Mike Shenk’s Wall Street Journal contest crossword, “Aforesaid” — Conrad’s writeup.
This week we’re looking for an Oscar-winning actor. There were six starred clues.
Nothing jumped out at me, and Mike didn’t seem to stash another clue in the grid, as he often does. I pondered the title: Aforesaid. Odd word choice: aforementioned would be a more common choice. Probably not a coincidence. I parsed the title as “said before.” All of the theme entries were last names, so I wrote down the matching first names:
- 19A: (Jim) PARSONS -> [*Galecki’s co-star on “The Big Bang Theory”]:
- 20A: (Hugh) JACKMAN -> [*Wolverine’s portrayer]
- 30A: (Pete) WENTZ -> -> [*Fall Out Boy bassist/songwriter]:
- 42A: (Rex) STOUT -> [*Creator of Nero Wolfe]:
- 49A: (Phil) COLLINS -> [*Genesis frontman]:
- 53A: (Cy) COLEMAN -> [*Composer of “Big Spender” and “Hey, Look Me Over”]
I scanned the grid for anything matching the first names and found no signal. I turned to the clues and noticed REP’s clue: Gym count. Then SPHAGNUM (crunchy fill that I noticed while completing the grid), clued as Peat moss. They were homophones of Jim and Pete.
WSJ Contest – 01.05.2025
I had the rabbit: six clues started with words that rhymed with the first names of the themers. Here they are in theme order:
- REPS: [Gym count] -> Jim
- UMBER: [Hue akin to taupe] -> Hugh
- SPHAGNUM: [Peat moss] -> Pete
- TOTALS: [Wrecks beyond repair] -> Rex
- LADE: [Fill with cargo] -> Phil
- EXHALE: [Sigh, say] -> Cy
The first letters of the mapped entries spell RUSTLE, a homophone of the first name of our contest solution: Oscar winning actor Russell Crowe. I’m not normally a fan of “sounds like” metas due to regional differences in pronunciation, but this one seemed clean to me. Solvers: please share your thoughts.
I wonder why the grid is so heavily segmented. The NW and SE only connect to the rest by the tiniest of corridors.
Fun puzzle. It would have been nice to find “CROWE” in the grid somewhere as a final ‘click.’
8A Hawke in Hollywood…..Hawk(e) = Crow(e).
Loved this one. I had a little trouble because I had Amber not Umber, having entered BAD RAPS. So I got RASTLE. Lol. Didn’t know anyone by that name. Eventually I caught my mistake (thanks to MAO) and figured it out. How bout “I gotta crow” for a video? Ties into PAN. :)
LOL, I had the exact same error, and started wondering whether Christian SLATER had won an Oscar without my knowledge!
We wondered if 64A “SEE” was meant to confirm the “C” in Crowe…
Once we had found all the first names and the homophonic RUSTLE, we noticed Mike’s last across answer (64A), SEE, was confirmation that his last name began with the letter C. (Coincidentally, the upper left-hand corner (13A) contained ARE, so we had homophones of both of the actor’s initials!)
I thought the upper right 8A HAWKE (last name) was a sure indication of CROWE (last name).
Howard Russell also won (two) Oscars, but since RUSTLE was found via first names, it probably would be disallowed.
Do you mean Harold Russell?
I kept trying to say “Jim Hugh Pete Rex Phil Cy” and extract a meaningful phrase.
“Jim who… ” might’ve clued “Jim Broadbent” (Oscar winner) but I couldn’t get anything to really work in that direction.