L'chaim / THU 5-5-16 / Nonstick pan brand / World's second most translated author / 7 on the Beaufort scale / Sports org. with the Calder Cup

Constructor: David Poole

Relative difficulty: Thursday

Hi, everybody. It's me! PuzzleGirl! And I'm here to talk you through your Thursday puzzle. If it seems like I'm in a bad mood, it's because I had surgery on my foot three weeks ago and I've been in bed since then. Three weeks! And it wouldn't be so bad if I had been expecting it. Do you know what my doctor said when I asked him back in January about what the recovery time would be like? Of course you don't.
Well, I'll tell you. He said, "You won't be able to drive for a week." What he failed to say was, "And then you won't be able to drive for three weeks after that." And, "There's a good possibility you won't be able to drive for the three weeks after that either." No, he didn't say either of those last two things. And yet, here we are.

So, if I'm in a bad mood, now you know why. If, on the other hand, I say anything crazy, well that's just the Vicodin talking. Got that? Okay, here we go.

Theme:"Ace in the Hole" - the word ACE is presumed to reside in four squares (holes) in the grid.

Theme Answers:

• 1A: Cel material - [ACE]TATE
• 13D: Sourness - [ACE]RBITY

• 24A: Spiritual that lent its name to a 2015 Broadway musical - AMAZING GR[ACE]
• 12D/30D: Period when dinosaurs became extinct - CRET[ACE]OUS

• 52A: Hidden advantage that this puzzle employs four times? - [ACE] IN THE HOLE
• 35D/56D: Neighboring - ADJ[ACE]NT TO

• 68A: Big name in Italian fashion - VERS[ACE]
• 51D: Longtime Vegas performer - LIBER[ACE]

This puzzle gave me fits. You should be able to see in the grid above where I made my mistakes. First, I had IRELAND where ICELAND was supposed to go [6D: European country whose telephone directories list people alphabetically by first name]. Then, I had IN OUR instead of IS OUR [65A: "A Mighty Fortress ___ God" (hymn)]. The crosses might have helped me if I had taken the time to think about it. But I didn't. ARRE could be an Israeli port just as well as ACRE to me. And I typically don't pay attention to the cities named in the Random Direction clues, but if I had in this case, I would have seen my mistake.

But that third error? Well, what I think we have here is a living, breathing Natick. Crossing [41D: Charlie Chan's creator Earl ___ Biggers] and [23D: Cubist Fernand] at the last letter is just ... well, that could have been any letter in the alphabet as far as I was concerned. I guess if I'm going to put a positive spin on it, I learned something today. But that's all you're getting.

What else?

• 21A: TAROT [Holder of The Sun and The World] - I was thinking this was referring to newspapers. Are there any newspapers actually called The World? Now that I think about it, that seems like a fake newspaper name they would use in, like, cartoons.
• 33A: DEN [TV spot, often] - I had a hard time talking myself out of "spot" meaning "advertisement," which really slowed me down here.
• 35A: ARIETTA [Short piece at La Scala]
• 55A: DEMI [Starting half?] - I entered the last three letters and then had to wait to see if the first letter was going to be an H, an S, or a D.
• 67A: METS [N.L. East team] - Of course, I wanted this to be NATS. Sigh.
• 8D: SEP [Mo. with Talk Like a Pirate Day] - My favorite line of the Talk Like a Pirate Day origination story is this: "They were playing racquetball, and, as so often happens, they began talking like pirates."
• 46D: AHL [Sports org. with the Calder Cup] - Darn it! I knew it was a hockey award, but didn't realize it was for only one league.
• 61D: JAM [Showy basket] - I had to ask Doug to explain this one to me. He sent me this:

I have two quick things to plug before I let you go.

1. I contributed a guest puzzle for the American Values Club Crossword this week! If you're not a subscriber, you can subscribe here. Or you can buy single puzzles (including mine!) for the low, low price of $1. I hope you'll try it. And I hope you'll like it!


2. It's not too late to register for the Indie 500 crossword tournament, which will be held June 4 in Washington, D.C. I attended last year as a competitor and had a blast. This year I'm on the organizing team and, if I do say so myself, it's shaping up to be even better than last year. Don't miss out! Register now!

Thanks, everybody. With any luck, Rex will be back tomorrow.

Love, PuzzleGirl

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