Graz's land: Abbr. / SUN 3-30-14 / Where "hello" is "sveiks" / "Twelfth Night" duke / Ring Lardner's "Alibi ___" / "Eternally nameless" thing, in Eastern religion

Constructor: Peter A. Collins

Relative difficulty: Easy




THEME: Musical Interpretation— The words of a well-known song are placed in the grid according to other words from the song title that indicate placement. If that makes any sense.

Theme answers:

• 28A: [ROCK] [AROUND] THE CLOCK
• 37A/43A: SMOKE [ON] THE WATER
• 66A: A TEENAGER [IN] LOVE
• 78A: TIME [AFTER] TIME
• 95D/89D: STAND [BY] YOUR MAN
• 90D: BAD MOON [RISING]

Good morning, everyone. PuzzleGirl here with you again. This time I have plenty of time to write the blog post, so if it ends up short what the hell is my excuse going to be? Read on to find out.

Cute theme here from Mr. Peter A. Collins who, by the way, is a totally nice guy. Never met him in person, but the few interactions I have had with him have always been pleasant if not delightful. He's a teacher up in Wisconsin or Minnesota -- somewhere up there where it's cold and people are nice. Today he's treating us to some musical wordplay. Cute! I happened to hit SMOKE ON THE WATER early on, so no trouble with the theme.


After I found that lovely clip for you, this is what I saw at the bottom of my Google results:
Um ... no thanks.

I didn't have too many problems in this grid. Trickiest entries for me were:

• 58A: Former Disney president Michael (OVITZ) - There was a Michael Eisner at Disney too, right? That's the only one I could think of.
• 96A: Thumbing-the-nose gesture (SNOOK) - Learn something new every day!
• 99A: Mideast V.I.P. (AMIR) - Not a fan of this spelling.
• 43D: The "T" of Mr. T (TERO) - Feel like I should have known this, but didn't.
• 100D: Inspector of crime fiction (MORSE) - Never heard of him but thanks for the excuse to post a picture of Michael Morse. You Giants fans are so lucky to have him! You're gonna love him!

Other Stuff Worth Noting:

• 20A: Now and Again? (TWICE)— I have to believe this clue has been used before, but I don't recall ever seeing it and it's pretty cute.
• 25A: Like Neptune among the planets in the solar system (OUTERMOST)— Poor Pluto.
• 62A: Olympic leap (TOE LOOP)— Once I started thinking about track events, it took me forever to come around to figure skating.
• 72A: Pond denizen (EFT) — This is one of those little pieces of crosswordese that you just have to know, right? There's nothing cool about it, kinda boring. But now whenever I see it I remember how it was a key part of an answer (or question, I guess) on Jeopardy when Joon Pahk was on the show. I remember seeing it and thinking "Oh he better get this!" and of course he did. (This is the part where I start watching Jeopardy! clips for God knows how long.)
• 79A: Memorable series in "Psycho" (STABS)— Eww.
• 101A: Meatless day in W.W. II: Abbr. (TUE) — Random!
• 2D: Actress Tierney (MAURA)— And this is the part where I get sucked into watching videos of "NewsRadio" on YouTube. I'll be back in a couple hours.
• 3D: Suffering (IN BAD SHAPE) — I always like seeing colloquial phrases in the grid. (See also 57D: Muff a grounder (BOOT IT)).
• 67D: Former faddish exercise regimen (TAE BO)— When I was pregnant with my son I saw an ad for TAE BO and thought it looked super super fun. So I bought the tapes and ... well, then I had my son, and then I was a new mom, and then I was a mom of a toddler, and then I was a mother of two young children, and now it's 15 years later and where the hell are those tapes anyway???
• 76D: Description on many eBay listings (RARE)— My daughter discovered eBay a couple days ago. She bid on some boots and asked if she could have an advance on her allowance for the amount she was short. I agreed. She won the auction (So. Exciting.) but realized that she had forgotten about the shipping cost. So she needed a little bit more money from me. Okay, no big deal, she'll pay me back. But the next thing that happens is she has to admit to me that she also won another auction. She had also bid on another pair of boots and "didn't realize" she couldn't "take her bid back." Part of me believes that she just made a mistake because, hey, it's her first time using eBay. Another part of me thinks I'm being swindled. Ah, the joy of teenagers.
• 107D: Longing looks (LEERS)— I don't know about this clue. I don't really think of a LEER as "longing." I think of a LEER more as ... rude, crude and creepy. Who's with me?
• 110D: Didn't stop in time, say (OD'ED)— This made me sad.

Of course there was a little bit of, shall way say, suboptimal fill here and there (you got your ORA, your GMT, your ERA, your ETA, your SYS, and your TSP, just to name a few), but it's Sunday, which means the grid is huge and what are ya gonna do? You do the best you can with a cute theme and some interesting fill here and there and you call it a night. That's what you do.

You'll have a couple other subs tomorrow and Tuesday. With any luck, Rex will be back where he belongs on Wednesday.

Love, PuzzleGirl