Hohenberg's river / SAT 5-18-13 / Language related to Wyandot / Heffalump's creator / Title gambler in 1943 Cary Grant film / Inspector General star 1949 / Painter Schiele composer Wellesz / Captive of Heracles / Deirdre playwright

Constructor: Martin Ashwood-Smith

Relative difficulty: Challenging



THEME: none 

Word of the Day: Thomas H. INCE (61D: Thomas H. ___, the Father of the Western) —

Thomas H. Ince was an Americansilent filmactor, director, screenwriter and producer of more than 100 films and pioneering studio mogul. Known as the "Father of the Western", he invented many mechanisms of professional movie production, introducing early Hollywood to the "assembly line" system of film making. He wrote the screenplay for The Italian (1915), and directed Civilization (1916), both films selected for preservation by the United States National Film Registry. He was a partner with D.W. Griffith and Mack Sennett in the Triangle Motion Picture Company, and built his own studios in Culver City, which later became the legendary home of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. // Ince is also known for his death aboard the yacht of William Randolph Hearst; officially he died of heart trouble, but Hollywood rumor of the time suggested he had been shot by Hearst in a dispute over actress Marion Davies. (wikipedia)

Took one look at constructor's name (before opening puzzle) and thought, "O great. Quad stacks." And sure enough, there they were. I pretty much stopped caring at that point. I've seen this movie and know how it ends. Actually, today's ended worse than I expected, in that there was so much esoterica (and just stuff I didn't know) that I eventually gave up. I virtually never give up. I mean ... I can't remember the last time. But I just didn't care enough to fight it out. It's got all the infelicities of your typical quad-stack puzzle and then some. Also, literally NONE of the 15s are interesting. STREET ADDRESSES, dear lord. I nearly fell asleep just writing that answer out. Didn't I *just* say, yesterday, that most stacks usually have to resort to some cruddy answer with "ONE'S" in it? Didn't I? I did. And here we are. Up top *and* down below (my friend Matt calls ONE'S answers "the standard quad-stack sin"). Then there's the proper nouns from outer space and ugly partials and god knows what else. It's a workout, but a joyless one, and I am trying to opt out of joylessness wherever possible. My fellow blogger (a much better solver than I) also didn't bother finishing w/o looking up some of the namier trivia. When *both* of us, independently, just ... stop. Well, I don't know that that has ever happened, since I can't remember the last time I didn't finish a puzzle.

I looked at ENTENTE CORD SALE for a while and couldn't figure out what was wrong. Apparently ERIE is a language as well as a tribe, city, lake (12D: Language related to Wyandot). I would not have guessed that. Clearly I went with ERSE (also crosswordese, also a language), and got CORD SALE instead of CORDIALE. I didn't even care. Moving on ... let's see ... the real problem for me was FEEDING ONE'S FACE. I guess I've heard it, but I had no shot, even with FEEDING ONE'S, because I had the "Father of the Western" (HA ha, whatever you say) as INGE, who is both a playwright and a former Detroit Tigers 3rd baseman, but apparently not the "Father of the Western." Tried FEEDING ONE'S RAGE, which I liked, but alas. Also never Ever heard of CALF'S-foot jelly (53D: ___-foot jelly). So FEEDING ONE'S -AGE or -A-E got me ... nothing. Thought I'd get stumped in west too, but somehow managed to work it out despite Never having heard of MR. LUCKY (37A: Title gambler in a 1943 Cary Grant film) and Never having heard of SPOT TV (!?) (45A: Much commercial production). I was lucky (!) enough to have heard of the word ATRIP (22D: Like some anchors and sails), or I'd surely have died in the west too. Again, if I'd stuck with it at FEEDING ONE'S FACE, I'm sure eventually I'd have turned it up. But there didn't seem a point, really.


Adding to my personal never-heard-ofs: EMIL Igwenagu (42A: Eagles tight end Igwenagu); KLAUS Voormann (29D: "Revolver" Grammy winner Voormann). Hohenberg or EGER (though it's familiar in that same crosswordesey way that INCE is (now) familiar) (56D: Hohenberg's river). Wyandot. I think that's it. Oh, nope. Forgot about EGON Wellesz, a hilarious second EGON to go with the better known but still not terribly famous EGON Schiele (I knew Schiele, so got this one easily enough). Together, they are ... the EGONS! (9D: Painter Schiele and composer Wellesz)

Top third was easy. Middle was Medium (east)-Challenging (west). Bottom was a wipeout, so Challenging. TARGA! (51D: Porsche 911 model)

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld