MGWCC #770

 

hello and welcome to episode #770 of matt gaffney’s weekly crossword contest, “It Takes Two”. for this week 1 puzzle, the instructions weren’t necessary. what are the theme answers? five long across answers are two-word phrases with initials E.R.:

• {Flower seen in Manhattan} EAST RIVER. “flower” as in “something that flows”, not a bloom. the kind of trick you sometimes see in crosswords but that wouldn’t make sense in an audio puzzle (because it would have to rhyme with “goer”).
• {Buzzing cutter} ELECTRIC RAZOR.
• {Leaving work before quitting time} EARLY RETIREMENT. another subtle misdirection here—we’re not talking about taking off before 5 pm, but rather leaving work on a more permanent basis.
• {Best Actor winner for portraying Stephen Hawking} EDDIE REDMAYNE.
• {1969 movie portraying a motorcycle trip from Los Angeles to New Orleans} EASY RIDER. it’s fascinating how this is only a one-letter change in each word away from EAST RIVER.

anyway, so the answer is just ER, right? gotta be. it’s the name of a famous tv show and that’s self-evidently the theme of the puzzle. can’t overthink these things in week 1.

some notable bits from the fill:

• {Mena or Jong} ERICA. i wasn’t familiar with erica mena (whenever i see MENA in the grid it’s clued as actress suvari), but what was more surprising to me was the inclusion in the grid of both this answer and the clue {Erykah of R&B} BADU. i guess you can’t clue ERICA and BADU together because of the spelling, but it still felt weird.
• {Like good journalists} NOSY. NOSY almost always gets clued in a negative sense, so this felt like a fresh cluing angle.
• {“Garson Hampfield, Crossword ___”} INKER. boy, this one is a blast from the past.
• {Gymnast/social media star Olivia} DUNNE. i didn’t know this name either. apparently she is famous on tiktok and instagram, two platforms i have never used. two points of interest i’ve gleaned from reading up on her just now: first, she came along at the perfect time to cash in from the ncaa’s new rule allowing athletes to earn money from name/image/likeness (NIL) rights, as the most followed ncaa athlete on social media. second, her social media accounts and website all use the nickname “livvy” dunne, which is a spelling i have never seen, and a rare instance of the double-v bigram. so that’s one to keep an eye on, grid-wise.
• {All-consonant pierogi brand} MRS. T’S. another new one for me, and it looks wild in the grid.
• {Bee creations} QUILTS. neither this answer nor the answer to {Buzzing cutter} had anything to do with genus apis.

that’s all i’ve got. how’d you like this one?