September is here! September is here! And man, the weather here the past few days has been glorious – clear skies, low humidity, cool nights. I hope it stays this way for a few weeks then gradually cools as we transition to autumn – don’t need the hot sticky summer heat any more this year. In any event, it’s a great day to sit outside on the deck and solve a puzzle, so let’s get going.

  • Name: One for All
  • Size: 15×15
  • Entries: 76
  • Difficulty: Very Hard (my solve time: 11:36)

Filled in crossword grid for ClassiCanadian Crosswords 4 September 2024

I saw the title and thought Barb had used it before, but turns out it was “One for All and All for One” that had appeared back in 2021. Not that there’s anything wrong with using a duplicate title; if it was a duplicate puzzle that would be different… The themers are phrases that are (mostly) clued straight, but they seem a little off. Soon you realize that there are more common phrases using the same words but starting with the  word “one”:

  • 18A: [Why a highway crew has gravel and tar]: FOR THE ROAD – Well, of course the gravel and tar is for repairing the road. Having one for the road is not really a good idea, especially if you’ve already had several for the bar.
  • 23A: [Leave the mall, maybe]: STOP SHOPPING – I guess you could leave the mall, and go shop somewhere else, but the mall is (was?) often a great place for one stop shopping. I work in the information business where often someone wishes for a “one stop shop” for data and information products from multiple sources. I have to remind them how many one stops shops there are already out there, and what they really want is to make information discoverable, interoperable, and usable on many platforms.
  • 50A: [Gunned up robbers?]: ARMED BANDITS – Wait – aren’t all bandits armed in some way? I guess a slot machine isn’t armed, but it sure is a one armed bandit that will gladly relieve you of your money.
  • 59A: [A couple of slugs]: TWO PUNCHES – OK, this one took me a little while as I was thinking of slugs in the meaning of metal disks, or drinks of liquor. Not in the pugilistic sense of one-two punches or a pair of bad events that happen in close succession.

I had a rough time with this one, as my solve time amply shows. Out of 326 solves, this is my 14th slowest. I never felt like I got into the groove – lots of starts and stops, jumping all over the place, words I didn’t know, and then the dreaded single empty square that I ran the alphabet through and still no happy pop up. The blank square was at 24D/28A, and I hesitate to call it a natick, because neither are proper nouns, and IMO a decent solver should be able to get the cross of a 3-letter word with a 4-letter word. In any event, I was pretty confident about the rest of the puzzle, so it cost me a clean solve. Turns out I had the tense wrong for 55D; seems to me a gold medal winner would use the past tense rather than the present – I mean, if they got the gold the competition is over, right? And if you scared someone to death by saying “BOO” to them, couldn’t that be a life line?  Ok, that one doesn’t make much sense, but I’d argue “boo” is a more legit word than PSH or RUSK whatever that is – oh, it’s this.

Canadian content:

  • 7D: [Blue Jays, on scoreboards]: TOR – I’m not watching the scoreboard too much for the Toronto Blue Jays; I’m much more worried about the hated Yankees, who the Orioles overtook for 1st place in the American League East Tuesday night.
  • 8D: [Locale of London and Paris: Abbr.]: ONT – I didn’t even think of entering EUR or TEX in here – I sensed that this was Canadian content a mile away. Paris is about halfway between Hamilton and London.
  • 29A: [Canadian comedian Cullen]: SEANSeán Cullen was born in Peterborough, Ontario and is known for “The Willoughbys” and “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.” He also toured with Barenaked Ladies on their holiday tour telling Christmas stories midway through the show and then singing a song with the band.
  • 32D: [Parliament building with a clock]: PEACE TOWER – The Peace Tower and its clock are one of the most recognizable symbols of Canada .
  • 34D: [Nova Scotian’s ancestor, maybe]: GAEL – I initially entered SCOT and soon saw that that didn’t work.
  • 61D: [“This” in Quebec]: CET – Had CES in here way too long.
  • 63D: [Levy not paid in Alta.]: PST – Alberta doesn’t have a provincial sales tax.

Other stuff:

  • 3D: [Sure to go to Heaven]: WITHOUT SIN – At one point I thought 3D and 31D could also be themers, and that the full phrase was “one without sin.” Apparently not, unless “one legitimate” is something.
  • 9D: [Dr. Fauci’s employer]: NIH – I could have sworn that Dr. Anthony Fauci worked for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but instead he worked for the National Institutes of Health.
  • 13D: [“Six Feet Under” delivery]: BODY – I’m rewatching the amazing show “Six Feet Under” and highly recommend it if you haven’t seen it, and it’s definitely worth a rewatch is you have.
  • 16A: [Strawberry Fields memorial funder]: ONOYoko Ono worked with the Central Park Conservancy to design and bring Strawberry Fields into existence. She’s the source of this week’s quote.
  • 21D: [___ Pie (cold treat)]: ESKIMO – I had a recollection that this word was problematic, and apparently so did the company that makes the cold treats.
  • 41A: [First in a TV series season]: EPISODE I – I had at least one of the crosses wrong so it took a while to see that the first word was EPISODE. I still didn’t totally get the theme, so thought the “I” could have been a rebus and started looking for other potential rebus ONEs elsewhere in the grid. So that took me a while.

Quote of the week:
“I realized that if my thoughts immediately affect my body, I should be careful about what I think. Now if I get angry, I ask myself why I feel that way. If I can find the source of my anger, I can turn that negative energy into something positive.”
– Yoko Ono