Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper, by Greg Johnson, made for a challenging half hour of solving. The puzzle looks daunting, with eleven-, thirteen-, and fifteen-letter answers across the top and bottom. I started with 16-A, four letters, “They’re easy to take,” and my incorrect answer was still good enough to get me started. When I put in my final answer, for 21-D, four letters, “Guy from Charlottesville,” I had no idea why the answer made sense and thought it couldn’t be right. Maybe it didn’t make sense. But it was correct. Done and baffled, that was me.

Oh, wait — I typed those sentences, and now the answer makes sense. My love/hate relationship with that kind of clue continues. These fingers, dear hearts, is always a-warrin’ and a-tuggin’, one agin t’other.

Some clue-and-answer pairs I especially liked:

7-D, four letters, “ER’s critical supply.” Clever, especially as the answer could be clued in a more straightforward way.

9-D, seven letters, “Window box favorite.” I don’t know why I was confident about the answer, but I was. Dowdy intuition, maybe.

12-A, thirteen letters, “Qualifier for a silly statement.” Fresh, lively, and surprisingly easy to see with a couple of crosses.

20-A, three letters, “Qtr.’s baker's dozen.” A good way to make a mundane answer Stumpery.

28-A, six letters, “Cultural center?” Well done.

30-A, four letters, “Fictional Autobiography subject (1847).” Yes, 1847!

32-A, four letters, “To-go pieces.” As above: a good way to, &c.

33-D, eight letters, “Important decade in analysis.” I don’t know whether to admire or lament the effort probably required to make this clue tricky.

41-D, six letters, “‘The ___ of the moth for the star’: Shelley.” Seeing Shelley in a puzzle always makes me think of my friend Rob Zseleczky, the consummate Shelley reader.

One quarrel: 5-D, five letters, “Numbers on angels.” This clue feels awfully forced in the interest of Stumping. On? No, about.

No spoilers: the answers are in the comments.