06.19.07

A to Z -- Q-less in Academia

Rose Center Planetarium of the American Museum of Natural History, New York City

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Puzzle by John Underwood, edited by Will Shortz

Before any comment on today's puzzle, let me recommend Crossword Nerdity. The mission statement: “Crossnerd is a new journal that I'm bringing into existence for the purpose of tracking where I get stuck on crossword puzzles. I do this in hope of observing patterns in my mistakes (there definitely are some) and then exploiting this data to better myself. Whee hee.” The author of the blog is identified as "Crossnerd" living in Santa Cruz, California.

And, of course, visit Michael, Amy and Linda!

I wanted to get that information right up front, because I know there are different strokes for different folks and this Tuesday’s New York Times crossword puzzle just didn’t do much for me -- but I’m sure there is lots to say about it.

74 defined words and 74 entries, first entry ATOZ (1A The gamut) -- the puzzle has a representative from each letter A to Z except Q. A tinge of academia permeates the air with TERP (40A Maryland collegian), PLANETARIA (59A Sites for stargazers), JOYCE (38A Leopold Bloom’s creator), NORTHAMPTONMA (20A Home of Smith College), WESTPOINTNY (29A Home of the U.S. Military Academy), SOUTHBENDIN (44A Home of Notre Dame), EASTLANSINGMI (52A Home of Michigan State), the last four being birds-of-a-feather entries with "north", "west", "south" and "east".

The remaining 66 defined words and their entries include EXPARTNERS (11D Former lovers, e.g.), EPICUREANS (28D Devotees of fine dining), GAMEKEEPER (18A Wildlife manager), SCOTIAN (34D Nova ____), EMANATE (19D Flow out), around a dozen six-letter entries, a few five-letter entries, a few less than twenty four-letter entries, and about a dozen three-letter. AEON (61A With 64-Across 2005 Charlize Theron title role) sits atop FLUX (64A See 61-Across) to form the name of a film starring Ms. Theron. ONRIO (49A “Blame It ____” [Michael Caine film]) rises from obscurity -- and ALONSO (26D “The Tempest” king) strides along the left wall of the grid awaiting to be blogged by C zar of Shakespeare and the NY Times Crossword Puzzle (last post 04.24.07) -- when his hiatus ENDS (50A Most-cooked parts of roasts).

Favorite in today's puzzle -- EDAMES (6D Mingo player on "Daniel Boone") -- reminded me of his hilarious appearance on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson -- Ames throws a tomahawk into a plywood dummy, and the hatchet lands in the dummy's pelvis.-- view "clip" HERE.

Recommend The NY Sun Crossword Puzzle (M-F) (free on-line puzzle) and its’ blogger extraordinaire Green Genius. Also, consider visits to Crosswords by Ray Hamel and Crossword Bebop.

For today’s cartoon, go to The Crossword Puzzle Illustrated.

To go to original post with illustrations and puzzle grid, click on title at the beginning of commentary.