“Enough!”
by Myles Callum
edited by Mike Shenk
March 26, 2010

Full answers not yet available on WSJ's crossword puzzle page. So take all answers with g. of salt.

Theme: Phrases joined by the letters TMI and clued with Too Much Information.
FILET MIGNON {23A *Cut from the tenderloin – its name means “dainty cut”!}
SALT MINES {25A *Sources of halite – that's a type of evaporitic deposit!}
DETROIT MICHIGAN {35A *Midwest metropolis – it has a view of Canada to the south!} - The southwestern section of Ontario runs between Lakes Huron and Erie, passing south and west of the eastern edge of the lower Michigan peninsula – a toe of Canada under the thumb of the mitten, as it were. Windsor, the city at the tip and the southernmost area of Canada, connects to Detroit by the Ambassador Bridge and the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel. Similarly, I am always surprised at how much of California is east of Reno, NV. I tend to think of the states as neatly-outlined, brightly-colored boxes rather than as accretions formed war, transportation, and/or commerce. Where did I come by such grid-like thinking? For the full story on state borders, see How the States Got Their Shapes by Mark Stein [Collins 2008], an historical trivia goldmine.
ROBERT MITCHUM {55A *“Night of the Hunter” star – his middle names are Charles Durman!}
I DONT MIND A BIT {76A *“Fine by me!” - that sounds like something Mr. Ed might say!}
CABINET MINISTER {98A *High-ranking official – Canada's Leona Aglukkaq is one!}
GRIST MILL {114A *Flour-making plant – the Greek geographer Strabo wrote about one!}
COCONUT MILK {116A *White liquid used in cooking – it's called gata in the Philippines!} - Part of Thai cooking.
TMI {71D Briefly, a feature of each starred clue, and a chunk of its answer}

It's a Small, Small Puzzle World: 4
Given 242 answers in this puzzle and ~2000 words during the week (2 puzzles [LAT & NYT] x 6 days x over-100 words per puzzle + 2 Sunday puzzles x over-200 wpp + large fudge factor), odds are something will repeat. I'm not talking about bizarre crosswordpuzzlese but simple English words or puns with similar sensibilities. There are a finite number of English words and an even smaller set that fit happily into a crossword. However, this week hits one of those weird statistical blips between the weekly WSJ puzzle and today's [Friday 3/26/10] LA Times:
OR SO {31A Estimator's phrase}WSJ &{14A End of an estimate}LAT
LOL {13D Online chuckle} WSJ & {60D Tester's tehee*} LAT
CELL {11A Pen holder} WSJ & FELON {47D Pen resident} LAT
ROSE {84D Got up} WSJ & AROSE {38A Lost a lap?} LAT
*I would have said teehee but Urban Dictionary says it's a cute girlish laugh.

News To Me: 3
ELIHU {19A Benefactor Yale} - long version of the crossword-familiar Eli.
ANIS {29D Tropical cuckoos}
ONE O(ld) CAT {93D Classic baseball variant} - “This is town-ball modified to suit the occasion when only three or four boys play the game.” What, girls can't play?

Admissions of Defeat: 0?
Guessed on OCTAL {6A Notation used for Unix permissions}/COGNOMEN {7D Handle} - lOGNOMEN? nOGNOMEN? During my daily weight-bearing-stave-off-osteoporosis walk, the random noise in my head offer up COG- as in cognate, cognition, etc. That makes OCT- which sounds sufficiently computeresque. BTW, I believe the usage is UNIX. WSJ style may dictate otherwise. Also guessed on TNN {33A It became Spike in 2003}/ANIS. Was it The Nashville Network? By Jove, it was. Knowing the answer is the best, but guessing right is a close second.

ACPT Countdown Clock: 356 days
Friday, March 26, 2010, to Friday, March 18, 2011.
Likelihood of my attendance at the ACPT: 20%.
Down from a baseline of 30%. Had trouble with Wed & Thurs NYT this week. Only a decent showing on this puzzle saves it from going lower. I thought lack of progress was frustrating. Now I'm backsliding!

Constructor's Corner: Myles Callum
bio, scroll down
“The hard part is coming up with a theme that will be fun or reasonably entertaining. For the Wall Street Journal, I sometimes comb through financial glossaries looking for terms to play off or construe literally, like "Back Pay," where you can come up with lively entries that have words at the end that are synonyms for money-e.g., SHAKE YOUR BOOTY, HIT A SOUR NOTE, LOVE ME TENDER, etc. And I like doing puzzles that have words or acronyms hidden inside, like the TMI in this one. But the fun part here was getting the idea to liven it up by also giving "too much information" in the clues.

“It´s always instructive to see how Mike Shenk changes your puzzle, both in clues and grid fill. My 1-Across was RATSO, which Mike changed to LOTTO. That didn't surprise me; even as I used it, I was afraid RATSO was too easy because the limited clues are giveaways.

“My original clue for FILET MIGNON was "Cut from the tenderloin. It´s also called the psoas major!" But Mike changed the TMI part to "-its name means `dainty cut´!" which I like a lot better; my version was too esoteric by half, even though it was definitely too much information. Mike also has strong feelings about words used in grid fill, and in most of my early puzzles there were a lot of changes. In my more recent puzzles there are fewer changes, so after 12 years I may be getting the hang of it.”

Thank you Mr. Callum.

Katherine Walcott
Puzzle Fan