Constructor: Derrick Niederman
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium ("Medium" only because of "JUDY IN DISGUISE," my god, talk about a deep cut, you can't even name the band, no, no you can't, trust me, no one has heard from them since 1968)
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THEME: "Playing the Hits" — "Hit" songs are clued by way of word "play":
Theme answers:
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***HELLO, READERS AND FELLOW SOLVERS*** -- Today is the last day of my annual one-week appeal for financial support. It has been a real joy hearing from so many of you this week. I'm proud of having made it 15 years, and (brain willing) I'm looking forward to 15 more. I'm genuinely thrilled to be a part of so many people's regular solving routines. I love that you all are able to see past my political outspokenness and personal idiosyncrasies and (I'm told) occasional "grouchiness" because you recognize that at the heart of this whole blogging endeavor is a sincere love for crosswords and the wide, weird world of people who solve them. I'm not the world's foremost authority. I'm not an objective explainer of things. I'm truly just some guy with a laptop and free blogging software who started yelling about crossword puzzles one day in 2006 and then, well, just never shut up. It was stunning to me that anyone showed up to listen, and it remains stunning that there are so many people who share my irrationally emotional attachment to the act of putting letters in boxes every day. Your letters and cards and messages this week have been nothing short of energizing. When I tell you your support means a lot to me, that's not just a line. It takes a lot of time and effort to maintain this blog, and all forms of support, financial and moral, are deeply, genuinely validating. I've gotten so many different kinds of feedback: short notes, long stories, occasional scoldings— what's clear is how much you all care, and how much you value not just crosswords but *community,* especially in These Challenging Times™. Look at these heartwarming messages! :)
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How much should you give? Whatever you think the blog is worth to you on a yearly basis. Whatever that amount is is fantastic. Some people refuse to pay for what they can get for free. Others just don't have money to spare. All are welcome to read the blog—the site will always be open and free. But if you are able to express your appreciation monetarily, here are two options. First, a Paypal button (which you can also find in the blog sidebar):
Rex Parker c/o Michael Sharp
54 Matthews St
Binghamton, NY 13905
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Well you can't deny that "JUDY IN DISGUISE" was a "hit" in its day, as it went to #1, but wow, has any #1 song sunk so far, so completely out of public consciousness as that 55-year-old song. I had the IN DISGUISE part and could remember only Elvis's "DEVIL IN DISGUISE," which obviously wouldn't fit. And ... John Fred & His Playboy Band!?!?! This is literally the first I am hearing of that band's name (I actually know the song, as I listened almost exclusively to oldies stations when I was in high school). All the other songs in this puzzle are familiar to me. Many are iconic. But "JUDY IN DISGUISE," hoo boy. Not at all coincidentally, the JUDY section of this puzzle was by far the hardest section of this otherwise easy puzzle. I had DIASTOLE instead of SYSTOLE at 88D: Rhythmic part of a heartbeat, and I have never in my life heard of NOPEST (99A: Brand of insecticide strips), and I have no idea who this JOANNA person is (93D: Protagonist in "The Stepford Wives"), and somehow *all* of those answers intersect or abut JUDY. Looks like NOPEST has appeared two other times, in 2012 and 2009. So I guess I have technically seen it before. But it left no trace. But let's back up, zoom out, and consider the theme as a whole. Uh, it's kinda crummy. Lots of subpar cryptic clues posing as word "play." The "JUDY IN DISGUISE" clue, unfortunately, has the most convoluted of the clues. I couldn't even see that the hidden JUDY was "Garland" because I thought the missing letter in the first word was "C," i.e. I was reading the clue CHANCE APPEARANCE TO CONCEAL AND MISLEAD. So that "JUDY" clue was truly doing everything it could not to endear itself to me. Didn't particularly like that it used the same missing-letters gimmick that the "SHE'S NOT THERE" clue used. I couldn't even see that the "I" in 110: ENT I CEMENT (#1, 1983) was "lean"ing because my software doesn't render italics in the clues. Luckily, I know the song "COME ON, EILEEN" exceedingly well, so my solving was not impaired.
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium ("Medium" only because of "JUDY IN DISGUISE," my god, talk about a deep cut, you can't even name the band, no, no you can't, trust me, no one has heard from them since 1968)
Theme answers:
- "SHE'S NOT THERE" (23A: THE LADY VANI____ (#2, 1964)) (The Zombies) (this is the best clue of the lot, by far: "SHE'S" is literally not there, i.e. it has disappeared from the end of the Hitchcock title, which is in fact about a disappearing lady)
- "I'LL BE AROUND" (29A: BILLE (#3, 1972) (The Spinners) (standard cryptic cluing: "I'LL" with "BE" around (i.e. encompassing) it.
- "THE POWER OF LOVE" (36A: xº (#1, 1985)) (Huey Lewis and the News) (variable "x" raised to the ... well, power of love, i.e. zero)
- "DEVIL INSIDE" (60A: VAUDEVILLIAN (#2, 1988)) (INXS) ("DEVIL" is "inside" the word "Vaudevillian")
- "LET'S GO CRAZY" (71A: LOST, E.G. (#1, 1984)) (Prince) (clue is an anagram of LOST, E.G.; "crazy" is standard cryptic crossword anagram indicator)
- "JUDY IN DISGUISE" (93A: CHAN_E _PPEA_ANCE TO CONCEA_ __D MISLEA_ (#1, 1968)) (John Fred and His Playboy Band) (!?!?!?!?!?) (the clue phrase means "disguise" and the missing letters in that phrase spell out a famous Judy, namely GARLAND)
- "RUMOUR HAS IT" (101A: TITTLE-TATTLE (#16, 2011)) (Adele) ("tittle-tattle" is "rumour," and it contains (or "has") "it" inside it)
- "COME ON EILEEN" (110A: ENT I CEMENT (#1, 1983)) (Dexys Midnight Runners) (no apostrophe in "Dexys," weirdly) ("enticement" is a "come-on," and in the clue the "I" is "leaning")
"Judy in Disguise (With Glasses)" is a song that was a hit for the Louisiana-based John Fred & His Playboy Band in late 1967. The song was jointly written and composed by Fred and bandmate Andrew Bernard. // The song features strings, brass, a sitar, piano, bass, guitar, drums, breathing sounds, and dissonant string sounds. Its title is a play on, and a mondegreen of, the Beatles song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds". (Fred thought the lyrics were "Lucy in disguise with diamonds" when he first heard that song.) // The other members of the Playboy Band did not like the unusual slow abrupt ending with Fred intoning the final line, "I guess I'll just take your glasses." (wikipedia)
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If you would like to support the site and haven't yet, you can do so at any time—the Paypal button, my Venmo handle, and my mailing address live permanently in the sidebar of the blog. For today's readers, here's the pitch, one last time:
How much should you give? Whatever you think the blog is worth to you on a yearly basis. Whatever that amount is is fantastic. Some people refuse to pay for what they can get for free. Others just don't have money to spare. All are welcome to read the blog—the site will always be open and free. But if you are able to express your appreciation monetarily, here are two options. First, a Paypal button (which you can also find in the blog sidebar):
Rex Parker c/o Michael Sharp
54 Matthews St
Binghamton, NY 13905
I'll throw my Venmo handle in here too, just in case that's your preferred way of moving money around; it's @MichaelDavidSharp (the last four digits of my phone are 4878, in case Venmo asks you, which I guess it does sometimes, when it's not trying to push crypto on you, what the hell?!)
Every PayPal/Venmo donation will get an e-acknowledgment from me. Snail mailers will get my latest thank-you postcard, designed by my dear daughter, Ella Egan, and featuring my dear dumb cats, Alfie and Olive:
And now, for 51 more weeks, it's all puzzles, all the time. Thank you thank you thank you for being such a loyal and varied and interesting bunch. Seriously, seriously, thanks.
Here's the Sunday write-up ...
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| [Actress Garr] |
The word VAUDEVILLIAN is completely irrelevant to the answer "DEVIL INSIDE." The other clues at least make full use of the words they contain. Why is it VAUDEVILLIAN and not just VAUDEVILLE? [BILLE] (29A) is totally meaningless as a standalone entity. Sigh, it's all just a little too. Too twee, too cutesy, too bygone, too awkward. Also, I feel bad for people who are, uh, young, as some of these songs, wow. You have to have been there. Or be the child of someone who had been there. Do Millennials (and younger) know The Spinners? The Zombies? Do you all even know Huey Lewis and the News? I have no problem with any of these acts, or their songs, being in a puzzle, but since they're all themers, this one seems pretty generationally exclusionary. The songs are mostly in my sweet spot, but that won't be true for many folks younger than me.
RINGY? (52D: "One ___-dingy" (Ernestine the operator's catchphrase on "Laugh-In")). Ppfpfweewwfppppppfffft, speaking of "younger than Gen X," hey kids: remember Ernestine!? And her catchphrases!? Again, to be clear: love love love Lily Tomlin, no problem with her and her characters being in a puzzle, but this puzzle has already anchored itself really strongly in a bygone time. With *this* theme, I'd've tried to make as much of the rest of my puzzle current (or at least generationally neutral) as I could. But instead it's Ernestine and an old Santana hit (118A: "___ Como Va" (Santana hit)) and an even older Tony Randall yellowface role (97D: 1964 Tony Randall title role = DR. LAO), and not a lot of current stuff to balance those answers out. Otherwise, the grid seems reasonably clean, if not particularly scintillating (the grid structure doesn't leave a lot of room for longer non-theme answers. Outside of two long Downs (ABOUT FACE, KISSIMMEE), you get a few 7s and a few 8s and that's it. LIME KILN seems bizarrely arcane, albeit ultimately inferrable (109A: Furnace for calcium oxide production), and POULT (26D: Young chicken, e.g.) ... well, I had POULE, which is French for "chicken."POULT seems pretty technical. But, again, gettable. The problem today was simply that the theme clues were loose and bedraggled. And "JUDY IN DISGUISE" was a real head-shaker, even for me, a person who has heard the song before. I hope you found more to like than I did. I find that if I just focus on "LET'S GO CRAZY," such that the song starts playing in my head, I feel pretty good. Give it a try.