Constructor: Christopher Adams and Adam Aaronson
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (Easy but for some proper nouns that will hold people up to wildly varying degrees)
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THEME: "867-5309" aka "JENNY" (57D: Woman in a 1982 hit who can be reached using the starts of the answers to the starred clues) — the phone-number title of this apparently universally famous Tommy Tutone song of 1982 is represented by the numbers at the beginning of the seven themers; the song is about how the singer is gonna call JENNY so he hopes she hasn't changed her number, but it's weirdly also addressed *to* JENNY, so either he's already found her, like, on the street, or else he's doing that apostrophe (noun (2)) thing where you address a person (or object, or abstract concept) who isn't actually there. Either way ... for the price of a dime (1982! Payphones!) he can always turn to JENNY by simply dialing:
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Theme answers:
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Well I was a TWEENER (still not a word) in 1982, so this was about as up-my-alley as a theme can get, but when things are up my alley, I always wonder how many other people share that alley. Certainly, the song is famous, but I have no perspective on how famous, since I've had it in my head since I was 12. Is it generationally famous? It would seem so. Or not. I don't know. All I know is that when I got to JENNY I JENNY-uinely laughed (if you're going to pun, make it big and bad, like that). It gave me a real aha and then it got me singing the song in my head and *then* it got me thinking about what a weird premise the song has—talking to JENNY about wanting to call ... JENNY, whose number is apparently written on (bathroom?) walls, but Tommy wants her to know he's like the guys who got her number *that* way ... if only he could get her on the phone and tell her ... which shouldn't be hard ... since he has her number memorized (and so do we now, for all eternity). Dude would be giving off major stalker vibes if he weren't giving off such major silly vibes. Still, as a pop rock song it is extremely catchy, and as choruses go, 867-5309 is not one you're likely to forget. Maybe he repeats it over and over because he has nothing to write it down with and so he's just repeating it the way you do when you want to make sure you remember something, like an incantation. He probably did see her name and number on the wall, and now he's half-drunk and lonely and full of dumb ideas. I feel a little bad for JENNY. Still, though, good song, and the puzzle hits on the two things you definitely know about the song even if you've only heard it once: he is calling JENNY ("JENNY, JENNY, I'm gonna say your name twelve times in this song!") and her number is, well, you know:
The themers themselves were often charming or original all on their own, esp. EIGHT BIT, FIVE GUYS, and NINE WEST (which I originally thought was going to be the revealer ... has there been a NINE WEST puzzle? Seems like you could do ... something ... with that as your revealer). I also like how "O" was represented by "O CANADA"—the whole number-as-letter thing is built into the song lyrics, so it's perfect. Not many hold-ups for me today. Never heard of Ted CHIANG (and I still haven't seen "Arrival" somehow either), but all the crosses came quickly. I had both HEM IN and PEN IN before BOX IN (9D: Completely confine). I had real trouble parsing / grasping PUNTED ON, though now that I see it, it seems just fine for its clue (44A: Kicked down the road, as an issue). Did not and still kind of don't give credence to the spelling on HUNH?, which looks more like a grunt than a question (39D: "Say what?"). I weirdly loved US TOO. Seems like a totally ordinary thing that is also very original (as a crossword answer) (37D: "We wanna join!"). I forgot VEVO was a thing even though I see those letters on videos all the time. This is probably because I see those videos at YouTube, which is the only "video hosting service" I ever actually go to. OK, that's all. Gotta go to a cooler part of the house now since the sweats have started and it's not even 6am. Good day!
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (Easy but for some proper nouns that will hold people up to wildly varying degrees)
- EIGHT BIT (17A: *Like many old video game soundtracks)
- SIX PACK (19A: *Common purchase for a tailgate)
- SEVEN SEAS (26A: *Sinbad's milieu)
- FIVE GUYS (41A: *Burger chain named for a father and his sons)
- THREEPEAT (54A: *One of two for the 1990s Chicago Bulls)
- O CANADA (63A: *Anthem whose French lyrics predate its English lyrics)
- NINE WEST (66A: *Former fashion retailer so-named for its 57th Street address in Manhattan)
Ted Chiang (born 1967) is an American science fiction writer. His work has won four Nebula awards, four Hugo awards, the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and four Locus awards.[1] His short story Story of Your Life was the basis of the film Arrival (2016). [...] Chiang has published seventeen short stories, novelettes, and novellas as of 2019, and has won numerous science fiction awards for his works: a Nebula Award for "Tower of Babylon" (1990); the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 1992; a Nebula Award and the Theodore Sturgeon Award for "Story of Your Life" (1998); a Sidewise Award for "Seventy-Two Letters" (2000); a Nebula Award, Locus Award, and Hugo Award for his novelette "Hell Is the Absence of God" (2002); a Nebula and Hugo Award for his novelette "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" (2007); a British Science Fiction Association Award, a Locus Award, and the Hugo Award for Best Short Story for "Exhalation" (2009); and a Hugo Award and Locus Award for his novella "The Lifecycle of Software Objects" (2010). (wikipedia)
• • •
[See the little letters in the bottom-right corner of this video? ...
VEVO! (59A: Video hosting service since 2009)]
The themers themselves were often charming or original all on their own, esp. EIGHT BIT, FIVE GUYS, and NINE WEST (which I originally thought was going to be the revealer ... has there been a NINE WEST puzzle? Seems like you could do ... something ... with that as your revealer). I also like how "O" was represented by "O CANADA"—the whole number-as-letter thing is built into the song lyrics, so it's perfect. Not many hold-ups for me today. Never heard of Ted CHIANG (and I still haven't seen "Arrival" somehow either), but all the crosses came quickly. I had both HEM IN and PEN IN before BOX IN (9D: Completely confine). I had real trouble parsing / grasping PUNTED ON, though now that I see it, it seems just fine for its clue (44A: Kicked down the road, as an issue). Did not and still kind of don't give credence to the spelling on HUNH?, which looks more like a grunt than a question (39D: "Say what?"). I weirdly loved US TOO. Seems like a totally ordinary thing that is also very original (as a crossword answer) (37D: "We wanna join!"). I forgot VEVO was a thing even though I see those letters on videos all the time. This is probably because I see those videos at YouTube, which is the only "video hosting service" I ever actually go to. OK, that's all. Gotta go to a cooler part of the house now since the sweats have started and it's not even 6am. Good day!
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld