Constructor: ROSS TRUDEAU
Relative difficulty: Pretty easy
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THEME: Dreamers — Famous people known for works drawing on dreams
Theme answers:
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For 2D, my mind immediately jumped to hamburgers as the food that symbolizes America, but I suppose APPLE PIE is pretty all-American, too. (In-N-Out would’ve been a correct answer, too, at least for those of us from the West Coast.) The Dalí painting is very… shall we say... interesting. If you figure it out, let me know.![]()
Signed, Clare Carroll, an ecstatic Eli
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Relative difficulty: Pretty easy
THEME: Dreamers — Famous people known for works drawing on dreams
Theme answers:
- LANGSTON HUGHES (19A: “Montage of a Dream Deferred” poet)
- SIGMUND FREUD (29A: “The Interpretation of Dreams” writer)
- SALVADOR DALI (29A: “Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate Before Awakening” artist)
- EVERLY BROTHERS (52A: “All I Have to Do Is Dream” singers)
Tamarind (Tamarindus indica) is a leguminoustree in the familyFabaceae indigenous to tropical Africa. The genus Tamarindus is a monotypic taxon, having only a single species.The tamarind tree produces pod-like fruit, which contain an edible pulp that is used in cuisines around the world. Other uses of the pulp include traditional medicine and metal polish. The wood can be used for woodworking, and tamarind seed oil can be extracted from the seeds. Because of the tamarind's many uses, cultivation has spread around the world in tropical and subtropical zones. (Wikipedia)
• • •
I’m baaack! I’m Clare, and I’ll be your host for the last Tuesday of every month. I’m delighted to get the chance to write about more puzzles, and I figure I might lower Rex’s blood pressure at least a bit by relieving him of having to write up quite so many Tuesday puzzles. I signed off last time as a happy Eli (I’m a senior history major at Yale), and I’ve got to say that I’m now an ecstatic Eli — I just found out that Hillary Clinton is going to be my commencement speaker this year!
This puzzle struck me as fine for a Tuesday. The long names for the theme were interesting enough to puzzle out, but I totally didn’t realize they all related to dreams until minutes after I’d finished the puzzle. Knowing the dream connection didn’t matter to the solve. And there sure were a lot of other proper names in there (SELENA, HAMM, TURTURRO and ARISTOTLE) beyond the four theme answers. It’s a bit funny to see SELENA Gomez and ARISTOTLE on the same level.
The grid was overall pretty clean. It was nice to see the G.O.A.T, Mia HAMM, in there! And, shout out to my hometown of MENLO Park (even if the clue was referring to the one in New Jersey, not the one where I grew up in California). I did have a big oops on 62A with “special intuition, for short” because I read that as “institution” at first and couldn’t get that out of my head and get to ESP. I also thought that SOYS was a pretty lame plural — I got stuck because I was trying to make the answer “soya,” instead. And, as a 21-year-old millennial, I can promise you no one says ROTFL anymore! I tried to put “lmfao” in at first (not that it’s used much anymore, either) but then realized that probably wouldn’t be PC enough to put in the puzzle.
It was also nice to see SVEN, the adorable reindeer from the movie “Frozen.” I’m ashamed to admit that my first instinct when I saw “Frozen” in the clue was to type in “Olaf” before realizing it asked for the reindeer, not the snowman. Anyway, “Tangled” is a better Disney movie than “Frozen.”
I got to use some of what I’ve learned in my classes in college in the puzzle. (See, Dad, you’re paying for my education for a reason!). Examples: PLESSY v. Ferguson; knowing SALVADOR DALI because of some art history classes; jumping right to DUEL because of a Hamilton-Jefferson class and, of course, the musical. (My professor Joanne Freeman actually compiled the book of Hamilton’s letters that Lin-Manuel Miranda used for the musical and did research on duels that he put directly into the songs! She even got to meet him, which makes me insanely jealous, because he’d definitely have a seat at my “pick three famous people, dead or alive, to have dinner with” — I’m sure he’s vying for a spot.)
For 2D, my mind immediately jumped to hamburgers as the food that symbolizes America, but I suppose APPLE PIE is pretty all-American, too. (In-N-Out would’ve been a correct answer, too, at least for those of us from the West Coast.) The Dalí painting is very… shall we say... interesting. If you figure it out, let me know.
Things I didn’t get:
- “Feet slangily” is DOGS, though that seems to be a fairly common expression
- “Pa Clampett of ‘The Beverly Hillbillies’” is JED
- I’ve never heard of the EVERLY BROTHERS, so that took some piecing together
- TAMARIND took me a bit because, even though I recognized the word, before this puzzle I couldn’t have told you it was an ingredient in Worcestershire sauce
Now, I’m off to write a full draft of my senior thesis by next week. (Send help!)
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