It took me a good long while to understand what was happening here. It's one of those themes where the clue has to be changed from what you first think of to a more literal translation. Green Day isn't the band, but STPATRICKS Day. And Red Hot Chili Peppers are CAROLINAREAPERS. Lovely.
Nice Neil deGrasse Tyson quote in 19-Down: "A fragile juxtaposition of land, oceans, and clouds" (
EARTH) - a nod to Earth Day? - and there's some deep diacritic trivia in
DIERESIS (Feature of the Brontë sisters but not the Brothers Grimm?). For the curious, a dieresis indicates that a vowel (often, but not always, the second of consecutive vowels) is pronounced, not silent or elided, as in coöperate and reëlected. An umlaut, on the other hand, changes the pronunciation of a vowel. The rock umlaut does nothing.
And speaking of crosswordy clues, how about "Interjection that's composed only of the consonants in "takes to task," appropriately" (TSK). Classic.
- Horace
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