MGWCC #305

crossword 2:37
meta about 10 seconds 

hello and welcome to week #305 of matt gaffney’s weekly crossword contest, “Go with the Flow”. the instructions for this week 1 puzzle tell us that we’re looking for a well-known body of water. what are the theme answers?

• {Prussian called “The Iron Chancellor”} is OTTO VON BISMARCK.
• {His wife won twice as many Nobel Prizes as he did} clues PIERRE CURIE. their daughter (and her husband) also shared a nobel, bringing the family total to five. that is five more than my family.
• {Their website’s sections include “T-Bones and Porterhouses” and “Seafood from World Port”} clues OMAHA STEAKS.
• {Lindbergh’s ride (well, it’s close enough for the theme)} is the SPIRIT OF ST. LOUIS.

well, BISMARCK, PIERRE, OMAHA, and (almost) ST. LOUIS are all on the missouri river, so that’s the answer to the meta. the missouri-mississippi confluence is just slightly north of st. louis, rather than in the city itself, but that didn’t stop matt this time—nor did it stop him the last time he made a metapuzzle out of the missouri river and st. louis. if you don’t remember MGWCC #154, it’s one of my all-time favorites.

bits from the fill:

• {They’re so cool} HOTSHOTS. i love this word. like couscous or beriberi, it’s the same four letters twice in a row—they’re so cool. but unlike those others, it’s not pronounced that way.
• {Jean-Jacques who wrote “The Social Contract”} ROUSSEAU. not to be confused with aaron sorkin, who wrote the social network.
• {They play the Angels tonight at Minute Maid Park} ASTROS. the angels won, 11-1. spoiler alert: there is going to be a lot of that for the astros this season. but they’ll be better than last year.
• {Mohammad ___ Pahlavi (deposed Shah of Iran)} REZA. you might remember this from such metas as last week’s.
• {Chess players, as we are stereotyped and it’s totally not true! Do I sound defensive?} NERDS, and yes.
• {Warbling Yoko} ONO. huh. does she warble? i know she tweets, but that’s a different bird sound entirely.
• {Whale that’s also an annual crossword award} ORCA. oh yeah. the orcas are now officially big-time.
• {Colleague of John, Clarence, Elena, Samuel, Ruth, Stephen, Antonin and Anthony} SONIA. let’s see—scalia is grumpy, thomas is bashful, …
• {Good surname for a cardiologist?} HART. {Good surname for a cigar store owner?} ASHE. eh, this felt like one “good name for…” clue too many. HART is straightforwardly easy to clue anyway, both because it’s a common noun and because there are lots of famous HARTs.
• {“The Wizard ___”} OF OZ. i like that this is immediately followed by {“The Ghost and Mrs. ___”} MUIR. if you glance at it quickly, it looks like “the wizard and mrs. muir”, which would be a fun movie.

that’s all for this week. see you next time.