FC

The heat in today's comments around NENE made me wonder. Seems there must be a puzzler's term (analogous to "Natick") for the short words that are wildly overrepresented in crossword puzzles because they are so convenient to the constructor trying to complete a block. These words, the crossword equivalent of cliches, eventually become a near-automatic part of the solver's toolkit. They are sometimes obscure (NENE) but not necessarily (OREO). New candidates arise (AC/DC). Others, once ubiquitous, go out of fashion (ERLE Stanley Gardner and Mel OTT) but still resurface occasionally as nostalgia for old-time puzzlers. On the off-chance no term exists, "Nene" actually seems like a a good candidate. It certainly has staying power -- I remember getting short shrift when complaining about it to an experienced puzzler and that was almost 50 years ago.

Being from MA and the right age to follow The Cars, I was looking for Czech, not Swedish. But definitely not a complaint since that dispute meant a trip to Wikipedia, where I learned about yet another chapter in Ms Porizkova’s rather remarkable life, this one involving Olof Palme.

I’m clear on why BABY GROOT is new to me, but how well-known or obscure is “Elvis at Stax”?

For the Magic the Gathering clue — it felt like a fun homage on the part of the cluer and the crosses were reasonable, okay. But is there something special about this card that makes it well-known among players? (If I’m understanding the search results correctly, the number of different cards produced across the history of the game is in the 10,000’s.)