Tuesday, November 16, 2021, Drew Schmenner

Interesting form today, wherein the revealer, or the first part of it anyway, is the first part of the theme that one hits. If, that is, one is solving from the top left corner.

THATSALL SHEWROTE is that revealer, with its tortured clue "With 63-Across, "The end" ... or what can be said about the novels in the clues for 25-, 38- and 52-Across." SYLVIAPLATH did publish only one novel, it's true, but that was certainly not all she wrote. The same appears to be true for EMILYBRONTE. Still, it's an interesting idea for a theme.

This Tuesday grid moves more quickly than some do into the mid-week material: TITANIA (Fairy queen in "A Midsummer Night's Dream"); ASHRAMS (Hindu retreats); KERATIN (Protein in horns and hair); GANTRY (Overhead support for interstate signs); and SAL (Narrator of "On the Road") are all somewhat specialized. See also: BEATNIK (Many a character in Kerouac's "On the Road"). Unfortunately for the theme, that was Kerouac's second book. Plus he was a man.

Thinking of PAELLA (Dish associated with the Valencia region of Spain) always makes me laugh a little. When I was younger, Frannie and I were travelling in France, and one night at a restaurant when the waiter rattled off the specials, I had to ask her to repeat one word about four times because I thought I was just not hearing the French correctly. Finally, Frannie just turned to me and said "PAELLA!" But the problem was not a FAILURE in my French, it was in my culinary experience. The child of a German and a Finn, I was familiar with pulla and spätzle, but Spanish dishes were not a thing in our house. Just one more way that travel broadens the mind. :)

Finally, why would one say that a MOLAR is a "Difficult tooth for a dentist to fill"? No one wants to hear that. How many cavities are not in MOLARs? What we'd rather hear is "Routine target for a dentist," or something along those lines. 

Another day, another debut. It seems the pandemic has been a good time for taking up crossword construction. And with new constructors come new ideas, and there's nothing wrong with that.

- Horace