Tuesday, October 29, 2019

Tuesday, October 29, 2019, Evan Mahnken

0:05:01

Today's theme features six people whose names start with the letter J and end with the letter Z, and is revealed by a man whose (stage) name sounds like those two letters, JAYZ. Pretty straightforward. I was not familiar with the name JCCHASEZ, but the crosses were fair. I like the way three of the names snake through the grid from top to bottom, and I bet JONLOVITZ will be happy to be making his debut as a crossword answer.

PUSH

Hornets make another appearance today (Homes for hornets(NESTS)), though for some reason it wasn't quite as satisfying as yesterday's "Attacked by hornets." And I was surprised by the final D in DAD-blasted. I always think of it as "dag-blasted," but perhaps I'm confusing it with "dagnabbit." NAUSEATE (Sicken) is a solid entry, KICKS (Shoes, in slang) was fun, and "Things you can count on to help you get to sleep?" was cute for SHEEP. Aside from that, though, I didn't find a whole lot else to go AMANAS over.

- Horace

2 comments:

  1. 3:50
    I am impressed that there are four celebrity pop stars/singers bounded by J___Z. It's sad that the fifth person here is not a singer, but it's wonderful that it's JONLOVITZ, who we recall fondly in this household for his appearance on Friends, where he showed up to review Monica's catering stoned out of his mind and repeated the word "Tartlet... tartlet... tartlet. The word has lost all meaning."

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  2. 6:47
    Thank goodness for the revealer, because I had JOHNLOVITT crossing KATT, which both seemed reasonable to me. Once I got JAYZ, of course, I changed the final letter of those to Z and all was good with the world. I also didn't know JCCHASEZ but I did know all of the others. Nice, uncommon clue for FEY. Shout out to HAL.

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