April 13, 2023

Title: MESH TOGETHER

Constructor: Bruce Haight

Editor: Erik Agard

Guest Blogger: Kelsey Dixon

Theme Answers:

GAMESHOWS (16A: "Jeopardy" and "Wheel of Fortune")

COSTUME SHOP (39A: Spirit Halloween, for example)

TIMESHARE (65A: Vacation lodging option)

Theme synopsis: Each of the themers is held 'together' by the word MESH

Things I Learned:

• OVID (12A: Ancient Roman poet) is one of those Roman poets I hear a lot about but don't really distinguish from Virgil and other people of that era. What I didn't know was that he spent his later years in exile, having been banished from Rome to an island near present-day Romania. No one seems to be clear on why he was banished, because he only ever explained it as "a poem and a mistake".
• SHAW (62D: Playwright George Bernard ___) is another one of those people I always hear about, but can't name any of his actual works! Truthfully, I expected it to be a long list of plays I was supposed to read at some point in school but creatively avoided—not so! The only title I recognized was Pygmalion, but he did also write (among many, many others) something called The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet, which sounds fun!

Random thoughts and interesting things:

• TIP (24A: Pay a delivery driver) felt very timely to me—you should always tip, of course, but I had just been reading an article about how people have been tipping their UberEats and Door Dash drivers very poorly. Drivers will linger near expensive restaurants in fancy neighborhoods hoping that expensive deliveries will get them commensurate tips, only for people to give them 5% or nothing at all. I try to keep the new rules of tipping in mind when I go about my day now!
• NSYNC (36D: "Bye Bye Bye" band) is always a fun puzzle answer for me, but I especially love when they are referenced with "Bye, Bye, Bye" because it reminds me of the Christopher Walken and Justin Timberlake commercial for the drink brand Bai! I just hope the rest of the band got some money from it, too, y'know?

Geography review:

• WEST (72A: Argentina-to-Chile direction) was a good one that made me stop and think for a second—I have a pretty good mental map of South America but just needed to be sure. Chile makes up most of South America's West coast, while Argentina makes up about half of the East coast. The Argentina-Chile border is actually the third-longest in the world, after Canada/USA and Kazakhstan/Russia!

Happy Thursday, everyone! Kelsey checking in as Sally takes another well-deserved day off. If you have it in you to solve another puzzle today, you can also find me over at The Modern! Hats off to Bruce for this fun solve with such a striking grid! When I sat back to look at it, I was really struck by how nice and stripey it looked, and I enjoyed myself the whole time. It's a (64D: Square root of 100) out of ten from me!