had to wait to get the crosses.
8D [Part of a cost calc. In real estate]: PSF – only got this by the cross with 15A – not that I knew 15A but I figured it had to be plural.
9D [Term for far-right populism, since 2016]: TR***ISM… I can’t even.
Tip of the day: Don’t take democracy for granted.