Today’s Newsday Saturday crossword is by Brad Wilber. Though it’s still a Themeless Saturday, it felt to me like a Stumper, providing twenty-six minutes of difficulty. That’s a good thing. 1-A, seven letters, “Etsy merchant,” offered a deceptively easy start.
Some clue-and-answer pairs I especially liked:
3-D, fifteen letters, “Fat-free plan.” One of two fifteen-letter answers.
10-D, fifteen letters, “Card game oxymoron.” Not that difficult to figure out, but still difficult to figure out. I have no idea what the answer refers to — yet.
17-A, five letters, “Draft.” Just for the ambiguity. Noun? Verb? Beer? Winds? Writing?
21-A, three letters, “Upside-down rooster.” Could I be the only person to have imagined a broken weathervane?
28-A, six letters, “Chase-scene entertainment.” The clue improves the answer. You’d think first of something that happens in a chase scene, at least if you were me.
38-A, six letters, “Did due diligence at a dealer.” I like the alliteration.
41-A, five letters, “Unbroken.” Clever.
41-D, seven letters, “Put page numbers on.” The answer is likely to strike a solver as utterly ridiculous or ridiculously great. I say ridiculously great.
46-D, six letters, “Tin Woodman’s topper.” Easy, but I like it because it reminds me of one of my dad’s favorite trivia questions: what is Dorothy’s last name? And guess what: Tin’s name is indeed Woodman, not Woodsman. Who knew?
One clue I’d question: 37-D, eight letters, “Start of an Austen declaration.” I think of the opening sentence of Pride and Prejudice: ITISATRU — and then run out of letters. Is the declaration this clue points to all that well known? It may be. I may not be Austenite enough to know that.
No spoilers; the answers (and some commentary) are in the comments.
