MGWCC crossword 2:35
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hello, and welcome to episode #896 of matt gaffney’s weekly crossword contest, a week 1 puzzle called “Name That Tunesmith”. the instructions week are likely unneccessary—the title pretty much is the instructions. what are the theme answers?
- {“The Kominsky Method” actor} ALAN ARKIN. i don’t know this work (is it a film? a TV show? a book?), but this is certainly a familiar name from many previous crossword puzzles.
- {“The Breakfast Club” actor} EMILIO ESTEVEZ. also very famous.
- {Son of a “Terrible” czar} IVAN IVANOVICH. getting less famous! although the clue pretty much does tell you the patronymic.
- {77-year-old Mumbai-born singer called “the Queen of Indian Pop”} USHA UTHUP. and we have arrived at least famous of all, at least outside of india.
so we have people with initials AA, EE, II, and UU. there can’t have been many options to choose from for those last two slots, am i right? not that many EE’s either, probably, and a zillion AA’s to choose from.
anyway, the tunesmith we are to name must be ozzy osbourne, the black sabbath lead singer who passed away couple of weeks ago, as the standout OO-initialed person who would complete this theme.
i think this one’s about par for the course for a week 1—the theme is rather obvious, and if you had heard the news about ozzy’s death, still very much current events, the answer probably leapt to mind right away. if not, you could google “people with initials OO” and you would very quickly come up with it. again, there aren’t too many others! oona o’neill (chaplin), no stranger to crossword puzzles herself, is probably #2 on the list, and she was, of course, not a tunesmith. fans of the US men’s national soccer team might recall defender oguchi onyewu, who is now an executive at the US soccer federation.
about the only hard part of this puzzle was filling in the lower part of the grid, where all of the crossings for USHA UTHUP needed to be squeaky-clean. the partial US ON, the slightly odd NOREAST, and the alphabet run GHIJ were unlovely but at least unambiguous.
that’s all i’ve got this week. how’d you like this one?
Thanks, Joon! 468 correct entries this week. I shall post an Usha Uthup video on Friday!
Also, I think her nickname should be “U2”
Puzzle: MGWCC; Rating: 3.5 stars
That would have a bit of an Edge.
Puzzle: MGWCC; Rating: 3.5 stars
It seemed like an old-time Week One to me. While the SE solve was a little sticky, the cues wee clear enough to suss it out without knowing U2 ahead of time.
I really did not like the clue for UHOH (38D), though.
38D was OH NO
Am I the only one that remembers Ugueth Urbina? He was a good pitcher for a while, though his post-baseball career has been … interesting
II’s are harder to come by; maybe İsmet İnönü is the best-known of the bunch?
At a Tigers-Dodgers game in LA in 2005, the Tigers’ bullpen catcher chatted with me for a few minutes during the game and told me we had just traded UU away for Placido Polanco.
….and I’m glad that’s the closest I ever personally came to encountering Mr. Urbina. :)
As a Red Sox fan who watched a lot of the Sox in the early aughts, I do remember Ugueth Urbina! He wasn’t just a UU, he was a UUU: Ugueth Urtain Urbina. Furthermore, both of this brothers _also_ had the initials UUU: Ulises Utah Urbina and Ulmer Ulses Urbina (I remember learning this from one of the announcers during a Sox game one time).
Had no idea about his post-baseball career. Just read about it on Wikipedia, and…yikes.
I knew the answer was OO but it took me far too long to come up with Ozzy Osborne. I am embarrassed to admit that. And his death was in the recent news! D’oh!