Today’s Saturday Stumper

Let t equal time and p equal pleasure: sometimes, only sometimes, the t and p of a Newsday Saturday Stumper will begin to move in opposite directions. The longer the puzzle takes, the less pleasure it offers. So it was, at least for me, with today’s puzzle, by Frank Longo.

Too much obscurity: 7-D, three letters, “How a ...Silence title starts.” I looked up silence , title , and the answer, and I think I understand, though this bit will not be going into long-term storage.

Too much obscurity: 11-D, seven letters, “Company with a $25 billion IPO (2014).” Ah yes, a wonderful year for IPOs.

Too much obscurity: 29-A, five letters, “Sports great who wrote the novel The Academy: Love Match .” We are speaking of a young-adult novel published in 2014. (Ah yes, a wonderful year for YA novels.) There is no reason anyone should be expected to know this answer.

Too much obscurity: 57-A, four letters, “Head of the services, for short.” I don’t think I’ve ever seen the answer in print.

11-D and 29-A seem like a matter of taking unobjectionable answers and finding out-of-the-way factoids with which to clue them. The clue for 57-A might be a matter of making an awkward answer fit. As for 7-D, who knows? Granted, these answers can all be had via crosses, but there’s little pleasure in that. What’s the point?

And one clue-and-answer that even for a nonbeliever might be jarring: 50-A, six letters, “Party with the Host.” I thought the context might be some reality show with a host named the Host. I did not think the Stumper would go where it went.

I did appreciate the four spanners in this puzzle, one of which was a giveaway (thank you), and one of which I really enjoyed. 17-A, fifteen letters, “Didn’t save face.”

36-A, fifteen letters, “Their last windows are opened on Christmas Eve.”

53-A, fifteen letters, “How humanity exists, per Kant.”

And my favorite, 31-A, fifteen letters, “I may stand for it.”

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.