Democracy Dies in Darkness
Crosswords

Solution to Evan Birnholz’s May 19 crossword, ‘Bowl Game’

A metapuzzle with some secret ingredients.

Analysis by
Crosswords
May 19, 2024 at 9:00 a.m. EDT
The filled grid to the May 19, 2024, crossword, “Bowl Game” (Evan Birnholz/for The Washington Post)

We’ve had a mini-spate of metapuzzles recently, with two in three weeks. This one says we’re looking for a two-word phrase. The theme answers stick out as utterly bizarre phrases:

  • 19A: [Headline noting that a Canadian politician was reelected, thus extending their tenure at Parliament Hill?] is OTTAWA TERM ELONGATED.
  • 29A: [Swimming venue that’s familiar to me?] is POOL I’VE SEEN.
  • 40A: [“Mr. Paisley has some reservations”?] is “BRAD IS HESITANT.”
  • 53A: [Holy hardships?] is SACRED ILLS.
  • 66A: [Twangy-sounding abbey figure?] is NASAL MONK.
  • 75A: [Classroom session led by “Rent” actor Anthony?] is RAPP LESSON.
  • 88A: [“In that case … how could you betray me, Ms. Dion?!”?] is “WELL ET TU CELINE?!”
  • 102A: [Chaos lover?] is HAVOC ADORER.
  • 112a: [Caribbean archipelago resident’s information?] is ADDRESS IN GUADELOUPE.

These aren’t puns where you easily tell which original phrases they’re based on; they’re seemingly random mashups of words that make no sense. Whenever you have a meta based on such nonsense phrases, it’s good to ask yourself why the theme answers are constructed the way they are. Maybe the phrases hide some important letters … or entire words. Look closely at them: They hide food items, specifically ingredients in a salad bowl:

  • OTTAWA TERM ELONGATED hides WATERMELON.
  • POOL I’VE SEEN hides OLIVES.
  • “BRAD IS HESITANT” hides RADISHES.
  • SACRED ILLS hides DILL.
  • NASAL MONK hides SALMON.
  • RAPP LESSON hides APPLES.
  • “WELL ET TU CELINE?!” hides LETTUCE.
  • HAVOC ADORER hides AVOCADO.
  • ADDRESS IN GUADELOUPE hides DRESSING.

The last step comes from Meta-Solving 101: Take the first letters of those salad ingredients and they spell out WORD SALAD. That’s an apt description of an odd mishmash of words and phrases like you see in the theme answers. I won’t promise that this puzzle’s salad would taste good in real life, but if you want to make it and report back to me about how it tastes, feel free. Perhaps I should trademark it if it’s a hit. Call it Evan’s Bowl Game Special. (Note that I didn’t specify which type of dressing, so you get to decide that.)

Some other answers and clues:

  • 46A: [Greek symbol for pseudorapidity] is ETA. Sometimes writing clues teaches me new words, like pseudorapidity, which is a particle physics term defined as “the polar angle of a particle’s trajectory relative to the beam axis.” Thankfully, neither you nor I have to actually understand particle physics to get this answer.
  • 48A: [“Society’s dirty work, usually done by kids cleaning up failures perpetrated by adults,” per Karl Marlantes] is WAR. I like that description. It’s from Marlantes’s book “What It Is Like to Go to War.”
  • 69A: [“Inside the NBA” analyst Smith] is KENNY Smith. This comes from years of watching him and Charles Barkley argue with each other on TNT about whatever game they just saw.
  • 71A: [Daniel’s rival in “The Karate Kid”] is JOHNNY. This comes from “The Karate Kid” being one of my favorite childhood movies and watching it over and over and over again.
  • 107A: [“The Starless Sea” author Morgenstern] is ERIN Morgenstern. I don’t get much time to read fiction books for pleasure — besides parenting a newborn, whatever time I could spend reading full books is usually time I spend either planning or writing my next crossword — but I did get to read this book a few years ago. It’s an odd story that weaves together elements of fantasy and time travel, but I enjoyed it.
  • 4D: [SNL alum Jay] is Jay PHAROAH and 76D: [Fallon’s predecessor] is Jay LENO. I didn’t expect to have two famous comedic Jays in the same grid.
  • 11D: [Longtime Philadelphia Orchestra conductor Ormandy] is EUGENE Ormandy. My choir (the Mendelssohn Chorus of Philadelphia) has performed with the Philadelphia Orchestra during their “Glorious Sound of Christmas” concerts for several years, and I’m often reminded during those concerts that there’s an iconic recording of that concert from 1962 conducted by Ormandy.
  • 20D: [The idea that it was all a dream, in cinematic plot twists, e.g.] is TROPE. I think this trope was most infamously deployed on “Dallas,” but here’s a list of other examples of it from TV history. Hmm, maybe I should have used “TV” instead of “cinematic” in the clue, though films such as “The Wizard of Oz” and “Inception” made use of that trope, as well.
  • 105D: [Rebound in a basketball game, say?] is RALLY. My favorite clue today, and one that I’ve been waiting to use for several years.

What did you think?