MaPeel

Here's an extraneous fun fact about this puzzle: Does anyone remember the 2006 documentary from Patrick Creadon, Wordplay. It had cameos of several well known, life long puzzle solvers, one of whom was Ken Burns. I recently saw an extraordinary conversation on grief between Anderson Cooper and Ken Burns. Ken was particularly open about the devastating loss of his mother when he was 11, and how his father barely coped. But he allowed Ken to stay up late and watch movies with him. When Ken was 12, he witnessed his father cry for the first time watching a movie together, and Ken said that's when he decided he would be a filmmaker. The movie they were watching: Carol Reed's Odd Man Out. I imagine Ken is doing this puzzle as usual. I hope the unexpected appearance of that crucial film, out of context, out of nowhere, makes him smile.

Love the Joan of Arc clue. I live down the street from her.Her plinth was recently renovated and there was a lovely ceremony. I was in France for 2 weeks in September and I was taken with just how many monuments there are to her.

That was lovely, but them I love the poem. It was a touchstone for me when there was a tragic death in Central Park, because of snow. <a href="https://mapeel.blogspot.com/2010/02/stopping-by-woods-on-snowy-evening.html" target="_blank">https://mapeel.blogspot.com/2010/02/stopping-by-woods-on-snowy-evening.html</a> (Hi Chaminade, I went to Berner High School in Massapequa Park.)

Great to see James Joyce, and for something other than Ulysses or The Dead. "Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger." [I once wrote a piece on Dubliners and used this quote for the story.]