It’s almost then end of April?! Where did the time go? In any event, it’s time to do your taxes (past time if you live in the US). These are indeed taxing times, and hopefully solving this puzzle won’t add to your stress.
- Name: These Are Taxing Times
- Grid size: 15×15
- Number of entries: 76
- Difficulty: Medium Hard (my solve time: 8:14)
The title is a pretty good hint (and the note Barb sent to me along with the puzzle was an even stronger one) so I had a good idea what the theme would involve, though I can’t say it was a big help in the solve, as I went down a few dead ends assuming too much. But it’s pretty straightforward, even if my solve wasn’t: the themers are common phrases (or in one case a movie title) that are clued punnily as referring to something having to do with taxes:
- 17A: [Mathematical asset for a tax preparer?]: CALCULATING MIND – I had the first few letters and filled out CALCULATOR, which caused me trouble later on.
- 22A: [Plusses on an actor’s tax report?]: MOVIE CREDITS – On reading the clue I immediately had “assets” in mind for plusses, and so it took me a while to get it out of my head and find the much more appropriate “credits.”
- 36A: [Tax report filed by “Star Wars” knights?]: RETURN OF THE JEDI – I initially had “prod” in for 26D, so thought the answer started with “O” and my mind went to “Obi-Wan Kenobi.” How on earth (ha!) that would have anything to do with taxes I don’t know.
- 46A: [Job of matching income with expenses on a tax report?]: BALANCING ACT – This was the themer I got the quickest – it’s pretty straightforward and I had “balancing” on my brain as something an accountant would do.
- 56A: [Entries on Rogers Centre’s tax report?]: BALLPARK FIGURES – Another one I got fairly quickly but not quite accurately. I know Rogers Centre is the home of the Toronto Blue Jays (who are in the same division as my Orioles) and “ballpark” is a term used for financial estimates, but I initially ended the phrase with “numbers” so that threw me for a while.
This was definitely a harder than usual solve for me; I let myself get distracted in figuring out the themers, but there was also a lot of shorter (and Canadian) fill that I didn’t know – and some of Barb’s trick cluing took me a while to figure out. So this was a solid Medium Hard, almost crossing into Hard territory.
Canadian content:
- 1A: [NBA’s Pascal Siakam, for one]: RAPTOR – I don’t follow basketball, but for some reason I had a hunch that Mr. Siakam played for a Canadian team and put in RAPTORS with no crosses.
- 18D: [Comedian Wong or Hassan]: ALI – While Ali Wong is American (and really good in “Beef“), Ali Hassan was born in Fredericton.
- 20A: [“___ de l’amour” (Quebec reality show)]: ILE – My last name notwithstanding, I am not a Francophone and definitely unfamiliar with Quebecois TV shows so needed all the crosses for this one.
- 23D: [CTV news anchor Sachedina]: OMAR – No idea on this one, and even if I did get CTV I rarely watch television news.
- 31A: [Calgary sch. for welders and woodworkers]: SAIT – Due to it’s appearance several times in these puzzles, I’m getting to be very familiar with the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology.
- 33A: [Canadian singer ___ Naked]: BIF – I had no idea on this one but she seems quite interesting – I’ll have to check out her music. All I could think about was the lead singer for the 1990’s San Francisco band “Buck Naked and the Bare Bottom Boys.” Did not help that she was crossed with a shirtless comedian who is unknown to me.
- 45D: [Indigenous people of Vancouver Island]: SALISH – I’ve visited Vancouver Island several times, and knew the nearby waters were called the Salish Sea, but I didn’t know that was the name of the original inhabitants.
- 52A: [www.classicanadianxwords.ca, e.g.]: URL – Hey, I recognize that Uniform Resource Locator!
- 56A: [Entries on Rogers Centre’s tax report?]: BALLPARK FIGURES – Not only is it a themer, but it’s Canadian! I really need to get to Rogers Centre to see a ball game – I toured the stadium shortly after it opened, but was never in Toronto during baseball season.
- 59D: [Ontario’s capital and surroundings]: GTA – The Greater Toronto Area is home to nearly 6 million people.
Whew! After a relative drought of Canadian content in recent puzzles, this week is a veritable atmospheric river of them (I would have used an Environment Canada link but they don’t officially recognize atmospheric rivers yet).
Other stuff:
- 9D: [K2, e.g: Abbr.]: MTN – I was trying to think of the abbreviation for “Himalaya” for the longest time.
- 16D: [Novocaine compound]: AMIDE – Needed all the crosses for this one, but at least I learned something.
- 26D: [Cow poke, perhaps?]: BARB – I had PROD in here forever. I guess I should have paid more attention to the question mark in the clue, and it might have occurred to me that a cow could be poked by barbed wire. Also a nice way to sneak the constructors name into the puzzle 😉
- 31D: [Copper coins of old Italy]: SOLDI – Another new-to-me entry that had me guessing to the end since I couldn’t remember if 31A was Northern or Southern, and…
- 41A: [Stand-ins: Abbr.]: ALTS – …I kept wanting this to be an abbreviation for “assistants” but ASTS seemed wrong, and was.
- 45A: [Resolve out of court]: SETTLE – If you follow US news, this was an appropriate entry for this week.
- 48D: [Dey drama set in Calif.]: LA LAW – Used to be that Susan Dey‘s last name was in seemingly every other crossword, clued as “Susan of ‘L.A. Law'” so it’s nice to see the clue become the entry for a change.
- 64A: [Crude bed, in British dialect]: DOSS – Sure, if you say so…
Quote of the week:
“The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.”
– Albert Einstein