Dye in temporary tattoos
Let's START at the very beginning, a very good place to start. Roger Baiocchi follows that advice to get his NYT crossword career off to a good start. His Monday, July 28 puzzle (answers) takes that and some other answer phrases literally in this nice early-week theme. These sorts of self-referential clues tap into the same kind of pleasure that made Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid such an absorbing read twenty years ago. Well, at a rather different level.
The Sam Houston clue gets his TEXAS political career in chronological order. He was President of the Republic of Texas, Senator after it joined the U.S., and finally Governor. The state named a major city after him calling it, I believe, Sam.
HENNA is almost always clued with a reference to a redhead's dye so the temporary tattoo twist was nice. James AGEE's combination of last-name letters is a gift to constructors. Both The African Queen and Night of the Hunter are fascinating screenplays. AJAX was one of the greatest warriors in the Trojan War. You may recall that Homer describes him poetically as being "stronger than dirt." I didn't know who Pinky Lee was, but Peggy Lee still gives me shivers. What a great voice.
In an attempt to crank up the Freshness Factor™ of this site, it's time to bring in a couple of Guest Bloggers. I have more traditional crossword folks in the pipeline but the crazy twist on these next two is that they are people I actually know. In fact,at one time or another I reported to each of them in my day job. John Ludwig will post Friday but tomorrow we hear from Danny Glasser.
Danny hails from what would be the fourth largest city in the U.S. if it were, in fact, still an independent city. He's still pining for the Dodgers to return from L.A. His main qualification here is that he quotes Groucho in daily conversation even more often than I do. People find this extremely annoying, of course, so perhaps he'll avoid that temptation. We'll see.
Good Monday puzzle, real zippy. Not sure about "7-6" et al being SETS, they seem more like SET Scores.
Jim, you may also enjoy Hofstadter's "The Mind's I" and Ferris' "The Mind's Sky".
Posted by: KarmaSartre | July 27, 2008 at 04:37 PM
I knew Pinky (Pincus) Lee immediately. My dad was an early television engineer and I watched the Pinky Lee Show in the mid 1950's. His opening song, "Yohoo, its me, My name is Pinky Lee" was part of our neighborhood parody songs. I lived in Sam, Texas twice and if it weren't for the heat, the traffic and George W, I would still be there.
Roger Baiocchi is hard to track down although he appears to be a CT resident and one smart dude.
Posted by: PhillySolver | July 27, 2008 at 06:02 PM
Very nice debut, Mr. Baiocchi. Solid theme and nice fill. Pinky Lee was the Pee Wee Herman of the 50's, without all the scandal, a TV contemporary of Mr. Wizard.
Posted by: jannieb | July 28, 2008 at 03:37 AM
Very enjoyable puzzle! Jim, what do you do about run-on answers like 1A plus 21A? Oh, I see that you score the pieces separately... I'm surprised that "thrash" was rarer than "cutup"! (I'd wanted trounce).
I got a kick out of your TM, trademark, on "Freshness Factor" -- but doubt if the companies purveying food, personal products, etc. will bother to challenge you, so DO IT!
Posted by: ArtLvr | July 28, 2008 at 05:36 AM