Today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper, by Steve Mossberg, is not too easy, not too tough. And there’s nothing predictable about the fill: no ERA, no ERE, no ETA. It’s a fine puzzle.
Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:
1-A, four letters, “Hangouts where TVs hang.” So many places with TVs hanging. A first guess is likely to go wrong.
7-D, fifteen letters, “Nearing the end.” A wonderful fifteen-letter answer, funny in its pompous specificity.
10-D, eight letters, “Usually reserved.” I thought of tables — say, J.J. Hunsucker’s table in Sweet Smell of Success. But I suspect that J.J.’s table was always reserved.
14-A, ten letters, "Thumbs-down pair." No doubt meant to prompt recollection of At the Movies.
19-A, five letters, "Part of a Valentine’s Day delivery." Hah.
23-A, eight letters, “Bogus brown.” The alliteration adds value.
23-D, five letters, “Parlor implement.” What kind of parlor? Here too a first guess is likely to go wrong.
26-A, fifteen letters, “Brief musical excerpt.” A wonderful side-to-side answer.
26-D, six letters, “Racket on the radio.” Turn down that noise!
34-D, five letters, “Lacking seasoning.” Nice misdirection.
40-A, five letters, “Kilt feature.” I’m not sure how I know about this feature, but I do. (I have never worn a kilt.)
48-A, four letters, “Q preceders.” A nice way to take the letter away from lunatic ideation.
50-D, five letters, “Top with a flop.” Special resonance for my fambly.
56-A, ten letters, “Insincere antic accolade.” I’m back in high school, or a Seinfeld episode.
No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.
Saturday, April 16, 2022
Today’s Saturday Stumper
Friday, April 15, 2022
“The blue rode well in the corn”
Jubal Merton, sixty, wheelwright and blacksmith:
Ronald Blythe, Akenfield: Portrait of an English Village (1969).
Also from Akenfield
Davie’s hand : Rubbish : “Just ‘music’” : “Caught in the old ways”
Barry’s tea
[Barry Fitzgerald for Lipton Tea. Life, October 7, 1946. Click for a larger view.]
I found this advertisement while finding something else. Too bad Barry Fitzgerald didn’t endorse Barry’s Tea. (In 1946, it wasn’t available in the States.)
Related reading
All OCA tea posts (Pinboard)
Thursday, April 14, 2022
“Caught in the old ways”
Christopher Falconer, thirty-nine, gardener:
Ronald Blythe, Akenfield: Portrait of an English Village (1969).
Also from Akenfield
Davie’s hand : Rubbish : “Just ‘music’”
[Mr. Falconer seems like a candidate for the Village Green Preservation Society.]
Genius
Buy large amount of stock. Refuse board seat. Express lack of confidence about management. (If management is so lousy, whydja buy so much stock?) Offer to buy company. Threaten to sell stock if offer is not accepted, thus tanking stock.
Man, that Elon Musk must be a genius. Who could ever have seen through these tactics?
[Context: Elon Musk offers to buy Twitter.]
Wednesday, April 13, 2022
Recently updated
Outtakes (9) A reader sussed out the identity of a mysterious store appearing in two NYC tax photographs.
“Just ‘music’”
David Collyer, twenty-nine, forester and Labour Party organizer:
Ronald Blythe, Akenfield: Portrait of an English Village (1969).
Also from Akenfield
Davie’s hand : Rubbish
More Stranger Things
I dunno — this trailer appears to promise a season devoid of all the charm that has made the series worth watching. But as Elaine said, we need to be good Americans and watch anyway.It’s time. See you on the other side.
— Netflix (@netflix) April 12, 2022
Stranger Things 4 Vol. 1 premieres May 27 pic.twitter.com/vMbYkZft0M
I have enjoyed seeing a Chock full o’Nuts can, the World Book Encyclopedia, and a pocket notebook in previous seasons of Stranger Things.
[As the trailer makes clear, you-know-who is still alive.]
Lost bookstores
From The New York Times, a tour in photographs: “Remembrance of Bookstores Past.” In 1950, there were an estimated 386 bookstores in New York City. In 2022, fewer than 100.
