Today’s puzzle was musical. The clue at 33D was “Follow a composer’s notation … or a hint to interpreting four clues in this puzzle,” and the answer was READ MUSIC. But I don’t read music and I was able to solve it. Here’s what the constructors meant. At 17A the clue was “A♭?” You were supposed to know that meant “A flat” so the answer was APARTMENT. Get it? Flat is a musical symbol but it also is a term for apartment. There were three more like that.
B♯? was Be sharp, and the answer was LOOK ALIVE.
B♭? was Be flat, and the answer was LIE DOWN.
And the most controversial was E♯? which was E sharp and the answer was TECH SAVVY.
egs noted: This one was particularly tough because I don’t read letters. Fortunately, the extensive use of musical notation, which I do read, bailed me out.
Get this — the constructors today were Andrew Kingsley and Garrett Chalfin. Garrett is a freshman at U Chicago and Andrew was his teacher in HS. This is their third puzzle together.
And, speaking of teachers and students, the Individual Taxation course at Hunter College this semester is being taught by a young woman who was my student several hundred years ago. She’s great. And a law course at Hunter will be taught in the Fall by another young woman who went to school with my Caitlin slightly less than several hundred years ago. The youth may not be moving into The White House, but they are taking over the accounting program at Hunter. And not a moment too soon, kinahora.
Back to the puzzle, the clue for HAIKU at 53D was “A kind of poem / Found within this crossword clue / Serendipity.” Get it? The clue itself is a haiku. Rex conceded the clue was clever but went on to note: “that’s not exactly what ‘Serendipity’ means—there’s an element of chance to ‘Serendipity,’ whereas this clue is a HAIKU by design.
C’mon Rex — it’s close enough for crosswords.
Commenter Smith shared this nice memory it jarred loose: I tend to think of serendipity as when you are looking for something particular but you find something else that’s equally or more wonderful. A moment when you’d say, “Even better!” As when I needed (and dreaded) a pair of high-heeled formal shoes to go with (an equally dreaded) dress, and I actually found a low-heeled pair that worked.
But I may be wrong.
Right next to HAIKU, the clue was “Sheesh!” and the answer was OY VEY.
How do you like 47A? — “Smallest unit of purchasing power, in an idiom.” Answer: RED CENT. Someone noted the “red” comes from the (former) use of copper to make pennies. From 1793 to 1857, pure copper. Then, till 1864 a copper-nickel blend (even though it was a penny!). Then bronze.
The red in red cent has nothing to do with the Commies. Relax. Get up from under your desk.
At 28A the clue was “Not playing any songs, as a radio station,” and the answer was ALL TALK. Commenter Tom shared this: Not playing any songs, as a radio station, brought to mind my Bampa (long deceased granddad) who from the front passenger seat on a family road trip in the 50’s ran the entire dial of the radio, then turned it off, famously (in family lore) grumbling, “Nothing on but music.”
This poem from today’s Writer’s Almanac is by Marjorie Saiser and it’s called “My Old Aunts Play Canasta in a Snow Storm.”
I ride along in the backseat; the aunt who can drive
picks up each sister at her door, keeps the Pontiac
chugging in each driveway while one or the other
slips into her overshoes and steps out,
closing her door with a click, the wind
lifting the fringe of her white cotton scarf
as she comes down the sidewalk, still pulling on her
new polyester Christmas-stocking mittens.
We have no business to be out in such a storm,
she says, no business at all.
The wind takes her voice and swirls it
like snow across the windshield.
We’re on to the next house, the next aunt,
the heater blowing to beat the band.
At the last house, we play canasta,
the deuces wild even as they were in childhood,
the wind blowing through the empty apple trees,
through the shadows of bumper crops. The cards
line up under my aunts’ finger bones; eights and nines and aces
straggle and fall into place like well-behaved children.
My aunts shuffle and meld; they laugh like banshees,
as they did in that other kitchen in the 30’s that
day Margaret draped a dishtowel over her face
to answer the door. We put her up to it, they say,
laughing; we pushed her. The man—whoever he was—
drove off in a huff while they laughed ’til they hiccupped,
laughing still—I’m one of the girls laughing him down the sidewalk
and into his car, we’re rascals sure as farmyard dogs,
we’re wild card-players; the snow thickens,
the coffee boils and perks, the wind is a red trey
because, as one or the other says,
We are getting up there in the years; we’ll
have to quit sometime. But today,
today,
deal, sister, deal.
Our Pistons improved their record to 11-53, pounding Charlotte last night 114-97. I know, some of you are thinking, Charlotte has a team? Yeah, they are pretty bad at 16-49, but any win for Detroit is sweet after losing 28 straight earlier in the season. They’ve won two of their last three and the talk about their future has been pretty positive. OC is looking forward to seeing them in person 4/6 in Brooklyn.
Jaden Ivey is one of their young stars. He played college ball in Purdue.
Last, AVRIL Lavigne was in the puzzle today and Rex featured her as his “word of the day.” I had no idea how successful she’s been. She’ll be 40 in September and is Canadian. Married twice, no kids. Her albums routinely top the charts and sell millions upon millions of copies.
There’s a giant hot dog in this video that is sorely mistreated.
Hard to go on after seeing something like that.
See you tomorrow.
The Wellington Files 