Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Puzzle by Adam G. Perl, edited by Will Shortz
The Superman comic newspaper, DAILYPLANET (57A. Publication that is the key to this puzzle’s theme), along with Lois Lane, Clark Kent, and Perry White, whose last names are included in the entries of LANECHANGES (21A. They require signals); KENTSTATE (28A. Ohio university whose team is the Golden Flashes), and WHITELIES (47A. Fibs), are today’s inter-related entries.
Thin as that may seem (where’s Jimmy Olsen?), there are a few more possibilities to throw into this office-worker oriented puzzle -- LOGIN (16A. Go online); OBIT (17A. Final notice?); DATA (42A. Facts and figures); RETYPED (44D. Entered again), MEMO (65A. Exec’s note); LATE (21D. After the buzzer); and PEONS (56D. Doers of drudgery). When I set pen to paper to write this, I thought, “well, it can’t be that weak, so in trying to make this puzzle coalesce a bit more than it’s thin DAILYPLANET premise, I decided to google “Superman characters” to see if the entries ELIZABETHI (3D. 1998 role for Cate Blanchett) or ADAMANDEVE (31D. Genesis duo) contained parts of the comic book’s newspaper staff but no -- it’s just a very thin staff!
HORNET (10D Big buzzer) was part of a comic book character’s moniker, but where’s SUPERMAN when you need him? Other characters in the puzzle include WIZ (20A. Diana Ross musical, with “The”); EUBIE (2D. Blake of jazz); ONEAL (5D. N.B.A.’s Shaquille); ALEC (8D. Guinness of stage and screen); ELISE (29D. Beethoven dedicatee); EBAN (33D. Israel’s Abba); 42. Rap’s Dr. DRE; the SENATE (49D. Hundred on the Hill), and LADS (60D. Little shavers).
There are many look-alike entries -- RASH and DASH, TULANE and LANE, LINE and LATE, LODE and DOTE, RATA and DATA, ERA and REA, HULA, ALA and ALAS, EPA, PAT and NAP, etc.
After a few more longer entries, KARNAK, CLEANSE, CREPES, GERMAN, HOTDOG and SCHLEP, the puzzle nestles into a pit of crosswordese with such fill (or is it?) as NAIL, ONE, SEA, BET, DAB, ASH, RHOS, UTE, DIE, STET, AGOG, ALOT, SIDE, ENES, TATA, ASTO, HOI, ERAT, WEDS, MOW, ICON and NON and on and on -- along the way we get the variety of longer standards, e.g., CHASE, ERODE, OKLA, CHINO, ASCAP, STONE, OVEN, HONED, STET, SHOWS, RESET, alll AIMED for the shredder!
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