Today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper, by Stan Newman, is a good one, more difficult than last week’s but still in the realm of Yes I Can. That, by the way, is the title of Sammy Davis Jr.’s autobiography. My dad had the paperback when I was a kid, with the title in big yellow capital letters on the cover. And remember when the edges of paperback pages were stained red or yellow? When did that practice end?
But I digress.
I especially liked the design of this puzzle’s center, with three eleven-letter answers descending a staircase. My only region of difficulty: the southwest corner, where 45-A, five letters, “Old-time nickname for Elizabeth” and 43-D, five letters, “Legalese, for instance” got me into difficulty. For 43-D I tried two wrong answers before hitting on the correct one.
Some clue-and-answer pairs I especially liked:
10-D, nine letters, “Script step.” Because I knew it.
15-A, nine letters, “Some dough, but not much.” What kind of dough?
31-D, nine letters, “Arrived with a bang.” Or several.
33-A, eleven letters, “Type of wooden siding.” The noun helped me better understand a verb.
34-D, eight letters, “Psych out.” Psych instantly puts me back in high school, when one was psyched up or out or just plain psyched, with up implied.
44-A, three letters, “Shake, rattle and roll.” I once sat next to Big Joe Turner at the bar in Tramps, where he was relaxing before doing a set. I
a. wanted to give him his privacy, orYour choice. Either way, this clue adds value to the answer.
b. was too shy to say hello.
45-A, five letters, “Old-time nickname for Elizabeth.” My first guess was off by a letter.
48-D, four letters, “My Way autobiographer.” Aah, so this must be why I started thinking about Yes I Can.
56-A, five letters, “Word from the Greek for ‘apple.’” I feel I should know this.
57-A, nine letters, “Talk host whose full first name ends in ‘let.’” Fun trivia, though it’s not trivial to the name’s owner.
One clue-and-answer I’d quibble with a little: 28-D, five letters, “Odyssey king.” Well, yes, he’s in there, but I think the clue is more than a little arcane.
No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.
A related post
Which Joe Turner? (Getting The New York Times to make a correction)
comments: 1
ELSIE. LINGO. (I tried ARGOT and, getting desperate, USAGE.)
TABLEREAD. BEERMONEY. STOMPEDIN. BATTENBOARD.
DOAJOBON. JAR. ELSIE again.
ANKA. (He wrote the English lyrics of “My Way.”)
MELON, or μῆλον. STARJONES.
MINOS is named in the Odyssey, as one of the many red-carpet figures Odysseus claims to have seen in the world of the dead. And when Odysseus dissembles to Penelope in book 19, he claims to be a grandson of Minos. But it’s difficult to think of Minos as a king “in” the poem, like, say, Nestor or Alcinous.
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