MGWCC #857

 

hello, and welcome to episode #857 of matt gaffney’s weekly crossword contest, a week 1 puzzle called “Presidents’ Day”. this week’s instructions ask for a U.S. president who would have made a good sixth theme entry. (i often attempt week 1 metas without the instructions, but there was no option to do so this week.) what were the five given theme answers?

• {Food first domesticated in the Andes about 4,000 years ago} LIMA BEANS.
• {He directed “Home Alone,” “Mrs. Doubtfire,” and “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone”} CHRIS COLUMBUS. (not that one.)
• {Zurich, Lucerne, or Basel-Stadt, e.g.} SWISS CANTON.
• {1965 title role for Steve McQueen, with “The”} CINCINNATI KID. i don’t know this film.
• {“Omigosh!”} HOLY TOLEDO.

well, these all contain a city in ohio, and the obvious one missing is cleveland, making the meta answer GROVER CLEVELAND. although ohio is the mother of presidents, grover cleveland isn’t one of the many presidents who hailed from ohio; he was mayor of buffalo and governor of new york prior to being president.

incidentally, akron is wondering what it did to get left out of the puzzle in favor of lima (pronounced “LYE-ma” like the bean, not “LEE-ma” like the peruvian city). i know there aren’t that many phrases involving AKRON that don’t refer to the city in ohio, but a) i assume that “the cincinnati kid” refers to the city in ohio, and b) there are a couple of tennis tournaments in mexico that have akron in the official name, for reasons i do not understand.

i believe ohio is the only US state whose three largest cities all start with the same letter. (no, canton isn’t one of them; its claim to fame is the pro football hall thereof.) would you believe the largest is columbus? well, you should.

bits & bobs:

• {Lake ___ Monster (U.S.-Canadian cryptid)} ERIE. is this a bonus hint to cleveland? no, it’s just ERIE, which shows up in every other crossword on its own merits.
• {European city that co-hosted the 1990 World Chess Championship (along with New York City)} LYON. that seems inconvenient. did they commute back and forth? i believe this was the fifth and final karpov vs kasparov worlrd championship.
• {Like Week 1 metas, especially during a five-Friday month like November 2024} EASY. can’t argue with that, really.
• {Former oil executive Ray ___} IRANI. never heard of him.
• {Like some baseball shutouts} SEVEN-HIT. okay, this is more than a little arbitrary.

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