The Blair Puzzle Project

Nice puzzle today. We had a great time going untilt he upper right slowed us down. We still ended up with a decent time for Friday.

I don't see why Arod is a portmanteau. A is for Alex and R is for Rodriquez. How is that a blended word?

12D EDENIC (Like paradise)? Edenic? Yuck. Yuckyuckyuckyuck.

OK, got that out of my system. Wasn't very good today. NW ate us up. Aside from Rice-a-23A RONI, there were no gimmies, and we couldn't even settle on orc or 17 ENT (Tolkein creature) for the longest time. Even at the end our error was there, despite Stein claiming that the corner was done, as we somehow had "adovers" for 20A ADORERS (Big fans), which crossed with the baffling-for-us 21D RISHI (Hindu sage). Says wikipedia: "A rishi (ṛṣi) denotes a poet-sage through whom the Vedic hymns flowed, credited also as divine scribes."

I suppose I could be compelled to find a video of 47D LUKA (1987 Suzanne Vega hit), but I never really liked that song. I prefer Tom's Diner...this is the original one, without any background music:

OK, the S's make a stick figure. Interesting, but it didn't have much to do with solving the puzzle.

The puzzle really kicked out butts. We had tremendous trouble with the NW corner. Peter's guess of CRI de couer gave as Randolph and eventually solved the corner. We also had the Hindu Prophet as Vishi instead of Rishi. Oh well. Here is Rishi



And here are the Monkees!!

Nice, easy Monday puzzle. And we broke our record, so that's satisfying.

But I do have a quibble. If you include "the" in THEEASTERBUNNY, shouldn't TOOTH FAIRY be "THE TOOTH FAIRY" Maybe I'm just cranky...

SHATTERED our own record by 3 seconds!! It's gonna be a good week...

Strait as the Gate, by Andre Gide, based on Matthew 7:13 ( "Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it.")

We can;t spell capacities. We can't spell capacities. 4 minutes because we can;t spell capacities. STRAITASAGATE makes no sense unless, of course, you can't spell capacities.
We didn't know Herman's last name was NOONE


james did know DOODOODOODOODOO. I didn't believe him, but he was right.

Well, nuts. 59A's clue was "Funny Wilson". I said "Flip"...nope. OWEN. Oh, well. here's Flip anyway.



50A ALEUT returns to the puzzle with the clue "Unalaska native". I'm guessing the first time this showed up in a crossword, it was clever, but Aleut is not only crosswordease, but the clue/answer pair is crosswordease. Here;s what you might see as you arrived in Unalaska, Alaska:



Finally, a little on 46A EERO SAARINEN (Gateway Arch designer).



I guess you can always count on the Finns to have nice, crosswordy, vowel filled names.

Well, you say pot-A-to I say pot-AH-to, but for this puzzle to work perfectly, we all have to learn to say AIR-OH ... even when it is an air-AH-sol can.
However, when two of your theme answers are It's Academic gimmes, then I am happy. And you just gotta know that the Gateway Arch was by EERO SAARINEN and you have to know that ARROWSMITH was by Sinclair Lewis.
SAT word of the day: Well, I am going off the beaten path here and choosing a clue instead of the answer, but GRATE ON is a good way to answer the question, "What does "Rankle" mean?"

We love Joe Krozel, but I don;t think this puzzle had coherence. the theme answers sometimes were homophones of "air-o" as in Arrowsmith, and Eero Saarinen, but aerosol is not a homophones. AIR Offensive also doesn't fit with the O in the second word.

On the plus side, there was some nice fill. "Work on a muffler" was KNIT "They're outstanding in their field" was HOMETEAM and "ones examining bodies of evidence" was CORONERS. Nice...

Aerosol, Eerosaarinen, Arrowsmith, and Airoffensive? Really?! How bout' heiro the throne? Eros, tthe love God?

Gorblimey! Gor is a mild oath -- 3rd time gor has been in a crossword. Gorblimey, that's a ridiculous word!

Well it seems today is a good day for cheering ... Go It's Ac team btw!
Anyway, SAT word of the day: 44D Shocked is AGHAST
It's Ac fact of the day ... other than that we won the competition yesterday AND that I called the circle fill almost immediately ... is that 17A TETRAHEDRON is a figure with 4 triangular faces.

Mike Nothnagel is a fellow math educator, so I don't want to rag on his puzzle, but what is the point here? It allegedly isabout the X- FACTOR, but near as I can tell these are simply some names with an X. Maybe I am missing something, but if I'm not, I just don't why that makes an interesting puzzle.

They are some cool people, though...

Lex Luthor, the villian in Superman has an X is his name

As does, Cowboy Singer Tex Ritter


Max Yasgur, the owner of the farm where Woodstock was held, has an X in his name.


as does Fox Mulder of the X-files.


There you have it.