Matt Jones’s Jonesin’ Crossword, “De-Famed” — Is this name recognition? – Erin’s write-up
Jonesin’ solution 11/28/23
Hello lovelies! Hope you are doing well. This week’s Jonesin’ involves removing the initial D from famous men’s names and letting hilarity ensue.
- 20a. [1990s singer who’s foolish, per hip-hop lingo of the time?] JAKOB ILLIN (Jakob Dylan, lead singer for The Wallflowers and son of Bob Dylan)
- 38a. [Mopey designer who says “Thanks for noticing the new look?”] CHRISTIAN EEYORE (French designer Christian Dior)
- 54a. [1950s-’60s singer trying to get himself to the front of the alphabet?] BOBBY AARON (“Dream Lover” singer Bobby Darin)
Other things:
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Mandrill, credit here
- 58a. [“___ Game: The Challenge”] SQUID. The Netflix spinoff involves contestants playing children’s game for the chance of winning a cash prize…but no one gets killed.
- 35d. [Source of a movable feast?] FOOD TRUCK. Love this clue, and love food trucks.
- 44d. [Mandrill in “The Lion King”] RAFIKI. I did not know the name of this Old World monkey species until now.
Until next week!
Universal Crossword Review by Matt F
Title: Coming Together
Constructors: Lance Enfinger and Jeff Chen
Editor: David Steinberg
Universal Solution 11.28.2023
Theme Synopsis:
In order to make sense of today’s theme, several vertical entries must be read “through” a black square. As in, the black square needs to be removed to make the 2 halves of the answer come together (title tie-in!). Here’s the reveal that sums up what’s going on:
- 30D – [Chasm between peoples … and what each starred clue’s answer “bridges” by leaping over a black square] = CULTURE GAP
Sometimes a theme like this will use “-” clues to emphasize the 2nd portion of the answer; but today the second half is clued straight, and you have to look back at the finished grid to tie everything together (or, alternatively, just ignore the 2nd-half clue if you happen to peg the theme answer straight away).
What I didn’t catch, until reflecting on the grid, is that the first half of each theme entry is the name of a cultural group. That’s the key to connecting these with the reveal.
- 1D+25D – [“Sure, why not?!”] = (MAY A)S WELL
Before the Spanish conquest of Mexico and Central America, the Maya possessed one of the greatest civilizations of the Western Hemisphere. (britannica.com)
- 11D+34D – [Colluding] = (IN CA)HOOTS
…at the time of the Spanish conquest in 1532, [the Inca] ruled an empire that extended along the Pacific coast and Andean highlands from the northern border of modern Ecuador to the Maule River in central Chile. (britannica.com)
- 13D+36D – [Clustering (around)] = (CROW)DING
Perhaps lured by the trade in horses, and putatively in response to a dispute over the distribution of meat from a slain buffalo, the Crow broke with the Hidatsa and moved westward [from the upper Missouri River into modern-day Montana] sometime between the mid-17th and the early 18th century. (britannica.com)
- 15D+39D – [Exit stealthily] = (CREE)P OUT
The name Cree is a truncated form of Kristineaux, a French adaptation of the Ojibwa name for the James Bay band, Kinistino. (britannica.com)
Overall Impressions:
This was a nice theme! I’m impartial about the 2nd-half of the phrase receiving its own clue. I appreciate that the 2nd half is a legit word on its own (swell, hoots, ding, and pout), but I do think the standalone clue detracts slightly from the theme itself. In the end, I didn’t mind having to look back on the completed puzzle in order to fully grasp the theme.
The grid layout and symmetry made this an interesting solve as well. Theme material is densely packed at the top – you don’t often see three theme answers in succession. From the 6th row down (that’s 2/3 of the puzzle!), there are almost 6 completely isolated sections, tethered into the grid by only 1 square each. It’s one of those things that doesn’t really detract from the solve, but it’s a “grid cheat” that most constructors try hard to avoid. That said, if tighter sections are necessary to create a cleanly filled grid, then so be it!
Thanks for the puzzle, Lance and Jeff!
Jeff Stillman’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Lickety-Split”—Jim’s review
Theme answers are familiar phrases whose outer letters spell out a synonym of “fast.” The revealer is BREAKFAST (58a, [Important meal, or what the circled letters do, if parsed another way]).
Wall St Journal crossword solution · “Lickety-Split” · Jeff Stillman · Tue., 11.28.23
- 16a. [Reject somebody, in a way] SWIPE LEFT. Swift.
- 24a. [Bargain hunter’s mecca] FLEA MARKET. Fleet.
- 34a. [Couldn’t ask for more] HAS PLENTY. Hasty.
- 48a. [Piece for a bee] QUILT BLOCK. Quick.
Before starting the solve, I caught the gist of the theme with a glance at the titles and the configuration of the circles. The only thing I didn’t know was what the circled letters would spell out, and it didn’t take long to figure out. The revealer provided a solid confirmation of what I had deduced.
We have big stacks in the corners (highlights: MOLOKAI, BEQUEST, RAWHIDE, AUGUSTA) and two marquee Downs (SAMARITAN and TEA KETTLE). Big stacks mean constraints, thus we get crosswordese and oddities like AGLET, UHS, UNLET, and SAILS ON. But on the whole, the pluses outweigh the minuses.
Clues of note:
- 1a. [Fanta flavor]. GRAPE. When you say “Fanta” in the UK, that means orange-flavored soda. Not sure how that came to be, but I guess they don’t get to enjoy the plethora of flavors we have in the States.
- 20a. [William McKinley’s Ohio birthplace]. NILES. No Frasier reference given that the show was recently rebooted? Well, it looks like David Hyde Pierce (who played NILES) will not be on the show.
- 40a. [Entered, as data]. KEYED. “Keyed in” seems more synonymous than just KEYED.
Solid theme and fill. 3.5 stars.
Gia Bosko’s New York Times crossword—Amy’s recap
NY Times crossword solution, 11/28/23 – no. 1128
I was enjoying the theme until I got to its capper. Color phrases/words that rhyme, solid. But in my book, DOOR HINGE simply does not rhyme with ORANGE, as the I in HINGE is a short “i” while the A in ORANGE is an unstressed schwa. I have always hated this pretense that ORANGE DOOR HINGE rhymes!
I hate GRAY DAY but only because it’s November in Chicago and there are far too many dismal days this month. REDHEAD, GREEN SCREEN, and “MELLOW / YELLOW,” all good, no complaints.
Fave fill: GET RICH (or die tryin’), POST-ITS, Mindy KALING. Glaring duplication: the not particularly idiomatic ONE CARD right next to the not particularly idiomatic ODD ONE.
Less-familiar name: 65a. [Benjamin who wrote “The Tao of Pooh”], HOFF. I had the book at one point, possibly. You know what would have been more fun? A reference to Davud Hasselhoff’s book, Don’t Hassel the Hoff: The Autobiography.
Raise your hand if you filled in COURSES before CLASSES for 6d. [College catalog assortment]. Man, I used to love leafing through the (printed) college catalog to peruse the possibilities.
3.5 stars from me.
Elizabeth C. Gorski’s Cr♥ssw♥rd Nation puzzle (Week 652), “Organized Conclusions”—Ade’s take
Crossword Nation puzzle solution, Week 652: “Organized Conclusions”
Hello there, everybody! Here is hoping that you all had a good Turkey Day and have a great holiday weekend! If you have any leftovers that you’re not planning on eating, you pass them my way!
Today’s theme is the be all, end all … as in, each of the ending words in the first five theme answers is a word that can come before the word “list,” and LIST also appears in the grid as the reveal (69: [Back ___ (publisher’s roster … or a hint to the theme hidden in five answers]).
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-
-
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- THE SCOTTISH PLAY (17A: [Euphemism for a Shakespeare tragedy about ambition, murder and guilt])
- BE MY GUEST (24A: [“Help yourself!”])
- BASE HIT (39A: [Single, in Fenway Park])
- ODE TO WINE (50A: [Sommelier’s favorite Pablo Neruda poem])
- INSPECTOR BUCKET (61A: [Insightful detective in Dickens’s “Bleak House”])
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-
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I can at least say that I got to play at least one game of BOCCE soon after college on a random outing walking about New York City, and that set me up for when I had to understand the game of curling as that has increased in popularity over the past decade or so (42A: [Ball-rolling lawn game]). I didn’t have an idea for the longest time that VIKKI Carr was of Mexican heritage and put out most of her music in Spanish (55D: [“It Must Be Him” singer Carr]). Almost all of the times I saw Vikki sing was when I watched Time Life infomercials for compilation albums and some Vikki Carr sings would make the list. They’d show a 10-15 clip of her singing a song and that’s how I first came to know her. Nice seeing a tribute to the 1969 Miracle Mets with CLEON (3D: [Left fielder Jones of the Miracle Mets]). Our next graph, however, focuses on one of the biggest stars of baseball on the team that won the Fall Classic one season prior to the Metropolitans.
“Sports will make you smarter” moment of the day: DENNY (51D: [1968 Cy Young Award winner ___ McClain]) – How special was Denny McClain’s 1968 season on the mound? Not only did he win the Cy Young Award and the league’s MVP award that year while playing for the Detroit Tigers and leading them to the World Series title, he also finished the season with a 31-6 record, the last pitcher in Major League Baseball to win 30 games in a season. (The 30-win mark will probably never be achieved again in the sport.) McClain also won the Cy Young Award the following year in 1969, though his career was over after the 1972 season due to arm trouble.
Thank you so much for the time, everybody! Have a wonderful and safe rest of your day and, as always, keep solving!
Take care!
Ade/AOK
Chandi Deitmer’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Jenni’s write-up
I really like Chandi’s puzzles, and this one is no exception. It’s a Tuesday-accessible theme that I haven’t seen before, which is always a plus.
The theme answers:
Los Angeles Times, November 28, 2023, Chandi Deitmer, solution grid
- 18a [*Unembellished facts] are the PLAIN TRUTH.
- 27a [*Soda and candy, metabolically] are SIMPLE CARBS. I’m more accustomed to hearing SIMPLE SUGARS. Doesn’t mean this one is wrong.
- 51a [*Indie rock band with the hit single “Float On”] is MODEST MOUSE.
- 61a [*No-frills TV choice] is BASIC CABLE.
The revealer is in the middle and requires a 16×15 grid. 38a [Part of a rags-to-riches story, and what the answers to the starred clues literally have] is HUMBLE BEGINNINGS. PLAIN, SIMPLE, MODEST, and BASIC. Nice!
A few other things:
- Not sure why NOR is clued as and abbreviation for [Scand. land] when it’s a perfectly good word all on its own.
- ON TAPE is one of those things my daughter will eventually ask me to explain, like why we say we “dial” the phone.
- Mmm, BABY CORN.
- For the truly NERDY among us, here’s a linguistic analysis of LOLSPEAK called “I can has thesis?”
- Love [Forevvvvvver] as a clue for AGES.
What I didn’t know before I did this puzzle: that AIDY Bryant appears in “Shrill,” and since I’ve never heard of her at all I thought it was AIDA and that slowed me down a smidge. Also never heard of Paul Sun-Hyung LEE. And while I have heard of LAILA Ali, I didn’t know she co-hosted “American Gladiators.” Those entries along with the actors I have heard of lead me to suspect that people who don’t like names in their puzzles did not enjoy this one.
Erik Agard’s New Yorker crossword — pannonica’s write-up
New Yorker • 11/28/23 • Tue • Agard • solution • 20231128
This one felt closer to ‘challenging’ than ‘moderately challenging’.
Toughest section was the lower right corner because I had WHITE HABITAT for 44a [Set of attitudes shaped by residential and social segregation, per Eduardo Bonilla-Silva] WHITE HABITUS. So my entrée to that area was flawed, preventing me from properly seeing 38d [Pastry whose name literally means “whirlpool”] STRÜDEL. Further, I wasn’t expecting a reduplicative answer for 35d [“Right, totally”] SURE SURE—but I should have.
- 16a [Site of 2023 protests against wind farms on Sami land] OSLO. Constructors must spend a lot of time finding new angles with which to clue OSLO (and other cruciverbal staples).
- 23a [Match points?] CONNECT THE DOTS. First impression was that the clue is iffy, but ultimately I feel it’s legit.
- 29a [“You can’t run through a campground. You can only ran, because it’s past __”] TENTS. Ow, ow, ow.
- 30a [Some S.O.s] BFS. Significant others, best friends.
- 39a [Exclamation that’s 39-Down minus a letter] GOT ’EM. 39d [Exclamation after a collaborative success] GO TEAM. Nifty find.
- 41a [Link in a text?] CROSS-REFERENCE. Could easily ditch the question mark.
- 54a [Stretch after a race] TERM. Tricky. Context is politics.
- 4d [Handle on a drum] BAND NAME. Was onto the gimmick, but still needed several crossings.
- 7d [Maritime agreement?] I’M IN THE SAME BOAT. Haha. Much longer than AYE, anyway.
- 9a [Bachata instruments] BONGOS. (I would have inserted an appropriate song here, but I’m not familiar enough with the genre to pick something good.)
- 10d [First part of a rhyming dichotomy] USE IT (or lose it).
- 11d [Food takeout line?] FLOSS. Oof. Too clever by
halfa quarter. - 29d [O.K.] TOLERABLE. Pleased that I got this off of just the first two letters.
Willa Angel Chen Miller’s USA Today Crossword, “Relax! (Freestyle)” — Sophia’s recap
Editor: Amanda Rafkin
Theme: None
USA Today, 11 28 2023, Relax! (Freestyle)
What a great collection of 9 and 10 letter answers today! IT WAS A JOKE, MINECRAFT, MASS MEDIA, FREELANCE, and the rhyming APPLE CARE / TEDDY BEAR. DEAR SANTA is timely, and so is ROLLS ROYCE if you’ve been watching the new Beckham documentary series. I like how even though the grid is sectioned off, none of the sections feel disconnected from the rest of the puzzle. Overall, a standout simple themeless.
Fave clues: [“Call Me ___” (2012 hit)] for MAYBE (I *love* Carly Rae Jepsen), [National Zoo’s Xiao Qi Ji, e.g.] for PANDA (But not anymore, :( )
New to me: Singer TERESA Teng, Mets pitcher EDWIN Diaz
NYT: I knew immediately that EEMOREX didn’t look right.
I came to the same conclusion!
NYT: When I saw that 58A started with ORANGE, I couldn’t imagine what could possibly rhyme with that. But as soon as I had DO, I realized that I pronounce ORANGE “or-ringe” or “ar-ringe”. Close enough to rhyme with DOORHINGE.
I enjoyed the puzzle, with all those colors brightening up a GRAYDAY.
Yeah, I too pronounce “orange” so that it does rhyme with “door hinge”… maybe we need another one of those “how do you pronounce this word” maps? I liked the puzzle overall… fun and cute.
Growing up in the Midwest, everyone I knew pronounced it “oar-rinj,” and I still do, so the answer worked just fine for me, too.
I first encountered the “ahr-renj” pronunciation in friends from New York, but I have to say that it seems to be spreading, as I hear it much more frequently these days.
Cute puzzle, fun, easier than Monday’s.
NYT: ORANGE and DOOR HINGE don’t rhyme at all for me, but, unlike Amy, I don’t think the first syllables rhyme, either. “Orange” is like AW-renj, so nothing rhymes with DOOR or HINGE in my pronunciation.
The rest of the theme answers are great. ORANGE DOOR HINGE might as well be GREEN PAINT to begin with, and for it not to rhyme for everyone makes it kind of mess up a very nice theme set. It must have been tempting to end with a grid-spanning theme answer, but it kind of deflated the whole thing for me.
But AW is the same vowel sound occurring in door.
I’ve certainly heard orange pronounced so the first syllable rhymes with door, but I’ve almost always said and heard the first syllable rhyming with car. (That’s bicoastal.)
I was enjoying this puzzle until I got to ORANGEDOORHINGE. It doesn’t rhyme at all for me, and it isn’t close to a real phrase. Why not rearrange the blocks and use two more 7s at the bottom? Something like BLUEFLU and OLDGOLD would have worked.
NYT: The RED, GREEN, YELLOW combo suggests ORANGE as part of the palette. Problem is, nothing rhymes with ORANGE…
Liked the combination of RELISH and PICANTE.
NYT: I think the point was to rhyme an ‘unrhymable’ word.
Excluding colors, one could clue 30 DAYS FOR THE LISPING CLASS CLOWN and use the entry DUNTH MONTH, another unrhymable.
Technical Issue – The puzzles that have been reviewed indicate that I have rated them, except for Jonesin’. I haven’t rated any of the puzzles.
Have you ever given 1-star ratings to multiple puzzles within a very short amount of time?
No, I have not. I don’t think I have ever given a one star rating. I don’t rate very many puzzles at all and when I do I think my modal score is 4.5
Oops! I’m PJ. Cold fat thumbs
Does that mean you are preempting people who have given what you think are are too many 1 ratings? Your blog, but you should be up front.
And I think jerks who exploit a feature of this website are owed pretty much no consideration. Real people construct the crosswords, and edit them! To pelt real people with their rudely dismissive 1-star ratings (when there is very little chance they’ve actually done all the puzzles they rate)? Pfft. A barrage of 1-star ratings in the course of a minute can get you blocked from rating. The occasional isolated 1-star rating is not a red flag.
So, without evidence or my knowledge, I was accused, tried, convicted, and sentenced for an offense I did not commit.
And since you have my email address and could have asked me directly, I can only assume you think I’m a dishonest jerk.
Hi, PJ. Just seeing this on Wednesday. Webmaster Dave suspects the issue with your access to ratings stemmed from an in-house issue in fixing some code that affected the ratings widget. I sure didn’t think you would have been a habitual 1-starrer, since you’ve been a valued contributor to the comments community here. Not having webmaster Dave’s skills, I couldn’t think of his alternate explanation. My apologies.
Hi Amy – Thank you for the clarification. I appreciate what y’all are doing to make it more difficult for those who would abuse the ratings.
NYT: Highlight for me was the Donovan song “Mellow Yellow”. Took me back to my youth when I listened to Top 40 radio and bought 45s for less than a dollar. Ah, the good old days!
Yeah, ORANGE DOOR HINGE pretty much ruined the NYT for me. And why include a non-phrase anyway? (I, too, had COURSES, which seems a lot closer to what I’d look for in a college catalog as well.) Oh, well. Hard to guess from the grid alone which will be themers. (From word lengths, I was hoping for PICANTE and POST-ITS, too.) But no question the top half or so is reasonably entertaining.
Terrific New Yorker themeless from Erik Agard today. I found it harder than Monday’s, though only one entry/clue was entirely unfamiliar. The sociology term at 44a relates to a 2006 scholarly article whose abstract (not the full article, alas) you can read for free here:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1163/156916306777835268
Plenty of characteristically tricky Erik clues, always a treat.
Fun puzzle! Took me a little longer than yesterday’s, too – but I thought it was just right for a Tuesday.
The SE took a while because I had WHITE HABITUe (doesn’t make a lot of sense, but I didn’t know the phrase, and it was the only word I could come up with). Actor ERIKA Alexander was not familiar, and I know DURAG, but not 360 wave, so that took a while to come to me.
Lots of fun cluing. I especially liked clues for BAND NAME, I’M IN THE SAME BOAT, and CONNECT THE DOTS.
I too thought today’s New Yorker puzzle was a bit harder than Monday’s. It took me longer than it should have to get BIT O’HONEY, a candy I haven’t eaten in 50 years. It might have come quicker if I hadn’t misread the clue and been trying to think of a cereal with a bee mascot. (I’m pretty sure there is one, but I don’t remember the name.)
The middle took the longest, between BIT O’ HONEY, the cleverly-clued I’M IN THE SAME BOAT, DEMONOLOGIST (where I read “imp lore” as being in a language other than English), and the cleverly-clued CONNECT THE DOTS.
Still, everything was inferable with enough crossings, and I was entertained. What more could I ask of a crossword puzzle?
“… trying to think of a cereal with a bee mascot. (I’m pretty sure there is one, but I don’t remember the name.)”
I think that’s probably Honey Nut Cheerios.
Thanks!
I thought it was some kind of Cheerios, but I couldn’t remember what they called it.
Did you know that Honey Nut Cheerios have been nut-free since 2006?
I’m not at all convinced that everything was inferable, although I made some lucky guesses. I found the entire S/SE to be pretty much unsolvable unless you were into Asgard’s obscurities as much as he, and I didn’t like that at all.
Like others here, and I hope I’m as P.C. as anyone, I didn’t have an idea what to do with HABIT _ _ . Took me a bit to think of STRUDEL, but that ruled out what sure seemed most likely -AL. And then to get it, you had to find SURE SURE pretty obvious, but I thought it could have been SURE anything, especially since it crossed DURAG, which I’d always seen as DO-RAG, and ERIKA, which had the additional trouble that her crossing a fraternity letter could have been anything (well, the Greek alphabet does have fewer letters than ours and not all correspond so easily to ours, so not quite anything, but close enough).
So, like many of Asgard’s, I thought it was a pretty bad puzzle, even if the other sectors were better. It’s being harder than Monday’s is also yet more evidence that TNY has a poor excuse for an editor.
As far as I know, Erik Agard wants to get away from the “cat/dog” puzzles and inject some new terms (socio-political?) that beg us to do some research for our own edification. While I was initially frustrated as heck with most of his puzzles, I’m starting to come around to liking them more as time goes on. (BTW, I’m a 69 YO mostly white-guy who lives alone, lol!)
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/14/style/durag-solange-met-gala.html
I sure wish that the civic leaders of CrossWorld would pass an ordinance about the spelling of DURAG/DoRAG. I find that word hard enough to dig out of the crossword solving part of my brain without needing to leave a blank in it every time it’s in a puzzle.
Amun-Ra wore a durag.
Amon-Ra wore a do-rag.
Hope that helps.
lol
Over the top, and I love it!
WSJ: I was hoping you would embed a clip of the scene in Sophie’s Choice in which the characters rattle off a long string of synonyms for “fast.” (In my dim recollection, which could well be wrong, they were responding to Sophie’s complaint about how English has so many words for the same thing.)
Sorry! Never saw that movie and don’t know the scene. I did a quick internet search and couldn’t find a clip, but here’s the quote on IMDB.
Thank you, Jim. It’s very kind of you to go to all that trouble.
i definitely pronounce orange as “o-rinj,” the way i pronounce “door-hinj,” like i’d say a tangerine colored carpet could have an orange floor tinge and that rhymes too
also it’s very obvious to me that matt jones had the 90s/00s anime/manga hit “Initial D” in mind when making that crossword…. right???? everyone here knows that one for sure i bet
NYT: I agree that “orange” doesn’t rhyme with “door hinge.” However, I also don’t agree with our daughter’s fifth grade teacher, who didn’t think that there were two syllables in “orange” (the assignment was to write a haiku.)
In defense of your daughter’s teacher, I have heard “orange” pronounced (and I guess sometimes pronounce it myself) as if the “a” were not there. On the other hand, the teacher might have looked it up to see what the “proper” pronunciation is.
Most teachers are far too overworked to have time to do everything the ideal way, alas.
I mostly pronounce it as one syllable. Might be a regional thing.
I’m one of those for whom ‘orange’ and ‘hinge’ rhyme, and ORANGEDOORHINGE was such an absurd fancy that it made me laugh.
TNY was easier for me than yesterday’s, but I finished with an error: ERICA/ACA. Sorority and fraternity names are all Greek to me.
I didn’t know ERIKA Alexander, and I don’t know many fraternity and sorority names either. But I do know that the Greek alphabet doesn’t have the letter C.
Alpha Kappa Alpha is the oldest historically African American sorority in the United States (a fact I learned from a crossword puzzle).
Chi
The Greek letter chi corresponds to our X, not C,
Look for pink-and-green license plate frames with AKA on them. Those are the sorority’s colors.
Back in the day, a coworker got married and all the AKAs in attendance (the bride, relatives, college friends) performed a ceremony at the reception. The first and only Greek-organization activity I’ve ever seen. AKAs are a distinguished bunch:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Alpha_Kappa_Alpha_members
JONESIN’ – Is there an error in 53A “Top Gun” org? Shouldn’t the answer be “USN” instead of “USAF”?
You are 100% correct. Top Gun is US Navy; no AF involvement. Glaring error that the constructor and editor should be embarrassed by. I’m glad somebody else caught it and mentioned it here. Surprised by the lack of acknowledgment. Alas, arguing over pronunciation/rhyming of orange is seemingly more important.
Jenni dear, if you saw any SNL skits between 2012 & 2022 Aidy Bryant was an integral part & in my opinion a wonderful successor to Molly Shannon. I roared when Aidy is masturbating with a shower head in a teen age girl music scene.
UNI: I gave this puzzle only a 3.5 because while constructor Lance Enfinger made a very nice crossword, there wasn’t any “pop” to it. (And editor David Steinberg is one of my favorites because his cluing is always on point. Matt F is also one of my favorite reviewers because he explains things in depth, and asks the commenters for input if he doesn’t catch the theme.)
But I do hope to see more from Mssr. Enfinger!
LAT: Nice puzzle but 51A: Indie rock band with the hit single “Float On” and the answer is “Modest Mouse”. Their version of this song sounds a lot like the Talking Heads.
If you want to hear a slow-jam version of “Float On”, here’s a link to the 1977 version by the Floaters, and the intro to the song is kinda corny-kitschy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91E4aSMEpkQ