Saturday, June 3, 2023, John Westwig

Sort of a meta puzzle with that PUZZLINGPROBLEM (Stumper) running down the middle. And this was, indeed, the hardest of the week for me, clocking in at 19 seconds tougher than Thursday's. (Although I did have a typo that took a little hunting, so really they might have been about the same.)

But Thursday's grid had no answer longer than eight letters, whereas today's has 14 answers of nine letters or more, including that triple-stack in the middle. And speaking of that, whaTeverYOUWANT fit right in where ANYTHINGYOUWANT ("Don't hold back, it's my treat!") was supposed to be. That held me up for a little while in the West. 

LINGAM (Phallic object worshiped as a symbol of Shiva) was completely new to me, and JUSTINIANII (Byzantine emperor known as "Rhinometos" ("the slit-nosed")) was also unknown. And as usual, popular culture clues are getting less and less easy for me: DAX Shepard? SADIE Sink? Nope and nope. But a game show host who's been doing the same job since I was in high school? OMGYES, I dropped in SAJAK immediately. Sigh.

Hey, and speaking of age, ask the younger people you know whether or not they know what ESP (Medium capacity?) is. We have found that the cut-off is in the low thirties. Below that, they don't know what it stands for. Not sure what that says about society, but it's probably something. Maybe one of those young people will write a dissertation on it.

Thought HWORD ("Hell," euphemistically) was a little far-fetched. Maybe it's another age thing? Like, little kids maybe? Do adults actually say "the HWORD?" The F-word, sure, but Hell? Oh, I don't know. 

"Certain cell provider" (CAPTOR) was disturbing. But I smiled at the effort for CIDER (Apple press release?), and "Apt name for a worrier" was cute for STU.

How'd you like it?

- Horace

p.s. I missed the real theme of "Something/Anything/Nothing" in the triple stack. I think I have been distracted lately. Sorry. You deserve better from a so-called crossword puzzle blogger.