I hope everyone had a nice Remembrance/Veterans Day weekend. I was able to relax,. catch up on some reading, and visit family so it was a very nice weekend. We are having great seasonal weather here – crisp and cool in the mornings, sunny and a bit warmer in the afternoon. Perfect for nice long walks or sitting in a cozy nook completing this week’s puzzle.

• Name: Shady Characters
• Size: 15×15
• Entries: 74
• Difficulty: Easy (my solve time: 6:10)

I was thinking that there would be circles in the grid, which is how Across Lite represents squares that are usually shaded in print versions of the puzzle. But, no – “Shady Characters” in this puzzle means something different: the themers are two word phrases where the first word is a colour, clued punnily to indicate that a person (or insect) – a character – has a trait that is commonly associated with that colour:

• 17A: [Mao in a testy mood?]: RED SNAPPER – Mao Zedong, or “Chairman Mao” was the founder of the People’s Republic of China (or “Red China”). When someone is testy they may snap at you. A red snapper is a type of fish and apparently good eating.
• 29A: [Newly hatched stinger?]: GREEN HORNET – A hornet is a type of flying insect that can inflict a nasty sting. Someone young or new to a job is often referred to as “green“. The Green Hornet is a long-running comic book series.
• 42A: [Cowardly House of Commons aides?]: YELLOW PAGES – Pages are aides to legislators, in this case in the House of Commons. A person is said to be “yellow” if they display cowardice. The Yellow Pages were are (!) a telephone directory that listed businesses. To make them distinct from residential phone listings (the “White Pages), they were printed on yellow paper.
• 57A: [Melancholy cobbler?]: BLUE HEELER – A cobbler is a shoe maker, so they would be affixing heels to shoes – a heeler. If you are sad, you are said to be “blue” and you may be singing the blues. I have no idea what a blue heeler is – maybe like a blue blood? Let’s see… Nope – it’s a breed of dog that I’d never heard of before.

It turned out to be an easy solve for me, but there were a few snags and I jumped all over the place as I gained and lost toeholds in the grid. Nothing too much of a stumper, though 4A and 57A had me scratching my head, as did 44D until I parsed it correctly. After the richness of the theme last week, four themers seemed kind of thin, but maybe I’ve just been spoiled.

Canadian content:

• 11D: [Major port in New Brunswick]: ST JOHN – Not to be confused with a major port in Newfoundland.
• 12D: [See 23-Across]: LOONIE – A Loonie is indeed worth one dollar.
• 23A: [Dollar value of 12-Down]: ONE – A Loonie is indeed worth one dollar.
• 28A: [Canadian speech tics, some say]: EHS – I didn’t say it.
• 39D: [Atlantic wind off Labrador]: EASTERLY – If the wind is coming from the Atlantic and headed toward Labrador, it is indeed an easterly wind. It is also rather unusual.
• 42A: [Cowardly House of Commons aides?]: YELLOW PAGES – I’m assuming these pages are in the Canadian House of Commons.
• 50A: [Wab Kinew’s prov.]: MAN – It’s been just over a month since the Honourable Wab Kinew appeared in the puzzle, and since then he has been officially sworn in as Manitoba’s 1st First Nations Premier.
• 58D: [Anka’s “___ Beso”]: ESO – Paul Anka grew up in Ottawa, and this is one of his more popular songs.

Other stuff:

• 4A: [Muscled tough guys]: MACHOS – I just wasn’t seeing this and “macho” is more often used as an adjective than a noun, in my experience.
• 9D: [Bosporus and Bering: Abbr.]: STRS – I put SEAS in here and thought “uh, oh – a mistake” since while the Bering is a sea, the Bosporus definitely is not. Then I remembered that there is a Bering Strait as well…
• 35A: [Practice sessions]: DRY RUNS – I initially had TRYOUTS in here, and thought Barb had made a mistake since you need to get through the tryouts to get to practice with the team. As usual, it was I who was mistaken.
• 36A; [The Muppets alien sketch :Pigs ___”]: IN SPACE – If you are of a certain age you can only hear this skit title spoken in a stentorian voice with strong reverb.
• 44D: [“Feminine” weather words]: LA NINA – I scratched my head wondering what a lanina was – was it a variant of Lahaina? Was is a feminine form of a lanai? Did I have an error in one of the crosses? But then I parsed it correctly as the weather phenomenon.

Quote of the week:
“Believe nothing you hear, and only one half that you see.”
– Edgar Allan Poe