Nymph jilted by Paris / SUN 2-1-15 / Roman guardian spirit / Missal storage site / Skeletal enemy in Mario games / Destination of NASA's Dawn probe / Picayune quibble / Vampire Diaries protagonist /

Constructor: David Steinberg

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging


THEME:"This n' That" — common "___ AND ___" phrases are reimagined as two-word phrases where the first word is a homophone of the "___ AND" part, with every first word ending in an "n" sound:

Theme answers:

• SUMMON SUBSTANCE (instead of "sum and substance") (23A: Content of a demand to attend?)
• COFFIN WHEEZE (32A: Freaky funeral noise?)
• HERON MAKEUP (17D: Feathers, pointy bill, long legs, etc.?)
• DRAGON DROP (49A: Dive from a fire-breathing creature?)
• FOREIGN TWENTY (71A: Venti, vingt or zwanzig?)
• KRAKEN PEEL (93A: Woe for a sunburned sea monster?)
• FISSION CHIPS (110A: Intel products used at a nuclear facility?)
• WARREN PEACE (70D: Period when rabbits stop fighting?)
• FOREMAN FUNCTION (119A: Overseeing a work crew, e.g.?)

Word of the Day: ELIS (94D: Site of ancient Greek Olympics) —

Elis /ˈɛlɨs/, or Eleia /ɛˈlaɪ.ə/ (Greek, Modern: Ήλιδα Ilida, Ancient: Ἦλις Ēlis; Doric: ἎλιςAlis; Elean: Ϝαλις Walis, ethnonym: Ϝαλειοι) is an ancient district that corresponds to the modern Elis regional unit. Elis is in southern Greece on the Peloponnesos peninsula, bounded on the north by Achaea, east by Arcadia, south by Messenia, and west by the Ionian Sea. Over the course of the archaic and classical periods, the polis of Elis controlled much of the region of Elis, most probably through unequal treaties with other cities, which acquired perioikic status. Thus the city-state of Elis was formed.

Homer mentions that Elis participated in the Trojan War.

The first Olympic festival was organized in Elean land, Olympia, Greece by the authorities of Elis in the 8th century BC, with tradition dating the first games at 776 BC. The Hellanodikai, the judges of the Games, were of Elean origin. (wikipedia)

Mixed bag. The theme didn't work well for me for two reasons. First, the "___ & ___" phrases were not all that tight. "Four and twenty"? As in blackbirds baked in a pie? Yeah, something like that can stand on its own precisely never. "Crack and peel"? When has that ever been a self-standing phrase? I know it's something dry skin or paint can do, but …???? I'm not that familiar with the phrase "sum and substance," as I've never heard anyone use it ever. "Form and function" feels only slightly more familiar. And yet stuff like "fish & chips" and "War & Peace" and "drag & drop" feel rock solid. Indisputable. Real. So first issue: base phrases are of widely varying quality / realness. Second, there's just no fun here. Neither the answers nor the clues are very funny. 23A is paradigmatic. SUMMON SUBSTANCE is dead weight, and [Content of a demand to attend?] barely makes sense grammatically, and contains no twist, turn, zing. . . nothing. Cluing is painfully straightforward all the way around, with the wonderful exception of the HERON MAKE-UP clue, [Feathers, pointy bill, long legs, etc.?]. That clue/answer pairing did … what's the word … let's say "tickle" me. The rest all had some level of malfunction.


Fill is predominantly good, as is true of most Steinberg grids. He's a careful constructor. HBS and LAR were the only things that really made me wince (I know "halfbacks" are real things, but I can't say I've ever seen that abbr., where as RBS and even FBS, I've seen). And LAR… well, at least it's not LER, I suppose. There's a beauty contest for you: which one would you rather have in your grid: LAR or LER? Sorry, "None of the above" is Not an option.


I had three main trouble spots. This grid (representing roughly me at the 1/3-done point), neatly illustrates at least two of said spots:

Since "crack and peel" is not a real phrase, nothing there. [Skeletal enemy in Mario games] meant nothing to me, though at this point I already wanted DRY BONES (correct). After I got DRY BONES and then KRAKEN PEEL, the biggest problem was having ELIS in the "E" cross, and not being at all sure that I was spelling KRAKEN right. KRAKEN / ELIS was a bit of a roll of the dice (other vowels just looked so much worse).  Bigger snafu, however, was up in the north/west/central part of the grid where, as you can see, I was flummoxed. No idea what "Castaway" was, so its director … ??? COON as a [Garbage collector, informally?]? I get it now—raccoons will get into your garbage—but COON always sounds like a racial slur to me, and having the clue refer to "garbage collector"… somehow, my brain would not let the answer Actually be COON. Too sensitive? Just google [COON]. See what comes up. My friend teaches in COON Rapids, MN, a source of never-ending amusement. I'm guessing it's pretty white up there. But back to the puzzle. ROEG / COON / PROLIFIC had me dead-stopped. But I was able to get down into the SE pretty easily, and picked up momentum again from there. Last problem I had was at the place in the grid where I finished—ON POST / BACOS / MARACAIBO. That "B" was the last thing in. MARACAIBO was today's ABADJAN (which is actually spelled ABIDJAN, so apparently I've learned very little since I blew that answer a few weeks back). Just didn't know it. Needed every cross. ABIDJAN is my new substitute for "Waterloo"—a geographic place name on which your solving campaign comes to a catastrophic end. Today, MARACAIBO was my ABIDJAN. Except I finished, so no *actual* catastrophe. Just a near one.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. if you missed David Steinberg's touching remembrance of the late Bernice Gordon, you really should read it. Here.