Thursday, May 10, 2018, Caitlin Reid

5:37

Hey! Great puzzle today. And it's a debut for Ms. Reid. I love the theme, the revealer, the whole thing. Ms. Reid? Here's what I say to you:

47A: "You're clever!" (NICEIDEA)

The revealer today is DEADCENTER. Note that the black square in the exact middle of the puzzle is taken as a rebus square with "dead" in it, completing each of the four answers that either terminate or originate from that square. Thus, you get:

KNOCKEM[DEAD]
LEFTFOR[DEAD]
[DEAD]ORALIVE
[DEAD]BEATDAD

All four are strong answers, and all are 11 letters long, so they fit so well in the space. I particularly like the last one. Seems like we've been hearing about a ton of deadbeat men recently. EGADS. Meanwhile, the symmetric answer to the revealer is 21A: Well-aimed (ONTHEMONEY). Well played.

By Diego Rivera but not a MURAL

The only answer which IRKS me today really is 50A: Baseball's Lefty (ODOUL). Who is that, I hear you ask? I had never heard of him, and I love baseball. Turns out he was a pretty good player in the 1920s, even playing a couple of seasons for the Red Sox as a pitcher. Later though, he became a successful minor league manager, and apparently was responsible in part for making baseball so popular in Japan. Nevertheless, if you Google "baseball lefty," the first two players who come up are Lefty Gomez and Lefty Grove, and rightly so.

Meanwhile, if you Google O'Doul, you get the alcohol-free beer first. Nuff said.

Did any of you fall for 61A: Half of none? (ENS) It was my last answer, but I wasn't fooled.

- Colum