"111-Across!" 3/19/17

It's a joyous weekend for my family; my dad was inaugurated as the 31st president of Centenary College on Friday. Congrats, Dad! We have all converged on Shreveport, Louisiana and have had a ball. Including the very best of activities...family crossword. We had 4 deft solvers on this one, leading to a nice time of...

Time to finish/time I gave up: 39:33. Not too shabby, especially considering that includes the time it takes to read the clues out loud.

Commentary:
Hey all! Guest poster Fran here. It's always great to get a chance to puzzle with the family when we're together. It's also not always so great because it reminds me how much less crystallized intelligence I have than most other members of my family (but I do know what crystallized intelligence is, so school psychology for the win). I don't know what Allie is going to say about today's puzzle yet but I enjoyed the theme, especially the Harry Potter theme clue. 10 points to Hufflepuff for any puzzle with HP references. That said, 10 points from Slytherin for Snape killing Dumbledore (spoiler alert). Frannie out.

Allie in (?). I, too, thought that the theme was fun, and was glad that there were no spoilers that I didn't already know. I don't know what crystallized intelligence is, and Frannie is very smart, even though she's a Hufflepuff.

As I am writing this post and my list of complaints grows longer and longer, I realize that I quite liked this puzzle but maybe only because it's easy when 4 people are thinking about it at once. Some of this might well have frustrated me if I had been on my own.

Clues I especially liked! Yay!

• 35A Product of Boston or Chicago SONG. Cute. We spent a lot of time trying to make this Sox-related. (SOCK? SOKS? SOXS?)
• 44A "Phooey!" DANG. As we all know, I normally dislike these clues, but my lovely sister (see above) says "dang" so it gets a pass.
• "A day without a friend is like a pot without a single drop of honey left inside" Small tear.

I'm too young for this $h*t

• I'll just leave this here:
  

Really?

• 7A Pale-faced ASHY. "Ashen" would be fine. "Ashy," when applied to skin tone, means (at least in modern parlance) white coloring on dark skin. Just Google it if you don't believe me. Therefore, I don't think this clue means what Thackray and Shortz think it means. Watch your privilege, NYT.
• I don't usually know the geography clues, which is often my own failing, but I do think it's a stretch to have Indonesian islands featured twice in the same puzzle. (BALI and ARU)
• 53A Bad luck, old-style UNHAP. What? Pretty sure this is like, medieval old-style, not weird 50's slang, saving it from the previous category. Urban Dictionary points out that "unhaps" is currently used as an abbrev for "unhappy," as in, "this clue makes me unhaps."
• 61A Peeping aid SPYHOLE. Gross.
• 90A Relating to the sun HELIACAL. The root helio is fair game, but this word was not familiar to our solver group, which would also be acceptable except that it crossed with 84D Interest for a limnologist, which turns out to be LAKES. It's a good thing that LOKES is not a word, or we would have been out of luck. Tough cross.
• 2D Tomboy HOYDEN. It's unhap that this word is no longer in use at all. When the dictionary lists it as "dated," maybe don't put it in your crossword.
• 12D Muddles MARESNESTS. I guess this means "muddle" as a noun, which I already dislike, but no one in my family knows this phrase, which means it doesn't exist. Also, "mare's nest crossword" is one of the Google auto-fill suggestions, so that's strike 3 for this one.

Things I learned today:

• Sir Basil Urwin Spence, OM, OBE, RA was a Scottish architect, most notably associated with Coventry Cathedral in England and the Beehive in New Zealand, but also responsible for numerous other buildings in the Modernist/Brutalist style.
• I also did not know there is a Brutalist style. I gotta say, I don't love it. The name isn't doing it any favors.
• Marshal Lon Nol was a Cambodian politician and general who served as Prime Minister of Cambodia twice, as well as serving repeatedly as Defense Minister.
• My dad knew this one (of course). From my end, all I know is that his name is a palindrome.
• A ferrule is a ring or cap, typically a metal one, that strengthens the end of a handle, stick, or tube and prevents it from splitting or wearing.
• File this in the crossword section of the brain next to aiglet. 
• Sometimes Shiva is spelled Siva.
• John Andre was a British Army officer hanged as a spy by the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War for assisting Benedict Arnold's attempted surrender of the fort at West Point, New York to the British.
• Again, good thing my dad was here for this one.

Times I got to use my French major this week 

• Eau flows in a riviere. (Sorry for the lack of accents, Blogger is pretty terrible.)
• La fin. How appropriate.

Fritz out!