Constructor: Erica Hsiung Wojcik
Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging
![]()
THEME: none
Word of the Day: ELLIE Greenwich (41D: ___ Greenwich, co-writer of "Do Wah Diddy Diddy" and "Da Doo Ron Ron") —
![]()
Well, today is the first day since before my NZ trip that I am trying to do things on a "normal" schedule; that is, sleep during sleeping hours and then wake up at 4:30am to solve and blog. Puzzle came out at different (and much more humane) hours in NZ. Then, when I got home, jet lag made resuming a regular schedule immediately impossible, so I stayed up late to solve/blog ... then I got COVID (not fun!) (thanks, 16-hour plane ride with actively sick unmasked people all around me!). So my sleep schedule remained ****ed and I was writing in the middle of the night, whenever I happened to be awake. But I'm feeling much better now, and so ... yes, trying to resume a normal, or at least normal-shaped, schedule. Up and at 'em! Results today: well, not great. A breezy zoom-zoom Friday, for me, this was not. It started that way, but by the time I hit the middle of the grid, this one turned into a proper Saturday puzzle. Proper noun after proper noun that I either flat-out didn't know or that I knew ... but is *that* how you spell it? (EMORY, John TURTURRO). I'm more than willing to write off much of my struggle to post-COVID out-of-shapeness and general fatigue. But the first part of the puzzle was so promising! I literally "awwwww"'d at FUR BABIES!
![]()
But things turned a little for me coming out of that corner, starting with LTE, which I realize is a real abbr. that I see on my phone all the time, but oof, of the modern initialisms, it is one of my least favorite (I honestly still don't know what it stands for, and I've looked it up a bunch of times!). And then came the name avalanche: Port LOUIS (no idea), TURTURRO (knew it, but wanted it to be TUTTURRO for some reason), YODA (knew it!), VIET (nope ... but inferred it ... but wasn't 100% sure ...), EMORY ("*not* EMERY *not* EMERY *not* EMERY...") ... all running through the hardest of them all, for me: JUDITH HEUMANN (35A: Leading disability rights activist in the 2020 documentary "Crip Camp"). If you don't know her, that last name, yee-ikes. I've seen "Crip Camp" drift past on the Netflix home screen a few times, but have yet to watch it. Maybe now? I've heard good things. Anyway, all those long Acrosses were hard for me to see (and I don't really get the wordplay on [Big ticket item?] => COURTSIDE SEAT ... you have a "ticket" to a "big" ... sporting event? I guess). Then the proper noun parade continued out of the center with JR PACMAN (not, somehow, PACMAN, JR.) and ELLIE and CONAN and ouch that clue on BRIE, that stung ... Look, this much name-ness makes the puzzle feel like a trivia test, and even when the "fresh" names happen to be right up my alley, there's a limit to how much I can take and still enjoy the puzzle. Every name here seems perfectly puzzle-worthy, but when, as a solver, you get hung up trying to put together names, this tends to sap your ability to appreciate or even remember the more entertaining and clever elements of the puzzle. But again, my brain is not back to 100% so it's possible that on a normal day, this plays much closer to the snappy Friday that I love and yearn for always.
Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging
Word of the Day: ELLIE Greenwich (41D: ___ Greenwich, co-writer of "Do Wah Diddy Diddy" and "Da Doo Ron Ron") —
Eleanor Louise Greenwich (October 23, 1940 – August 26, 2009) was an American pop music singer, songwriter, and record producer. She wrote or co-wrote "Da Doo Ron Ron", "Be My Baby", "Maybe I Know", "Then He Kissed Me", "Do Wah Diddy Diddy", "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)", "Hanky Panky", "Chapel of Love", "Leader of the Pack", and "River Deep – Mountain High", among others. [...] Still in college, in 1962, Greenwich got her first break in the business when she traveled to the Brill Building to meet John Gluck, Jr., one of the composers of the Lesley Gore hit "It's My Party". Needing to keep another appointment, Gluck installed Greenwich in an office and asked her to wait. The office turned out to be that of songwriter-producers Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. Hearing piano music from the cubicle, Leiber poked his head in and, expecting Carole King, was startled to see Greenwich, who introduced herself and explained her reasons for being there. Recognizing her potential as a songwriter, Leiber and Stoller agreed to allow her to use their facilities as she wished in exchange for first refusal on songs she wrote. They eventually signed Greenwich to their publishing company, Trio Music, as a staff songwriter. [...] On October 28, 1962, [Jeff] Barry and Greenwich married, and shortly afterward decided to write songs exclusively with each other [...] Barry was subsequently signed to Trinity Music, and he and Greenwich were given their own office with their names on the door. Before the end of 1963, Barry-Greenwich had scored hits with songs such as "Be My Baby" and "Baby, I Love You" (The Ronettes), "Then He Kissed Me" and "Da Doo Ron Ron" (The Crystals), "Not Too Young To Get Married" (Bob B. Soxx & the Blue Jeans), and "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" by Darlene Love, all co-written and produced by Phil Spector. (wikipedia)
• • •
UTA was a name I didn't know (5D: ___ Pippig, three-time winner of the Boston Marathon), but it's just three letters and it's in a section with no other names and a truly delightful and varied assortment of other answers. I think the change from NW corner to puzzle center was so drastic that it made the center seem more dire than it was. Possibly. Beyond names, I had difficulty ... where? Well, CUE SHEETS. I know CUE CARDS and CALL SHEETS, but CUE SHEETS, that got me. I'm more familiar with "YA HEARD?" (in rap/hip-hop contexts) than "YA HEAR?" though I guess I do know the phrase "Y'all come back now, YA HEAR?" Is that from "Hee-Haw?" Does Minnie Pearl say that? Or do I still have a fever? Am I even blogging right now? Or is this a Minnie Pearl fever dream? LOL it's "The Beverly Hillbillies" that I know that folksy closing line from! Of course! Nevermind about Minnie Pearl and "Hee-Haw." I think we *all* fever-dreamed that.
["We'll dress like Minnie Pearl!"]
Had "I'LL BE FINE" before "I'LL MANAGE" (56A: "Don't worry about me"), which would've been a hell of a trap if that corner hadn't been otherwise very, uh, manageable. Had LOVE SC- and still couldn't see LOVE SCENE, which is definitely on me and my out-of-shape solving brain (12D: Hot take?). Overall, if there were some way to bring the name temperature down on this one, I think I would've enjoyed it quite a bit. Something about the combination of trivia and my current physical state made solving a bit of a slog today. Sigh. Onward! [headdesk, crawl to kitchen for coffee...]