Ace

Before pivoting my career to manufacturing life-sized cardboard cutouts of Ted Danson, I worked in a LEATHER BAR briefly after college. It was an edifying experience for two reasons: 1) the owner kept a 26 volume set of the Encyclopedia Britannica behind the bar which I read avidly in my spare time, and 2) I was listening to an audio CD of lectures on the Civil War that summer. The one thing I never understood was why General Grant failed to entrench his troops prior to the surprise attack at the Battle of Shiloh. It seems to me that a wartime leader and strategist of his intellect and experience would have had the foresight to avoid such a costly blunder. It’s salient questions like this about our nation’s darkest era, which will always remind me of the smell of leather and the sound of The Village People blaring through a PA system.

Took me 47 minutes to complete but to be fair, I was conducting the LA Phil in a performance of Sibelius No. 2 while solving tonight.

“Please like and subscribe” on YouTube videos is called BEGGING, and it’s insufferable.

Brutal for a Thursday. Also, the phrase is I’VE BEEN HAD.

[Bossa, _____, swing, rock] MISS A BEAT [Sharp, _____, three-point, U] LOSE A TURN [Ace, _____, 3, 4] DROP A DEUCE

Huh. I’ve gone my whole life apparently incorrectly using deplore as a synonym for despise.

Felt like a Friday puzzle till I stopped attempting the northwest section and saw the rest was a solid Tuesday. Then was able to come back to NW. But man was that a rough quadrant.

Some esoteric references for a Wednesday.

This is the kind of puzzle that makes me nostalgic for my salad days as a naive, carefree twenty three year old Prince of Monaco. Puttering about on the French Riviera without a clue as to what I would do with my life. Living day to day, a rather bohemian existence, hobnobbing with royalty and dignitaries, gala events, global summits, exploring the arts and world culture through my political influence and bottomless bank account. Now, as a middle aged man with a stable, if not lucrative vinyl siding business in Kenosha I can exhale a sigh of relief knowing everything eventually worked out, but back then the future was little more than a daunting abyss of uncertainty and crippling self doubt.

Took me three hours and twenty nine minutes but I finally solved it by entering a rebus for every square with all 26 letters of the alphabet in each one.

Odd choice to make every single answer DOODYHEAD, but with 365 of these to publish a year I guess they can’t all be winners.

I got BLOVIATES and GEST because those are common words found in everyday use by every human on earth, but ROTH?? How does that even make sense?? The clue is [Veronica ______, author of the “Divergent” novels]. Like, WHAT? So I get that “author” means “composer” in this context, and “novels” means “new” or “news” in the plural, but how does news about a composer equate to ROTH? And what on earth does Veronica from the Archie comics have to do with anything? Is the implication that she has “diverged” from her lucrative career as a professional Lyndon Johnson impersonator (as outlined in detail in the comics) and become a newsworthy composer of secular art song and tone poem? Like…WHAT??! Look, this was a fine puzzle up to a point but I’m sorry, that clue is just ridiculous.

Brutal. Especially the northwest quadrant. Can someone explain to me how AMAT is a Latin “I” word? Amat translates as he/she/it loves, not I love. If constructor meant “L word” they should have used a capital L instead of a lower case which read to me as a capital i. Also, in 44 years of walking this earth I’ve never seen scheds spelled SKEDS.

As an added personal challenge I decided to attempt today’s puzzle whilst bound in a straitjacket and suspended upside down over the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. I’ll spare details, but needless to say after 6 hours and an NYPD airlift across the Upper Bay, this wasn’t a personal best for me brahs.

Awesome puzzle! Haven’t had this much fun since me, Rasputin, and Mordecai “Three Finger” Brown got stranded in Guadalajara and started a mariachi trio working for tips to rent pack mules to ride back up across the border. I’ll spare you the details, but Rasputin ended up getting stuck on a señorita in San Juan del Rio and me and Brown wound up on a garbage barge out of Baja for the next forty seven years. Good times..

I only met Donny Pleasance twice, but they were both memorable occasions. The first time I was walking into Musso & Frank in the mid ‘70s and he was walking out. We sort of bumped into each other and I (rather wittily, I thought) remarked, “pardon me, Mr. Blofeld,” in my very best Elaine Stritch impression. He sort of looked back and reeled, before bending over and violently losing his lunch into the ashtray by the valet stand. The second time was years later in Gstaad, I was coming off the ski lift with my publicist’s wife when I spotted Don, just preparing to launch down the slope. I snuck up behind him and, in my very best Ludwig-van-Beethoven-doing-a-velociraptor impression, shrieked, “SPECTRE!” He sort of looked back at me, then wobbled a bit, before clumsily careening down the mountainside, leaving a trail of technicolor disgorgement in his wake. Strictly speaking, there was a third occasion as well, involving my spot-on Mary Todd Lincoln impression and a subsequent loudspeaker announcement canceling the rest of the evening’s festivities on account of a Mr. Pleasance having been taken rather suddenly and violently ill, but I don’t count that time because I had just had my eyeballs tattooed and actually thought I was talking to Empress Wu Zetian at the time.

One of my first gigs out of florist’s college was operating the Zamboni at the local ICE ARENA in Tallahassee. Then home to the Tiger Sharks, I would drive the ‘Boni out onto the ice between the periods and make it smooth and supple. I’d wet it down and make it real slick. Now, anyone familiar with hockey knows that the fans tend to get a little rowdy, especially later in the game after a few pitchers from the ol’ ALE TAP, and it wasn’t uncommon for them to hurl various items onto the ice in my general direction, such as empty beer cups, garments of clothing, small odd-toed ungulates, things of that nature, my brothers. Well, one game the crowd was particularly ornery and restless and somebody threw an actual Zamboni out onto the ice. A second Zamboni right onto the rink. I had my headphones on and was rocking out to my favorite cassette tape, “Phil Collins Plays Stravinsky’s Greatest Hits,” not having noticed the massive obstruction directly ahead, and crashed right into it. I was thrown clear onto the ice, and my rogue Zamboni (now ghost-riding full speed ahead with no driver), ran right over my left leg, shellacking it to a shiny, icy finish. Well, that was decades ago, but it’s why they still call me “Smooth Foot Rogers” down in the Panhandle, brahs.

I only met Daniel Craig on two occasions but they were both memorable. The first time was at the Met Gala in ‘86. I was working as a bus boy and accidentally spilled heavy cream on the crotch of his trousers. He was very kind and didn’t make a fuss, despite the fact that he was no doubt wearing something one-of-a-kind and irreplaceable, and I always looked upon him charitably after that. The second time was years later in Rio. There is a restaurant and bar nested within one of the swimming pools at the Copacabana Palace and I was working there as a bus boy in the mid aughts. Mr. Craig was having lunch with several guests and I accidentally spilled bananas foster on the crotch of his swimsuit. He was surprisingly relaxed about it and we all had a good laugh. Technically we had a third encounter on the moon last year (I was working part time there as a busboy), involving a custard stain on the inner leg of his spacesuit, but he refused to speak with me afterward, so I can’t rightly call it a meeting.

Not gonna lie, this puzzle reminded me of the time I met up with Elaine Stritch for coffee at Cafe Reggio in the 80s. We talked about Sondheim, the shifting tastes on Broadway at the time, and the way Bruce Vilanch always seemed to sneak up on you when you lest expected it. We shared some laughs, and a tiramisu, and began to wax a bit nostalgic for the days of the Gershwin and Rogers musicals of the old days. At some point we realized afternoon had turned to dusk, and it was time to pay the bill. That’s when my cappuccino started shaking and bubbling out of nowhere. And then sure enough, as if on cue, out popped Vilanch. Right out of the coffee cup.

I love a Saturday puzzle that makes me feel smart. Unrelated to today, but what is the general feeling about using the help functions among solvers? I think using the “reveal” function is a definite no-no if you want to consider having solved the puzzle (as is looking up a clue online, or googling something within the clue), but I think using the “check” function occasionally is..sort of okay? It doesn’t give answers but it helps move things along and avoids getting stuck forever because of a wrong square. I’m at a point in my solving where I generally solve through weds (sometimes Thurs) with no help. But Thurs on I tend to use the “check” assist as needed. Curious what others think about these aids.

Is there a name for the phenomenon where the same answer appears in puzzles during the same week, or relative period of time? ADRATE appears today and Monday this week, but I haven’t seen it in other puzzles. Is this a pure coincidence, since the constructors are different people and likely not working together, or intentional? Does the editor have something to do with it? I notice it from time to time (I actually noticed it a lot more frequently when I began doing puzzles regularly a few years ago) and it always jumps out at me. Sometimes it’s just a common enough crossword answer that it seems unremarkable, but when it happens with answers like ADRATE it seems more intentional.

I grew up in Punxsutawney and I can tell you first hand that the groundhog is actually a dude named Gooch Johnson wearing a gopher suit. He’s been doing it for years and it never ceases to amuse me that the whole world believes he’s actually a groundhog. Also of note, I was living in Punx when they shot the film and I have a brief cameo in one scene. I play the groundhog and my name is a Gooch Johnson brah

This one had me over a barrel. Literally, this is first time I attempted to solve a crossword while hurtling over Niagara Falls in a barrel. I say first time, but it won’t be the last my brothers!

I take umbrage with AGS. The plural of Attorney General is Attorneys General, not Attorney Generals. We make nouns plural in English, not adjectives. Anyone who served under Jed Bartlet knows this all too well.

Best caviar I ever tasted was at a birthday party at Mickey Rooney’s house in the 80s. He had fashioned a kind of swing up on the ceiling and was swinging back and forth and rolling little clusters of roe down his pantleg for the guests to catch. It was delicious! Later in the evening there was an elephant parade and Rooney got up on one of the elephants and started rolling clusters of caviar down the elephant’s trunk for us to catch. After that we all ended up in the pool and Mickey was blowing clusters of roe through a plastic tube into the water for us to swim up to and catch. The Mickster always knew how to entertain in style!

I find the most clever and trickiest puzzles are those that seem to invite incorrect entries. Entries you are sure must be right, but which eventually prove to be wrong. 54a I was certain I was being brilliant by insisting it must be some form of ELEVENS_ or ELEVENIT, even though the tenses didn’t agree, because “taking it to 11” is definitely the most clever, inside version of “taking things up a notch.” Similarly in 16a RELIGION had the right number of letters, but proved wrong. There were several that fit into this latter category. I often wonder if these seeming bait-and-switches are deliberate on the part of the constructor, or purely coincidental. Having solved for a number of years now, this is a phenomenon that comes up consistently with harder, well-crafted puzzles, so I like to assume they are intentional, and in which case, the cap is doffed, because that’s some dope a— sh—.

Never heard of taking down a campsite referred to as “breaking camp.” Clear answer to “something to make or break” is CASE, and held me up for nearly 30 min as a result. I wonder when something like occurs, is the constructor deliberately being tricky with the solver knowing they will initially assume CASE, and then have to backtrack, or is it just a coincidence or lazy/thoughtless clueing? Hoping the former, but it always feels like the latter especially when muttering profanities after 20 plus minutes of head scratching. It’s a weird thing with these puzzles, there can be such a fine line between fun/clever/tricky and downright annoying. And of course others may have not considered CASE for this clue as their first guess (though I’d find that nearly impossible to believe).

Sorry, it was an ok puzzle but I’m not understanding others’ seeming awe about the constructor and the construction. Words like “brilliance” “marvel” and “impressive” to describe this grid aren’t landing with me.

MIEN and METE on a Tuesday? Nah, this is Wednesday plus material.

The best clue they could come up with for STRAPS is things found on a golf bag? Really? There’s lazy and then there’s just phbbblbbbtt…

Totally fine Halloween puzzle but I really don’t get why we have to all be put through the forced woke agenda of spelling out the latest “best practice” ogre and demon pronouns. We get it, it’s a changing underworld and language is an evolving construct. But can we please check the politi-ghoul agenda at the crypt, and just stick to regular undead clueing please?

We lost something culturally special with the passing of album liner notes. Reading personal insight on the music while listening was a wonderful ritual that gave engaging perspective, and often some interesting behind the scenes insider info. For example, I never knew the piano at Abbey Road was so incurably out of tune that Lennon had to perform the vocal on “Imagine” while submerged in a tank of tomato aspic to get the pitches to match. Or that the drum intro on “50 Ways To Leave Your Lover” was actually Richard Nixon shaking his jowls into an SM57. Often what we think of a song on the radio can be tempered dramatically by learning more about the artistic intentions of the songwriter. For example, without the pithy and erudite revelations found in Andre The Giant’s liner notes for Joni Mitchell’s magnum opus “Ladies of the Canyon,” I would have never known that “Big Yellow Taxi” was not a metaphorical comment on the civilizational destruction of natural beauty, but rather a cry for help from desperate woman in the depths of a toxic obsession with livery cabs. Or that Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” was really about a colonoscopy gone wrong.

I had the first two theme clues solved and assumed the theme was about Vegas/gambling, so when I got to the revealer I felt confident the answer was DOYOUFEELLUCKY. Only problem was it’s one letter too long for the boxes. So I printed out the puzzle and drew an additional box at the end. Worked like a charm brah.

That owl’s name is “Little Hoot.” I knew him briefly back in ‘86 while working a summer gig at the Maricopa County Fair in Arizona. He was operating the ferris wheel and I was working a booth on the midway. Every day we’d see each other at lunchtime in the staff area. Little Hoot would always order the same thing: three corn dogs with cheese sauce on the side for dipping, and a bag of bbq potato chips. One day I showed up late and he was already sat at the picnic table, working on those dogs. By the time I sat down next to him with my own lunch, he was nearly finished. I said, “Hey Little Hoot, you chow down those corndogs any faster, I’ll have to call you ‘Corn Hoot!’” Well, Little Hoot didn’t like that one bit. He looked up at me with those piercing eyes and just stared, shaking and frothing at the break. But like, REALLY intensely with the frothing. I didn’t know what to do so I just sat there looking back at him. We sat like that for three hours, he and I. Just me looking at him, and him shaking and frothing and staring back at me. Later that night I learned that little Hoot got sloshed and died in a bar brawl out in Cave Creek. We never really got to know one another that well, but he was an interesting bird, I’ll say that.