Lance Enfinger author page
1 puzzle by Lance Enfinger
with Jim Horne comments
Lance is a pharmacist who moved to Mint Hill, NC, so his family could be closer to nature, hiking, and adventure. He helps his amazing wife homeschool his three kids. The older kids will be learning crossword solving/constructing, so hopefully, it will be a race to see which of us will appear next!
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Jim here, sitting in for Jeff Chen who is hawking CURE-ALLS at a medicine show.
Let's talk ASS. That convenient word has a long history in crosswords, usually referring to a beast of burden or a despicable person — "Jenny", "Jack", or "Jerk". Today it's an intensifier as in, "this is a good ass puzzle." Hmmm, that doesn't sound right. You want the puzzle to be bad ass. Apparently that intensifier is also sometimes a reverser. Pro tip: regardless of what you think of your neighbor's ass, do not covet! It's a top ten no-no.
"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again" is the famous opening line in Daphne du Maurier's novel, Rebecca. ENYA should watch her step! Fortunately, it's not the same place. ENYA renamed her Dublin castle Manderley. That was a popular thing to do.
I love clues like "The N.F.L. mascot Roary, for one." I have no clue about sports mascots. But yes, I do! The clue is in the clue. Roary is an odd spelling, right? Roary must be a LION.
Candide is sometimes called a musical, but it really is an OPERETTA. Leonard Bernstein wrote the music, Lyrics are by Richard Wilbur, John Latouche, Dorothy Parker, Lillian Hellman, Stephen Sondheim, and Bernstein himself. That's quite a list!
The surprise for me at 59-Across isn't in the answer (FRESNO) but in the clue. I would not have guessed that San Francisco is ranked as low as 4th in California by population.
A "future-altering decision point" is a SLIDING DOOR. You may know that metaphor from the 1998 Gwyneth Paltrow movie. It's a popular literary trope. The super-hot-now writer Taylor Jenkins Reid used it in her novel Maybe in Another Life.
Have a great ass weekend! Er, I mean an atrocious ass weekend. Nope, still sounds wrong. Phat ass weekend? Forget it. Have whatever kind of weekend you want.