Sunday May 13 - Part Deux

Happy Mother's Day to all! One thing we might think of today is how our mothers prepared us to solve crosswords--I know mine gave me a love for words and a naive curiosity about the world around me--what about you, Gentle Solvers?

I plan to head down to visit with my mother in a few hours, and Barry did such a great job on the NYT and Reagle, my comments will be brief this morning.

"Upping the Odds," The Washington Post

Pancho Harrison and Nancy Salomon team up for today's WaPo. Though Nancy's is one of the most recognizable names in cruciverbia, Pancho's was new to me.

(I see this must not be a debut, as Amy has a post tag for him already.) Theirs is a mathematical theme (Howard B. is already smiling!) featuring movie names with the ODD numbers from 1 (MAJORITY OF ONE) to 13 (THIRTEEN GHOSTS). Cute theme, and even though some of the titles date back to the early '60s, they weren't too difficult to get once I figured out the movies were arranged in increasing order.

Nancy provides some great fill, too. STREET CRED has got to be one of my favs of the year. There's also REEL TO REEL, IN A TRANCE, and HOV LANE. Fav clue: [Gets hard], which to pass the Sunday breakfast test (even more stringent on Mother's Day!), was SETS.

"Shell Game," The Boston Globe

Hex (Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon) "serve up" an egg-based theme in today's Boston Globe. (Easter must have been six weeks ago, because I think that's the lag in the posting of these puzzles online.) It really cracked me up, trying to come up with a NOG NOG YOLK, or think of an appropriate name of an OEUF BROADWAY play (How about "GREEN EGGS AND SPAMALOT" for [A Dr. Seuss/Monty Python collaboration?]) I also learned that PYSANKY are Easter eggs from Ukraine. Other interesting fill included: SERAPIS, the timely Derby JULEP (did the Queen have one?) and HURRY UP (which I've got to do if I'm going to be on time to see my mother!)

Evad