Wednesday, June 20 - Bonnie L. Gentry and Victor Fleming

I always get a good feeling when I see a puzzle with circles in the grid, and today's was no exception.

I knew 1A and 1D, clued as 1982 Richard Pryor/Jackie Gleason film (The/Toy). Great start, but it didn't tell me much about the theme. When I got to 19A: Draftsman's tool (and a hint to this puzzle's theme), I hit the jackpot with T-square, one of the few drafting tools I know. At that point, I just put all the Ts in place and went from there.

It goes without saying that a grid like this is going to have a lot of three-letter entries, but I didn't mind. Tat (34D: Fashion a doily), Tut (50A: King in a celebrated 1970s U.S. tour), tit (32D: Relative of a chickadee), Tex (23D: Singing Ritter), rut (46D: Endless 9-to-5 job, e.g.), and rat (59D: Disloyal sort). By far the best was 12D: Plays a campus prank on, informally (TPs). I never did this, and I'm happy to say I never had it done to me.

Some of the other T-fill was entertaining. 27D: Go __ (deteriorate) (to pot), 62A: Hand-color, in a way (tie dye), 15D: Dutch beer brand (Amstel), and 41D: "__ Cheerleaders" (1977 film) (Satan's). Don't have a favorite, though. Especially liked 14D: Gridiron formation (winged T) and 52A: Attend to the final detail (cross a T).

We see JaiAlai in the grid often, but it threw me this time because of the way it was clued. 4A: Half court game? (Jai). I was pretty sure about 4D: Title guy in a 1980 Carly Simon hit (Jesse), but I just couldn't figure out what half court game meant. Eventually it came together.

Interesting clue at 61A: Field of unknowns? (algebra). Initially had nothing, then the downs gave me EBRA. I thought it might be a two-word answer...you know, some kind of bra. That's been a recurring word of late. Also in that corner was 56A: Ferris in film (Bueller), giving the final nod to 57D: Wall St. action (LBO) -- leveraged buy-out for those who aren't familiar with the term.

To the left of that, 55A: Commits to, as an interest rate (locks in), sitting atop 60A: Intent, as a listener (all ears). Cross a T and tie dye (see above) combine to make that the best corner in the grid. IMOO, of course.

38D: Big name in cellular service (T-Mobile). Not my choice of phone, but it's in the grid fairly often. The longer words usually open up a lot of the grid, but in this case, it didn't help much...I had most of the acrosses over there. Where I needed the long answer was 22D: Influential group (inner circle). Couldn't remember 20A: Satchel in the Hall of Fame (Paige), and wasn't sure what kind of tax they wanted in 31A (land).

Not many (42A: A few) comments these days. I enjoy reading your take on the puzzle, too. You can always post anonymously if you're feeling shy ; )

And thanks to Orange for pointing out that Victor Fleming's co-constructor was Bonnie L. Gentry, NOT Bobbie L. Gentry as the online puzzle showed. Some of you may remember that Bobbie Gentry sang Ode to Billie Joe.

Linda G