Well, we’ve had our few days of spring and are now into summer – it’s 82℉/28℃ here now and I’m sitting outside on my deck soaking it up. It’s supposed to stay this way for a few days – which is great because I’m going to my first baseball game of the season tomorrow. I hope it’s beautiful wherever you are and that you’re able to find a nice place outside to sit and solve this week’s puzzle.
- Name: Think of It This Way
- Grid size: 16×15
- Number of entries: 83
- Difficulty: Medium Easy (my solve time: 6:21)
OK, the title was no help to me at all and I’m still not sure I fully understand how it relates to the theme, other than the revealer is another way to think of the themers. Each of the themers are “service providers” of some sort:
- 18A: [Preacher preaching to the flock]: SUNDAY SERMONIZER – A preacher delivering a sermon is also the provider of a religious service. This was the last entry I got as I had “proselytizer” in my head since I first got the “Z” in 12D and had a “Y” in where the “I” should go in 11D. That cost me a few seconds to find the error after finishing and not getting the happy pop-up.
- 24A: [Military recruit]: ARMY ENLISTEE – “Thank you for your service.”
- 38A: [Worker delivering menus and meals]: RESTAURANT WAITER – Waiters are definitely in the service industry. “I’ll be here all week; please be sure to tip your waiter.”
- 54A: [Venus or Serena Williams]: TENNIS PLAYER – This is probably the best themer, as the type of service provided by a tennis player is so different from how “service” is usually used and how it’s used in the other themers.
- 62A: [Web access companies… or , in a different sense, 18-, 24-, 38-, and 54-Across, collectively]: SERVICE PROVIDERS – Yes they are, and it’s also kind of nice to see “service providers” as an entry, rather than as a clue, the answer of which is “ISPs.”
A larger 16×15 grid, this still solved relatively quickly, and my time is actually on the quick side for even a 15×15 grid. However, it felt a bit harder – I was jumping all over the place as I hit entries I didn’t know and had to circle back to them after I got a few more crosses. So I scored it Medium Easy, when it actually could have been called Easy.
Canadian content:
- 45A: [New Brunswick landmark that stands 15 metres tall]: AXE – I had no idea on this one but got the “X” and filled in AXE. Had to search a bit to find this.
- 48A: [Question period mems.]: MPS – Members of Parliament are participants in Question Period.
- 3D: [Playwright Ibsen or hockey player Sedin]: HENRIK – While he is Swedish, he played his entire career with the Vancouver Canucks, so that’s Canadian enough for me.
I thought about including 36D: [Hockey goalies’ number, often]: ONE, and 37D: [Barristers’ headwear]: WIGS but hockey is not solely Canadian, and wigs haven’t been worn in Canadian courts since the early 1900’s, which was news to me (luckily, I haven’t spent any time at all in Canadian courts). As always, feel free to point out any Canadian content I missed in the comments below. Also feel free to let me know if you think I should expand what counts as Canadian to include hockey, French terms, and anything else.
Other stuff:
- 5D: [Railway stop: Abbr.]: STA – I never know whether this is going to be STA or STN.
- 11D: [Hogs’ homes]: STIES – I had STYES in here until I finished and discovered I had an error somewhere. Luckily it was near the top of the grid, and obvious when I saw “sermonyzer.”
- 37A: [Worked on a rya, say]: WOVE – I had no idea what a rya was and it took a while to find it using Google as the first page of hits in a search of the word are for the Royal Yacht Association.
- 40D: [Performed a pirouette]: SPUN – I guess because I was seeing “TWIRLS” in several puzzles last week that was stuck in my head and it took a while to get the right word.
Quote of the week:
“People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball. I’ll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.”
– Rogers Hornsby (who I guess didn’t do crossword puzzles while he waited for spring)