David Connell

Two non-themers in this puzzle woke memories in me - one amusing, one profound. I have a vivid imagination when reading or listening, such that images run through my mind immediately. So on the day 45 years ago when the passage from Revelation was read by the president of the Lutheran church where I was the organist, in his most stentorian tones, which was meant to be “and I saw the wingèd creatures surrounding the throne, myriad upon myriad…” but he actually said: “mermaid upon mermaid…” I busted out with a full-body guffaw at the image I saw in my head. Nobody else knew why I was laughing during a scripture reading. When my life was fractured some 22 years ago, I went three months unable to speak. The daughter of a former colleague asked me to sing the Sheva Brachot (Seven Blessings) for her wedding, and that was the occasion of the return of my voice. Driving from New Haven to Buffalo, rehearsing the blessings over and over to be able to be part of life again. Those blessings were blessings for me. גילה רינה, דיצה וחדווה, אהבה ואחווה, ושלום ורעות

Americans should feel some sense of obligation to know and name the peoples who lived on this land long centuries before the invasion of Europeans. It saddens me that the name Lenape / Lenni Lenape (the people who were given the exonym “Delaware Indians”) is a stunner. Their territory spanned from what is now Delaware north to southeastern New York, including all of New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania. Their language survives in the names of rivers, hills, towns, long after their descendants were forced to move out to the midwest. Where I grew up, toponyms like Wissahickon, Conshohocken, Wyomissing, Wyoming, Tulpehocken, Aronomink, all echoed the language of the displaced Lenape. Oto/Otoe, Ute, Hopi, Erie, Cree, Crow, and others make frequent enough appearances in the puzzles to be dismissed as “crosswordese” (a term I dislike greatly). But each name names a people, a culture, a history and - more often than is credited - a present and a future.

In the Tuesday puzzle, a tribute to Toni Morrison listed the six works she had published before they earned her the Nobel Prize. Many commenters loved it, especially those who treasure her writings. Many did not like it, especially those who seem to think that reading is not a good idea. Two names that appear very frequently in the puzzles over the years are ODETS and AGEE. I had never read either, but dutifully filled them in simply based on familiarity with the puzzles and their common fills. But at some point I was prompted by writing these names over and over, I decided to get their works and read them. I was given the gifts of — encountering amazing wordsmiths — reading literature that affected me deeply and — writing those names ever after as a pleasure — a reminder of their contribution to my life. Yesterday, many posters encouraged the complainers to just go ahead and read. Often, when musical genres and artists or sports heroes come up, similar urging appears. Take advantage and reap the benefits.

By now I have learned that the more I enjoy solving a puzzle, the more reading comments here will be a nasty experience. On first pass, I got “audio books” with such instant pleasure, and saw our old friend “Alta” (the ban on board sports is so useful for constructors), followed by “Angel Falls.” But those three were all I had from acrosses. For downs, even fewer: just “pho” and “tuo”. It seems that many people think that a sea of blanks after a first pass is a sign of a bad puzzle. It is, for me, the sign of a good one, a true challenge. Steadily, I filled in the lower left, upper right, then after a longer wrestle, lower right and upper left. Like many, I was not happy with “abbas” as clued, but it was clear that was what should be there. Never heard of Trace Adkins or Geno Smith, but they were both more than fairly crossed and clued. Saturday NYT puzzles are celebrated for the challenge. It was great to have one up to that standard after weeks and weeks of just plopping obvious letters into obvious answers. Thanks, Sam!

Every item of clothing put on for worship in liturgical religions has a name, a meaning, a status, and a specific prayer attached to its donning. Some belong to particular offices. Alb is nearly always wrongly clued as “priestly garment” here in NYT puzzles, since wearing the simple white garment is the privilege of any baptized person serving in the liturgy. Orale is correctly clued as “papal vestment” because only popes wear the capelet with horizontal stripes called orale (accent on the second syllable; the Mexican interjection is órale, accent on the first). As I was trained in a very serious corps of altar boys/servers, in a conservative parish of a conservative diocese, I had to memorize and recite the vestment prayers proper to each of the many items worn by myself and the clergy I assisted in vesting. In Latin. Before any vestiture could be done, there was a ritual washing of hands with its own prayer (Da Domine virtutem manibus meis…) which remains a fixed element for me 50 years later. The names and prayers are different from faith to faith, sect to sect, place to place, but what Catholics, Anglicans, Jews, Muslims etc. share is respect for the transition that is accomplished when putting on sacred garments. Yes, orale is niche. No apology for that other than “crosswordese.” But, an orale is a real thing, just as a judge’s robe, a barrister’s wig, a police officer’s badge, are real things, never to be donned without respect for that which is signified.

Step back three inches or three feet when you see a grid for the first time. Ask it questions. Try to see what is there to see. I’m not addressing all the proud failures today but the puzzled solvers. Step back and investigate the grid as it is presented before jumping into unknown waters. The first impression for the patient solver should have been: the downs; the key is in the downs. Let me offer: when you suspect the trick is in the downs (which should have been extremely obvious today), solve the acrosses as best you can and let those fills inform your idea of the downs. When a cross reference is ever offered, there is a rule: See N down + With X, … always always always means the “see N down” fill follows the “with X” fill - you either get that or … not. Don’t keep blaming the editors, please. They work hard at this. All the horrible negativity here translating to “I didn’t get it so it was terrible and anybody who did get it is a smarmy jerk” is enough to just wish “Rex Parker Trashes the NYT Crossword” was a steady link here, available to all, so all the haters could just get on along to their true and honest home. The trick was made clear, the editing was consistent, bravo to the constructor, and thanks to the editors and columnist.

Reading the comments so far prompts me to repeat a bit of advice - When the answers are all obviously correct, as in they make all the crossings work and are words, but don’t make sense with their given clues, the theme will nearly always be the clues themselves. Parsing them correctly will give entry to the trick.

A good puzzle for the word history lovers. The etymons are as follows: Both -phore and -phor are from the Greek root that is a cousin of our “bear” (as in carrying, not the animal). Semaphore = bearing meaning; metaphor = carrying across/through. Ejiofor’s -ofor is from Igbo, a principal language of Nigeria, where it is a common name element meaning “set in the right direction”: Ejiofor = holding steady on the right course. An English counterpart might well be Steadman. Before is from old Germanic roots meaning literally “by the front” - in space or (as in the puzzle) in time. Four is the most strange, as it is clearly derived from the same root as other Proto-Indo-European names for the number 4, yet how it came to start with an “f” sound in Germanic languages (vier, fyre, four) instead of the kw/ch sound of all the rest (quattro, cztery, quatre) remains a mystery.

As of this writing, no one seems to have made explicit note of the elegance in that not only is the actual answer a real word and the inside-out answer a real word but also the grayed part that gets shifted is a real word in every case. That is simply elegant.

Most of the comments by the time I’m posting are from people saying they didn’t get it while solving and didn’t need to have gotten it in order to have obtained the star. Here’s the thing: In order for that to be true, you would have to have ignored the second half of four lengthy clues (16, 27, 44, 57 Across), failed to even consider that the extra verbiage was there for a reason, failed to address why there were circles in the grid at all, and failed to ask questions such as “Mets? Nets? Jets?” or “John? Joan?” Deepen your game, friends. Really solving is much more rewarding than accidentally (even quickly) finishing. There’s a t-shirt shop at the exit of every museum, but it’s good to go to a museum for the rest of the stuff before that.

I have seen tarsiers - in zoos, never in the wild. I have petted rays - at the aquarium, never in the wild. I have encountered snogging - in Harry Potter, never in the wild. I know that people squee for fandom - from the internet, not in real life. I know irl - not in real life. I have no fomo - for reals. I don’t understand why people can’t accept that encountering a thing for the first time has nothing to do with them themselves, and can and should be judgment free. But rather it is the first encounter - once a stranger, later a friend. If you never heard or said “hue and cry” - or have heard it but never seen it spelled, or defined - today is your day. Do not miss the opportunity. The first time I saw Paris… The first time someone peeled a durian in my presence… The first time I danced without self-consciousness… There needs to be a lot more appreciation for first times! <a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CK6jKL2qWxo&pp=ygUjZmVlbHMgbGlrZSB0aGUgZmlyc3QgdGltZSBmb3JlaWduZXI" target="_blank">https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CK6jKL2qWxo&pp=ygUjZmVlbHMgbGlrZSB0aGUgZmlyc3QgdGltZSBmb3JlaWduZXI</a>%3D

Though I generally disapprove of the word natick even as originally intended and certainly as generally used here, I can’t fault those who, unclear on the spelling of Neil’s name, cry foul today. It’s a fair complaint. Alius means “other” masculine person or thing; “others” becomes alii but adds a dimension: when a group of persons includes any male person at all, “et alii” means “and others that are either all male or mixed genders.” Alia means “other” feminine person or thing; “others” becomes aliae but only when the “others” are exclusively feminine gender. Alium means “other” neuter thing; “others” becomes alia when a group of things is described. So “et alia” is not the correct decoding of “et al.” in a list of co-authors. It is “et alii”, or in the rare case where all co-authors are female, “et aliae.” “Et alia” is to be read for “et al.” only when the other things omitted are actually things. In which case “etc.” “et cetera” “and the rest”* is usually the commoner and better choice. *Professor and Mary Ann 🎶

The John and Paul clue required sifting through a bunch of options (my two favorite uncles being one I could easily discard, though their last name did fit), and the nearby Papal Bull put me in mind of popes. John Paul I was only a pope for 33 days in 1978, but my grandmother had been in Rome when he said a papal mass and brought me home a prayer card of his, not knowing it would become a rare item just a few weeks later. He took his name - the first ever two-parter - to signal his intention to pull the conservative and progressive factions, represented by his predecessors John XXIII and Paul VI, together again for the health of the church. He also is unique in that the “I” - his regnal number - was part of his chosen name. His successor John Paul II chose his name as a pledge to follow that lead. —— I looked up the Wikipedia article on the Isle of Ely and found it a very interesting read. Lots of history. Also, very crosswordy: Ely comes from eely, because a lot of eelers eeled in the fens and mires, eeling for eels and elvers.

I get the impression that several posters missed the literal “they (cabooses) bring up the rear.” The caboose is (now mostly obsolete, having faded from use) the rearmost car of a train. Caboose comes last for several reasons. The crew is quartered there, and usually have a stove for warmth and cooking. From a raised box on the roof with windows on all sides, they can look out over the train and check for problems. From an open platform on the back they can signal to the rear. They have braking capability in order to assist with sudden stops. The slang use for caboose to mean rear end is a simple adoption of the name of the car that literally brings up the rear. The clue is simply factual. Icons in Eastern churches are more than pictures, more than referring to saints and holy things. They are taken to be embodiments of those things, as such the icons themselves are objects of worship along with that which they embody. The word “iconic” is not meant to say “like a cute little picture on a computer screen”, but more “full of powerful presence.”

Back in 1987 or so, a grandma who played in my bell choir showed up wearing a neon green Thrasher T-shirt. I was a bit surprised by that fashion choice, so I asked her about it. “Oh, didn’t you know I shred?” she said. She went on with a description of her favorite skating moves and how she hung with the young sk8r dudes as just part of the gang. I was dumbstruck. Think Betty White in Golden Girls for this woman. Later on she came to let me off the hook. “My grandson gave me the shirt and he talks about skating so much I just absorbed all the lingo.”

I’m rather intrigued by the objections to “beer me” today. The queen knighted Richard today. She knighted him. They feted the Oscar winners today. They feted them. They crowned the derby winner today. They crowned her. Nominal verb with object. Applaud me. Sing me. Lullaby me. Beer me. Tequila me. King me. Queen me. English is a beautiful and fluid language. Only English teachers stand in its way and clip its beautiful wings.

Two traps I fell into: I had “suitable” in mind where “subtitle” should go and had such a hard time unthinking that first thought; “too nice” was a huge dook for me, I had a hard time getting away from toon ice. Drop trou will always evoke a fond memory for me. Near the end of my first concert tour abroad, one that had been over-programmed, our ensemble was worn to a frazzle and running on fumes. We gathered on stage to warm up for our concert in Munich, and there was no there there. I thought the concert would be a complete disaster. We changed into our formal attire and gathered outside for our pep talk from the stage manager, whose job it was to get us psyched up. He stood in the middle of our circle quietly taking us all in with his eyes, then simply dropped trou. We all broke up laughing, all of our tension and tiredness fell away, and we sang one of the best concerts of the tour.

The expression”suck face” I first encountered in the film “On Golden Pond”, and any time I hear it I go back to that memory. Strange how things get linked in a brain. Endue is a perfectly normal word. The only thing that makes words go extinct is not using them. If we live in fear of using any words outside of a core of twenty or thirty, we kill words. Think how boring the world would be, let alone the crossword puzzles, if we struck out all the words that somebody doesn’t know yet.

Though it is true that we use ASANA to describe all kinds of yoga poses, the clue about sitting poses is actually hinting (I would guess deliberately) at the word’s origin: asana is from Sanskrit, meaning “a sitting down.” One-word clues such as “resolve” are regularly cited by frustrated solvers here as “vague” and “annoying,” when such clues are the delight of true puzzlers. Read as a verb, it must be “settle”; read as a noun, it must be “mettle.” The only way to resolve it is through the crossing. Crosswords do that, they test your mettle.

One of my professors hammered home a lesson that I have always tried to pass along. “The composer started with a blank page.” This was in the context of music theory and history (unlike most schools, which teach theory in separate courses from history, my college insisted that the two never be separated). Nonetheless, the idea is essential: The writer is faced with a blank page/screen. The composer, blank staves. The set designer, an empty stage. The architect and builder, a cleared lot. What this means, its implication, is that everything imposed on that blank is meaningful, even when it is random. There are no throwaways. Every clue is meant to be read, even though one may get the finish music without having done so. Every circled square, shaded square, question mark, lack of symmetry, unusual symmetry, big huge shape that dominates the grid…is meant to be read, even though etc. Today’s comments section amounts to dozens of admissions of incuriosity. Fine; curiosity killed the cat. Curious cats take down Christmas trees. But why so few solvers are unwilling to maintain a curious mind - curious enough to pause and wonder - this is, for me, an eternal curiosity. I could probably fill in most puzzles (main, and especially mini) without reading all the clues while solving. But I never do. The constructor started with a blank page: every mark on it is meant to be read, understood, realized. R.I.P. Prof. Don Chittum <a href="https://obits.goldsteinsfuneral.com/donald-chittum-1" target="_blank">https://obits.goldsteinsfuneral.com/donald-chittum-1</a>

I got to know Professor Mandelbrot in the 1990s, when he was a wonderful presence on campus and was working a kind of late-life magic that brought together mathematicians, computer people, artists, musicians. He was quite something. Sam cites crits in relation to art schools, and, yes, crits can be devastating and unnerving for art students. But in architecture school - soul-crushing is the primary descriptor for a crit. But then there’s Edna Mode to brighten everyone’s day, darling!

(I find myself again being OT for the current puzzle, just trying to post about puzzle from over the weekend. Emufied as usual.) The [Half of LV] clue, that ended up being the Las half of Las Vegas, got many people thinking about how to represent [Half of 55] in Roman numerals. Of course the Romans could represent incredibly fine fractions, but with an interesting twist: while the numbers for integers are in a tens-based system (IVXLCDM), fractions were based on a twelve-part division. S was the letter used for semi(s), 1/2, but it actually meant 6/12. So half of LV would be XXVIIS. The sign • was used for the twelfth part of a unit, called uncia. Uncia has come down to our language in two paths: an “ounce” is the twelfth part of a pound (originally), and an “inch” is the twelfth part of a foot. It also survives in the name of the pattern ⁙, “quincunx”, which represented 5/12. The pattern is used in laying out orchards, and on dice and cards, and lots of other ways today. Quinque + uncia became the portmanteau quincunx. For practical reasons, they later added a sign for 1/24, Σ, meaning half of a twelfth, which allowed for the sign Σ•, meaning three-halves of a twelfth, to give the fraction 1/8. When in Rome…

Elphaba got the name from the name of the author of the Wizard of Oz books, L. Frank Baum. Nice pub quiz trivia.

Yea big or yea high etc. (I admit that many people like writing yay, but I will never be one of their company) are examples of deictic or indexical words: words that have no precise meaning unless accompanied by physical gesture or other contextualization. To say “I caught a fish yea long”, without using outstretched hands to show it, is to convey no meaningful information. In deixis, the speaker is the center of space, time, and community. Today, last week, come here, go over there, you, they. All take on their actual communicative meaning in relation to the speaker. Yea as a modifier of size must be accompanied by some gesture that indexes / indicates the meaning.

There were two prominent Pitts, Pitt the Elder, Earl Chatham, and his son, Pitt the Younger. Both had distinguished careers, worth reading up on. Because of their sympathy for the American cause, their names are all over the United States of America. Chatham is primarily a county name (honoring the father), but also used for towns and other places; Pitt is usually honoring the son and usually used for cities and towns. I used to live in Pittsboro, in Chatham County, North Carolina. The town is named for Pitt the Younger, the county for his father, Earl of Chatham. Those European revolutionaries and forward-thinkers who supported the nascent USA are honored here, there, and everywhere: Lafayette, Kościuszko, Pulaski, von Steuben. We would never have won the war of independence without their assistance, and all for idealism.

This was another instance of “keep plugging away and it will be done” - not in a bad way, just in the “don’t give up” way. And another case of the upper left corner holding out until last. Mint jelly just had to go, according to the rule “when in doubt, tear it out.” I miss my old Palm Pilot. I’m sure it’s in a drawer somewhere. I spent a good while perfecting the technique of writing with the stylus.

Paolo is so brilliant and this collaboration was a welcome gift after a stretch of really boring Thursdays. I am very conservative about entering things - on aver/avow I will just enter the av and then move on, for example. If I have an idea of an answer, I go to the crossings immediately. If none of them check out, I leave it all blank and move on. Very often a first pass through a tricky puzzle will have incomplete words scattered here and there and not much more. This puzzle, I got all the way down to Tori Amos, having read all the across and down clues in the top half, before I filled in any letters. Thought of all the people who complain about proper names in the puzzles as I gratefully plunked in TORI. But that was the starting point for me. It became clear that my blanks were all due to the needed answer being one space short: a 2-letter rebus in the gray squares was the obvious solution. Result? finished well under my Thursday average time, rewarded by the graphics. Best pizza I ever had was in St-Paul-de-Vence, a pizzeria called Aux Quatre Coins. Incredibly thin, crispy crust and fabulous fresh toppings. Worst? Chicago, naturally.

Back in 1982 I went to Minneapolis for the first time, for a convention unrelated to pride but during pride month. A young artist named Prince was on stage in the park, and he was unforgettable. There were two rich cultures in Mpls Minn that registered with me: a vibrant gay club culture where a place I believe was called The Brass Rail had a pianist who knew every great show tune, hit tune, sing along song, and kept us going all night with belting together; and a vibrant community theater culture (there were at least a dozen performances to choose from on a weekend night). Maybe some Minneapolitan will remind me of the name of that street, Minnesota’s Broadway? There was an intersectionality, decades before that was a thing: I went to a production by a gay deaf community theater troupe, a production that was absolutely phenomenal. (In those days, my ASL was at its best, having just signed for my cousins the gist of the funeral homily for our grandmother.) O for the lost days, before now, before the overwhelming backlash. O for freedom.

So, when I first came to this town, a friend asked me to water her houseplants while she and her husband went on an extended vacation. Driving across town twice every other day, I noticed everybody had a mailbox of the same design, but in seven colors according to their tastes. So, I started to sing the colors as I passed them going to and from her house, up and down hills, with the trees and flowers accompanying my song… Do - white mailbox Re - red Mi - blue Fa - green Sol - black La - brown / tan Ti - silver / gray Some roads were very Coplandesque, others Ivesian, some more melodic, some more like John Cage. It got to be quite an addictive driving game. Do try it if you live in a town like that. 🎶

I continue to wish for a filter that will hide any comment that mentions “for the day of the week”. So tedious and meaningless. The structure of the week’s puzzles was an invention of Will Shortz at a certain point in his curation of the puzzle. It was not handed to Moses on Sinai thousands of years ago. I’m now near the end of 1999 in my journey through the archives, solving with an eye to the crystallization moment, and no sign of it yet. The placement of themes, lack of themes, difficulty, tricks and rebuses - is quite unstructured before Y2K. If Will Shortz made it - and only within the past 24 years - he can unmake it. This comment is par for a Tuesday. That’s the day when “Waah! Not a real Tuesday!” is the most frequent (and annoyingly useless) comment here.

“Plus, bonus points for the use of the word ‘mosey’…” — Oz Buffyphiles unite

In Hindi, there is a different letter for a different sound: D and DH are how we write two different Hindi letters when using the Roman alphabet. Dharma is a five-letter word, because “dh” is a single letter. T/TH, B/BH. Buddha is B-u-d-dh-a. Siddhartha is S-i-d-dh-a-r-th-a. Gandhi is G-a-n-dh-i. This is a common thing when transcribing letters from other alphabets: Hebrew: חַלָּה, challah (bread) distinguishes the letter CH from the letter H, which are both distinct single letters in Hebrew. Ukrainian / Russian: борщ, borshch/borscht (soup) uses the four letters shch to denote the sound of the single letter щ in Roman spelling. Polish uses a different four letters for the same: szcz. The letter H is always brought in to show aspiration or affrication - breath complications, softenings. So T contrasts with TH, S with SH, D with DH, B with BH, etc. Jodhpur(s) is an ordinary word to horse folks and fashionistas. Reading it, even for the first time, understand that the H belongs to and softens the D, and has nothing to do with the P in the next syllable.

Oats, common grain oats, have the Latin name Avena sativa. Aveeno, the trademark anti-itch lotion, gets its name from the generic name for oats, and for the ability of oats to sooth itching and irritability. See also Ribena, the trademark name for the drink made from Ribes nigrum, the blackcurrant. Ribes serves as a host to a fungus destructive of the Eastern White Pine, an important tree in the USA; because of this, blackcurrants are not allowed to be grown here. Though they, and the drink made of them, are very popular in the UK, they are hardly encountered this side of the pond. Forgive our Aveeno and we won’t resent your Ribena.

CJ was a character on a show that was popular when I didn’t have TV (by choice)…and that relates to a moment in my past. About a quarter century ago, in the middle of the night as I drove along I-95 in Connecticut, I pulled in to a rest stop to use the facilities. At the same moment, a stretch limo parked opposite me. A person from that limo was walking up the path and I did a little double take, thinking “I know him from somewhere…” He saw that recognition on my face and steeled himself for a greeting or gushing that would never come, because I was and still largely am showbiz illiterate. When I got home, I called my TV obsessed friend and exclaimed: “I peed next to that guy!” — “What guy?” “The guy I like from the show you like on TV!” — “Josh, from the West Wing? Bradley Whitford?” “Yeah, him!” He was relieved that I hadn’t interacted with him, but, frankly, I didn’t know his name, his character’s name, or the name of the show he was on. That is how the crossword puzzles make me feel all the time.

Wonderful ride. This is what I look forward to!

I’ve pointed this out before, but here goes again: In the overwhelming majority of cases where the theme answers and revealer are in the Downs exclusively, their placement is directly related to the theme: bottomless would not work with Acrosses, while endless would have worked either way. Ditto for themes that play on “rising” (only works with Downs) vs. “backwards” (works either way). So anytime a theme shows up in the Downs, it’s a good bet that getting it depends on asking why.

Harvey and Seeley Mudd and others in that family are worth looking into. They did a lot of good things with their money. I haven’t had crêpes Suzette since somewhere around 1982 but now I want some. As all of my iris are now in bloom, I wanted iridesce, but opalesce will do fine. Both lovely words.

Loved it! Each one a different trick. A perfect follow up puzzle for the point I tried to make earlier: ask questions of the grid.

Thanks for pointing out the sentence made from the bottom three lines. Very funny and most of us would probably have missed it. Good luck - unless you have tenure (or even if you do) - teaching social studies in Spanish in the unfolding future.

Comedian Wyatt Cenac is an amazement of dry humor, deadpan, irony, self-parody. He plays the lead in the unfortunately short-lived series “People of Earth” and it is hilarious. Oh, for a third season! If the name Wyatt Cenac doesn’t ring a bell, and if you like dry, droll humor, look him up!

The first clue gave me a smile, since the Manet painting is seen frequently in musical environments and especially in flute studios. The clue used the silly English language name of the painting “The Young Flautist”, rather than the painter’s name “Le Fifre” - “The Fifer.” The uniform and instrument both show that this is a military fifer, and not a flutist. The same problem would occur if a painting of a bugler playing a bugle in military uniform were called “The Trumpeter.” The position of the fingers (showing a nominal F natural being played) is so accurate and natural that it proves that the young musician sent to Manet’s studio was really a fifer and that Manet knew how to see as well as how to paint. Archibald Willard’s famous painting “The Spirit of ’76”, aka “Yankee Doodle”, includes two side drummers and a fifer, showing a flag bearer in the background on a battlefield. The military role of bugles, drums, fifes (and bagpipes) along with flags and standards sets them apart from music and art and makes them signalers, coordinators, morale boosters, and, often, vulnerable targets in traditional warfare. So call the kid a fifer, he was (in the Imperial Guard of Napoleon III, according to his uniform).

I’m not convinced Sam’s column gets - or at least gets across - the full theme: The three wise men are two men, each of whose name includes three wyes. The four-H leaders are two leaders, each of whose name includes four aitches. Very clean theme. I worked with the husband of a happy couple who were very different in their personalities. I asked how they had met. They said they bumped into each other crawling under the tables at a Rathskeller in Germany. The large steins of beer came with a 1-Mark surcharge that you got back when you returned them to the bar; both had learned (as American students abroad) that they could find these in plenty near the end of a rowdy night.

Fantastic Saturday puzzle. Inroads leading to ahas and nothing developing to everything in a very satisfying way. I did remember the extra letter in Chewbacca’s species name, but didn’t remember whether it was the I or E that got doubled. I highly recommend the strategy of leaving blank squares - including whole word blanks - for later: WOOKI-ES ( i or e?) SEEM-O (s or t?) - - NS (ca or ti?) -OS (l or d?) - - PPY (zi or pe?) In other recent puzzles AMEBA- (e or s?) etc. Taking away the pressure to put _something_ in lessens the difficulties unnecessarily added by having wrong letters in place. That got me down to a single square where Boom crossed Bails, which I guessed correctly. Half my average time, twice my average enjoyment on this one.

A bit on pentad… when Greek numbers form the root of a word for “so many of something”, the Greek suffix -ad is what accomplishes the function. monad - 1 of something, a unit, an individual duad/dyad - 2 of something, a pair triad - 3 of something, in music a chord of 3 notes tetrad - 4 of something pentad - 5 of something hexad - 6 heptad - 7 octad - 8 ennead - 9 decad/decade - 10 of something, not just years All of these will come up in the puzzles; decade, triad, dyad and monad are not unknown in real life. The Latin equivalents duet/duple(t), trio/triple(t), quadruple(t)/quartet, quintuple(t)/quintet, sextuple(t)/sextet, septuple(t)/septet, octuple(t)/octet, nonuple(t)/nonet are probably more familiar. The one that raises eyebrows most in the crosswords and Spelling Bee is “ennead” for a group of nine.

I had what is for me a rather common experience: everything filled except the “opening” corner, top left. All I had was sine, for a long time. Stop for “organ piece” was, for this professional organist, an interesting entry. “Pulling out all the stops” is a relatively well-known expression and comes from the world of the pipe organ. On a pipe organ, a row of pipes that make the same sound but at different pitches is a “rank”. The pipes in a rank are sitting on top of a chest of pressurized air so that, when a key is pressed, a valve opens to admit air to the pipe corresponding to that key. But there is a slip of wood with holes drilled in it that slides back and forth, either closing off the flow of air (stopping it) or admitting air (opening it) to that rank. When the knob for a rank or group of ranks is pulled out, the holes line up and the pipe gets air and sounds: so “pulling out all the stops” means “the whole shebang”: letting every sound sound; nothing held back. A good organist knows to unleash that full sound judiciously, so that the power of the instrument is held in check until the right moment. Unfortunately, too many organists do not understand this… see also: action movies