Relative difficulty: Medium
THEME: FRI. the 13th — 1A: [See blurb]; blurb reads: "Every length of answer from 3 to 15 letters - except one - appears in this puzzle. Some people might have a 1-Across about that." Answer: SUPERSTITION.
Word of the Day: USFL (25D: Defunct sports org. with the Denver Gold and Chicago Blitz) —
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I am doing this write-up offline because Blogger (my blogging host) has been down for god knows how long now, and I have no idea when it’s coming back. Blog is stuck on Wednesday (!) right now. [And ... now it's unstuck]So ... FRI the 13th (27A: Day associated with an unlucky number: Abbr.). I don’t care about this theme. It’s not really a theme. It’s a themeless that’s been compromised by a geometrical consideration that adds no value to the solving experience. SSSSSNSST...
Top half was a piece of cake, bottom half more Friday-normal. Had the most trouble at the INDEFINABLE / EX-ENEMY / FIXED STARS nexus. Couldn’t shake INDEFINITE, and couldn’t even come close to coming up with EX-ENEMY because the “X” was hidden in FIXED STARS, which I’ve never heard of.
Best answer by a mile is INSTANT POTATOES. Best clue: 42D: Made Berne burn? (PUNNED)
Bullets:
- 46A: Island whose name means, literally, “main land” (HONSHU) — largest island of Japan. Until just now I was thinking, “... wait, which Hawaiian island is that?” This is what happens when I’m dealing with technical / computer problems beyond my control. Brain melt.
- 2D: BOAC destination, in song (USSR) — as in “Back in the —.” Listened to Beatles 1967-70 (on vinyl!) this week, so that song’s been through my head recently.
- 35D: “Author! Author!” star, 1982 (AL PACINO) — the only explanation I have for how I knew this right off the bat is that 1982 is the year we got HBO, and we watched the $#@^ out of that (single) channel. Mostly I watched “Midnight Madness” and anything R-rated with nudity that I could get my eyes on, but I think “Author! Author!” must have been on at least semi-heavy rotation back then.
47D: Connector with a pivotal role (HINGE) — if your HINGE is covered with TINGES of ERNE ... well, there has been a horrible wildlife accident.- 49D: Pitcher Jim who was a 16-time Gold Glove winner (KAAT) — nearing the end of his career just as I was starting to collect baseball cards. His stats are borderline HOF-worthy, but he’s not in there yet.
- 51D: Popular Sporcle subj. (GEOG.) — I feel like the puzzle likes Sporcle more than the general public. I would never have known about Sporcle were it not for my puzzle-loving, Facebook-using friends. I had this answer ending in a “J” at first because I had LOST ONE’S MOJO at 58A: Wasn’t quite as great as before (LOST ONE’S EDGE)
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PS I'm told the paper version of this puzzle didn't have a Clue #13. As you can see from my grid, my version did. Yet another NYT puzzle fail. They can't get the puzzle up at the right time. They can't format the puzzle correctly in the electronic versions that 10s of thousands of us subscribe too. There is software out there that allows proper formatting of puzzles. Sadly, it is not AcrossLite.
PPS if videos aren't showing / playing for you, once again, just like the Blogger meltdown earlier today, it's Google's fault. They're falling apart right now. I blame Tyler Hinman.
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