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Put on your best fit for this week’s puzzle!
SUNDAY PUZZLE — Howdy! Glad you’re checking out my debut Sunday puzzle. I hope you had as much fun solving it as I did making it — special thanks to Talia and Pavan for helping out with grid construction. If you have any corrections, comments or feedback for this specific puzzle, reach out to me at albonwu@umich.edu. For general questions, reach out to crosswords@umich.edu. Happy solving!
Tricky Clues:
17A. “Poisonous Agatha Christie plot device” refers to the deadly neurotoxin STRYCHNINE. It appears in “The Mysterious Affair at Styles,” “The Coming of Mr Quin,” and “How Does Your Garden Grow?,” the first of which actually won Christie praise from “The Pharmaceutical Journal” for its accurate depiction of strychnine poisoning. Fun fact: Although its lethal dose in humans is as low as 100 milligrams, it was used in the 1904 Olympics as a performance-enhancing drug to induce convulsions.
22A. “Software contract that most people don’t read, for short” is EULA, or End User License Agreement. As a computer science major who skips them, I won’t fault you for doing the same, but the habit might cause you to miss some Easter eggs. Amazon Lumberyard was a game engine whose EULA specified that you could use it to build critical systems in the event of a zombie apocalypse (check term #10)!
63A. “Bizet’s ‘Habanera’, for one” is an example of an ARIA, the antecedent being Georges Bizet. If you’re not into classical music or opera, find it online — it might be one of the most famous melodies whose name you don’t know.
8D. “Locale of the indecisive?” is a nod to people who tend to find themselves on the FENCE. One of my favorite quotes is attributed to Bill Wilson, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous: “Indecision with the passing of time becomes decision.”
67A. “‘404 Page Not Found,’ e.g.” is a kind of ERROR. Hypertext Transfer Protocol status codes, as they’re called, are numerical responses from a website to a user’s request. For instance, any number in the 400s indicates an error from a bad user request — like asking for a page that doesn’t exist (404) or one to which you don’t have access (403).
Today’s Theme:
Today’s theme is dedicated to those solvers that have mastered the art of fashion (if you have, please, please email me with tips). The revealer is TOTHENINES at 64A, as in “dressed to the nines,” which describes the structure of each themed entry. STRYCHNINE (17A), ASININE (41A), CLOUDNINE (11D), and MEZZANINE (34D) all end in “nine,” hence going “to the nines.” In my mind, CLOUDNINE gets a pass since it doesn’t explicitly reference the numerical value, but I’m open to alternate perspectives. Honorable mentions for themed entries include FEMININE and SATURNINE.
Answer Key:
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