SATURDAY, March 6, 2010 — Barry C. Silk

Theme: No theme — Saturdays are generally themeless/freestyle

Hey, everybody. I know I don't usually get to hang with you on Saturdays, but I had a crazy, crazy couple of days this week and Orange was kind enough to swap days with me. She's good like that. PuzzleSister and her husband arrived Wednesday evening and left with the PuzzleKids Thursday morning for Disney World. Apparently there are giraffes and zebras right outside their hotel window. I believe they're having fun.

So today we've got a Barry Silk puzzle to talk about. Awesome! Funky looking grid, right? There are actually only two 11s, no 10s at all, and a slew of 7s, 8s, and 9s. I'm gonna say I didn't find the 11s — FORT MCHENRY (23A: War of 1812 battle site) and DRAGON TEARS (49A: 1993 Dean Koontz best-seller) — particularly sparkly. Although now that I think about it, if there really were such a thing as dragon tears, they probably would be sparkly. But I digress. Here are some of my favorites of the long-ish answers:

• 27A: No matter what (AT ANY COST).
• 43A: Nightly news snippet (SOUND BITE).
• 21D: Potomac span named for a poet, familiarly (KEY BRIDGE).
• 38D: Actor who often said, "Sorry about that, Chief" (DON ADAMS).

Okay, I just looked up "The Star Spangled Banner" on Wikipedia and guess what! The name of the poem that eventually became our national anthem was originally called "The Defence of Fort McHenry." I apologize what I said about the unsparkliness of that particular entry. With the KEY BRIDGE tie-in … it's awesome.



More highlights:

• 7A: Down with relish (SCARF UP). I know this is totally legit, but I always want it to be snarf.
• 17A: Mike's Hard Lemonade, e.g. (ALCO-POP). You kids don't know how easy you have it! Why in my day, we didn't have these ready-made namby-pamby drinks! We had to mix our own drinks when we wanted to embarrass ourselves in public! Now, get off my lawn!

• 18A: Organs and such (INNARDS). Were you thinking about keyboards? And then … ew.
• 29A: 1970s CIA director, familiarly (BUSH SR.). I have to admit that looks cool in the grid.
• 37A: Legalese, say (ARGOT). And again with the argot — that stupid word that's not a ship and not a snail, but something totally different. It kind of reminds me of my friend Shari's twin girls. Their names are Maggie and Katie, but Katie should really be named Maggie, and Maggie is totally a Katie. I wonder how they managed to mess that one up?
• 39A: "Laugh-In" regular (BUZZI). Two words: Awe. Some.



• 42A: Send by wire (TAP OUT). I wonder how long it will be before we can expect to see MMA clues for answers like this?
• 63A: Refuse collectors (ASH CANS). Tricky tricky. Not the people, but the things. See also 47D: Web browsers, e.g. (USERS). In this case, not the things but the people.

• 2D: Literary middle name (WALDO).
• 6D: Lionel creation of 1912 (SLOT CAR). Lionel made toy trains. I don't know what a SLOT CAR is, but it sounds kinda cool.
• 10D: Company that developed TV's Indian Head Test Pattern (RCA). Fresh, fresh clue for a tired, tired entry. Love it!
• 15D: Winningest baseball southpaw (SPAHN). I was going to tell you who SPAHN is, but when I search for him on Wikipedia, I typed too fast and left the N off his name and was directed to the page for The Society for the Preservation and Advancement of the Harmonica. And I think I'll just leave it at that.
• 31D: Pepper, e.g.: Abbr. (SGT.). I believe this is the first album I ever bought on CD. Classic.

• 52D: Member of Dionysus' retinue (SATYR). PuzzleKids are totally into these Percy Jackson and the Olympians books right now which means they now know more about Greek mythology than I do. (Didn't take much.) I'm kind of hoping there aren't any satyrs in those books though.
• 57D: Business issue (INC.). INC. is the name of a business magazine, which comes out in issues.