Picture section in old newspapers / SAT 5-11-19 / Children's author Ibbotson / Great Texas hold 'em hand informally / Field of study for TV physicist Sheldon Cooper

Constructor: Robyn Weintraub

Relative difficulty: Medium (7:34)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: EVA Ibbotson (32D: Children's author Ibbotson) —

Eva Maria Charlotte Michelle Ibbotson (née Wiesner), more commonly known as Eva Ibbotson (21 January 1925 – 20 October 2010) was an Austrian-born British novelist, known for her children's books. Some of her novels for adults have been successfully reissued for the young adult market in recent years.

For the historical novel Journey to the River Sea (Macmillan, 2001), she won the Smarties Prize in category 9–11 years, garnered unusual commendation as runner up for the Guardian Prize, and made the Carnegie, Whitbread, and Blue Peter shortlists.

She was a finalist for the 2010 Guardian Prize at the time of her death. Her last book, The Abominables, was one of four finalists for the same award in 2012. [...]

Critics have observed similarities between Ibbotson's "Platform 13" in The Secret of Platform 13 (1994) and J.K. Rowling's "Platform 9 3/4" in the Harry Potter books (from 1997), both located at King's Cross station in London. The journalist Amanda Craig has written about the similarities: "Ibbotson would seem to have at least as good a case for claiming plagiarism as the American author currently suing J. K. Rowling [Nancy Stouffer], but unlike her, Ibbotson says she would 'like to shake her [Rowling] by the hand. I think we all borrow from each other as writers'." (wikipedia)

I solved this just after four in the morning, having been asleep since nine-ish, and since I'm not really used to being awake at this hour, I have no way to gauge expected brain function. What I'm saying is I solved it in about seven and a half minutes and it felt slow, but that time is roughly normal for me, and I have no idea how any of this will compare to the average solving experience. This was more out-of-wheelhouse than I normally feel solving Robyn's puzzles—almost certainly the toughest puzzle of hers that I've done. But it was very doable; I just had a "guess this just isn't my day" day. I balked at a bunch of the short fill, which felt slightly retro in a bad way (see esp. ROTO (2D: Picture section in old newspapers), which I got easily, but only from having crashed and burned on it years ago; it's short for "rotogravure," which I know only from a song ... "you'll find that you're in the rotogravure" ... gah, why is my brain singing this to the tune of "Rocky Raccoon"!? ... OMG it's from "Easter Parade," from the movie of the same title, which I literally just watched for the first time this past Easter (i.e. a few weeks ago). Anyway, ROTO is SOSO, and ESSA ANI NCIS ... I think I'm just annoyed at the quantity of short answers, more than I am at their overall quality. And maybe the longer answers aren't splashy enough to compensate for the mass of ordinary short stuff. But the grid is quite solid, nonetheless, and a worthy Saturday challenge. A couple of highlights: that's a nice clue on STICK SHIFT (17A: Car owner's manual?), and "HE LOVES ME NOT" is a lovely phrase that tripped me up because I always expect the lovelorn petal-puller to be some sadsack dude (48A: Unlucky phrase to end on). Straight dude, that is. So my first thought was "SHE ... why doesn't SHE fit!?" And, yeah, the answer was pretty simple.


Five things:

• 13D: Brand for the rest of the people? (SEALY) — Took me forever; I really think "of the people" is a phrase too far, since it has nothing to do with anything except making the clue sound like it's about something else. But I respect the "rest" pun.
• 41D: URL ending (GOV)— this is one of those blind-guess answers that I really wish had a more specific clue
• 59A: "Hmm ..." ("LET'S SEE NOW...") — Had the "LET," went with "LET ME THINK..."
• 8D: Giraffe's sound? (SOFT G)— I've been seeing variations on this kind of clue forEver and still, still I did not get this one right away (answer refers to the first letter in "giraffe") (and while I'm explaining things, TRIPS is three-of-a-kind (1A: Great Texas hold 'em hand) ... ooh, but here's additional info I did not know, from pokernews dot com: "In hold’em and Omaha, “trips” is more often used to describe making three of a kind with one card in your hand and a pair on the board. Meanwhile having a pocket pair and making three of a kind with one card on the board is usually referred to as making a “set.”")
• 15A: Menace following Captain Hook around, for short (CROC) — well clearly I do not know this story at all because I figured that if he's a captain, he'd be at sea—how is a CROC"following" anyone at sea? Anyway, I had him followed by an ORCA.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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