Well, congratulations to the Blue Jays. They came back from two games down to tie up the League Championship series and then won the final game in a dramatic come-from-behind fashion. Tip of the cap to them and I’ll definitely be rooting for them against the Dodgers. If you’ll indulge me while we’re talking about baseball, I just started watching a documentary about the Montreal Expos and it’s pretty wild. Even if you’re not into baseball, you may enjoy the story of how Montreal lost its baseball team, with interesting characters and history I wasn’t aware of (e.g., the Expos were the first non-US Major League baseball team, and Quebec has a long history of playing baseball going back well over 100 years). Back to our regularly scheduled crossword blog 🙂
- Name: Taking Ownership
- Grid size: 15×15
- Entries: 72
- Difficulty: Very Hard (my solve time: 9:54)
“Taking Ownership” didn’t mean much to me until I started working on the themers, then it was a big help in getting them. The themers are common phrases where “my” – taking ownership – is added to the end of the first word and then they are clued punnily:
- 17A: [Hut of ill-repute?]: SEAMY SHANTY – A sea shanty is a nautical work song devised to accompany tasks on board ship. Singing shanties could help keep time among groups of sailors to coordinate physical movements like hauling ropes and raising sails. I imagine when they went ashore some shanty-singing sailors probably went in search of seamy shantys.
- 24A: [One hurrying to be dealt a gin hand?]: RUMMY RUNNER – A rum runner was what folks bringing Canadian whisky into the US during Prohibition were called. I visited a bar in Sidney, B.C. named Rum Runners that had a beautiful view of the Salish Sea and the ferry landing; unfortunately it appears to be permanently closed.
- 35A: [Answer to “What do you call a wrapped cadaver?”?]: MUMMYS THE WORD – “Mum’s the word” is what you’d say to ask someone to keep a secret.
- 48A: [Batty British Bunny?]: BARMY HOPPER – A bar hopper is someone who frequents multiple pubs in an outing. I first saw the word barmy used to describe a character in a book by Nick Hornby, “How to be Good.”
- 56A: [AM/FM players with overly dramatic programming?]: HAMMY RADIOS – Ham radio is an informal way of referring to amateur radio which is a hobby I’ve been wanting to dive into. Ironically I think you’d find more hammy radio operators on commercial morning drive and talk radio than you would listening to actual hams.
This was a fairly straightforward solve for me with a tinge of difficulty as it took me a while to break in and I had to jump around a bit. But then I hit two significant snags: my lack of knowledge of German and 1930’s criminals hung me up in the SW at 35D/41A, and a Canadian duo at 47D/62A. I cheated slightly and used Google Translate to help with 41A, but had to run the alphabet to try to get 62A – and it didn’t work! I belatedly realized I’d hastily entered 56A and misspelled it, so once I corrected that, I was good to go. It cost me at least two minutes but at least I learned a few things.
Canadian content:
- 18D: [B.C.’s int’l airport]: YVR – I knew this one right off for some reason – actually, for some reason I know a surprising number of Canadian airport codes.
- 22A: [“This Hour Has 22 Minutes” airer]: CBCTV – I can’t believe I’d never heard of this show before – Mark McKinney as PM Carney?! I have a hunch I’ll spend a lot of evenings going through YouTube for clips from this show.
- 36D: [SkipTheDishes rival]: UBER EATS – I can’t believe their website doesn’t prominently feature poutine.
- 47D: [___ Hall, Toronto concert venue]: MASSEY – I think this has appeared in here before, but I had a misspelling in a cross and didn’t know 62A so it flummoxed me for far longer than it should have.
- 53A: [“Big Raven” and “The Indian Church” paintings, for two]: CARRS – Can I get honourary Canadian citizenship for knowing this right off? Emily Carr is a pillar of Canadian artists, particularly known for her paintings of West Coast First Nations themes, of which “Big Raven” and “The Indian Church” are examples. She’s been the source of three previous quotes in this blog, and now it’s four.
- 60A: [Pt. of CARP]: RET – The Canadian Association of Retired Persons “advocates for financial security and better access to healthcare for older adults, and leads the fight to end ageism. Sign me up!
- 62A: [“Street Legal” star Cynthia]: DALE – I wasn’t sure if it was Dall, or Daly, or even Daln having never seen this show. Cynthia Dale was born in Toronto and is best known for playing lawyer Olivia Novak on “Street Legal” but has also appeared in many other movies and shows.
- 65A: [Canada to the Soviet Union, in WWII]: ALLY – I briefly considered EAST, but that’s true today as well, not just during World War II.
Other stuff:
- 3D: [Simile words with “nervous”]: AS A CAT – Although I have two cats (or they have me) I don’t think of them as nervous, just as perpetually in a ninja-like state of readiness.
- 10D: [Web-footed rodent]: COYPU – Also known as a nutria, I’m really surprised this rodent didn’t hang me up more; I guess the crosses were fairly straightforward.
- 19A: [Suffix with burr and band]: ITO– A minor head scratcher, but nice to see this clued as something other than “Skater Midori” or “OJ judge Lance.”
- 22D: [“Put briefly…”]: IN SHORT – “In a word” also fits here.
- 41A: [But, in Berlin]: ABER – I couldn’t remember if the 35D criminal matriarch was Parker or Barker, so this really hung me up.
- 42A: [Grasshopper’s trill]: CHURR – I have usually seen this as chirr, but it’s a great word spelled either way.
- 58D: [Easy to handle, as a boat]: YAR – Uh, sure, if you say so.
Quote of the week:
“Do not try to do extraordinary things but do ordinary things with intensity.”
– Emily Carr