James Mulhern author page

Jill Denny notes:

Jeff and I often catch up over dinner by comparing notes about the daily crossword (note to self: is this why people keep refusing our dinner party invitations?). More often than not, we settle out at roughly the same difficulty level, but a few clues can quickly tip the scales in one person's favor. Baseball, engineering, sci-fi, comedy, jazz ... Denny out, Chen in. Fashion, hip-hop, movies, politics, or French, and I'm all over it.

No surprise that this puzzle resonated more in my brain folds than in Jeff's, what with SKRILLEX, CHOCOLAT, PENA, and LOEWE. And if you're going to include a baseball player, PETE ROSE is one of the few names I recognize. While not easy-peasy, this was a pleasingly smooth grid for me. My only stumble was in the SW corner, with the unfamiliar LIGETI stacked on top of ADUNIT (a hillbilly's answer to "Whodunit?").

Jeff, Jim, and I have had several conversations about differences in crossword opinion, most recently after I confessed my ignorance of comedians of the black-and-white movie era. After reading my post, Jim sent me an email professing a very gentle Canadian outrage that I had lumped together the Marx Brothers with the Three Stooges. He went on to write:

"This kind of cultural disconnect is what makes crossword commentary so interesting to me. It uncovers the hidden assumptions we don't know we have about what is aesthetically pleasing or not, and what is surely common knowledge or not. It also puts crossword editors into an impossible situation. You can't please everyone (so I've heard) but I wonder how possible it is to delight a significant percentage of your crossword audience."

It's those moments of delight that keep me coming back to crosswords, and I believe that Jeff and Jim would say the same thing. Two moments of delight from this puzzle:

• I loved learning LUTRINE. My goal is to use it in an email at work by the end of the month.
• A very special nod to VONNEGUT, a proud Hoosier. This is only his third appearance in the Shortz era. Happy to see his name, sad that he is gone. One of the greats.

Jill Denny notes:

James Mulhern, you had me at LOBSTER BIB. Some see it as the most dignity-destroying accessory ever invented; I prefer to see it as a harbinger of deliciousness. Mr. Lagerfeld agrees.

The eastern hemisphere of this puzzle slid into place smoothly, thanks to the scaffolding of ERIC BANA, THE INSIDER, and BAHA MEN. I like the flow around the center black blocks — a nice balance between fluidity and structure. Despite my lobster love and Kendrick LAMAR admiration, the NW corner was the last to fall for me. I went down a blind alley with RES instead of REO, and ANIMANIACS was slow to emerge from the deep vaults of my brain.

REO means nothing to me without a Speedwagon in tow, but it turns out that it's the same REO of Diamond Reo Trucks. REO stands for Random Eli Olds, the founder of Oldsmobile. What a fantastic 19th-century name! I love it. Random's father was named Pliny Fiske Olds, which is also just grand, and Random married a woman named Metta Ursula Woodward, who later inspired NBA player Ron Artest to change his name to Metta World Peace (allegedly).