Today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper is by Matthew Sewell, and it’s pretty easy by Sewell standards. But not too easy. Stacks of three eleven-letter answers give the puzzle a bracing start and finish. I started with an eleven-letter clue, 17-A, “Source for Vermeer's blues.” Blue paint — it’s gotta be, right?
Clue-and-answer pairs that I especially liked:
4-D. three letters, “Henry Louis Gates, circa 1971.” PHD? No, too young.
13-D, eight letters, “‘Outrageous!’” I imagine the answer as spoken by Nancy Ritz.
22-D, eight letters, “Built like the Eiffel Tower.” A lovely word that should see more use.
32-A, seven letters, “What Lysol lacks.” If you say so.
34-A, five letters, “Union capital.” Clever.
34-D, three letters, “Hip replacement?” I, like, dig.
36-D, eight letters, “Kerosene antecedent.” Makes me think of a certain work of literature.
39-A, four letters, “Half of New Delhi.” A smart way to clue a bit of familiar crosswordese. I saw it right away.
No spoilers: the answers are, like, in the comments.
Saturday, June 13, 2020
Today’s Saturday Stumper
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LAPISLAZULI. ELI.
THENERVE. (Imagine Nancy, indignant.)
LATTICED. AMMONIA. DOWRY.
DEF. WHALEOIL.
ELHI. (Crosswordese for K–12, elementary to high school.)
I got stuck forever at the center right, with BADEN for "Half of a hyphenated haven"
32-A, seven letters, “What Lysol lacks.” If you say so. : Ammonia
This reminds me of a packet of rice crackers that proudly proclaimed that they were gluten-free. How can you claim the lack of something that was never there in the first place? They might as well have claimed that the crackers were glass-shard-free.
Steven
Baden: that’d be clever. How about “Either half of a hyphenated haven”? I didn’t understand HIDEY at first. It must be “hidey-hole”?
I guess ammonia-free might be a selling point because of the danger of ammonia and bleach being used together. Lysol is also gluten-free, right?
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