This abomination must be a crime against crosswords!
◆ · By Ben Shindel · Published 2021-04-08T08:51:53.684Z
Constructor's Note
I'm so, so sorry. Please do not be angry with me. I know this looks like it will take a long time, but if you stick it out and finish the puzzle, I promise it will be a rewarding experience.
Hi. I'm Ben. You can find me @benshindel on twitter, or gmail, or basically any platform, if you hated one of my crosswords and want to tell me why.
Checking for previous play data...
1A
I have no idea what this word means. I am an optimist. Everything is perfect in the world. I live in a utopia. Pure joy is all I understand. My breath smells like mints all the time. As a result, this simple word has no meaning for me. Moreover, in the universe I occupy, that teenager who got famous from going on Dr Phil... her name is "Ghood Bhabie".
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Across
- 1AI have no idea what this word means. I am an optimist. Everything is perfect in the world. I live in a utopia. Pure joy is all I understand. My breath smells like mints all the time. As a result, this simple word has no meaning for me. Moreover, in the universe I occupy, that teenager who got famous from going on Dr Phil... her name is "Ghood Bhabie".
- 4AI have a stick with glass at the end. I have this brown garment, it is long and hangs below my knees. I have a funny hat. And a wrinkly dog. Everywhere I go, I look for these. If I only could find them...
- 9AOkay, you know how people have that stupid acronym for when you win an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony? Well, I really don't care about Tonies, since theater is dead. So there's no chance I'll get a Tony. And moreover, it's a golden age of television, so Emmys are getting really tough. Instead of an Emmy, I think I'd have a better shot at winning the Abel Prize, which is kind of like the Nobel prize for mathematics, and is given out by the King of Norway. So, instead of an EGOT, I think what I really have a shot at is a...
- 10AYou are an olympic runner. You run the 100 meter dash. But, unfortunately for you, you are forced to train, due to nuclear war and your parents kicking you out of the house, on a circular shaped submarine that is only 20 meters in circumference. So in order to run 100 meters, you have to do 5... oh no. Wait. I'm sorry. I misread the word I was supposed to be cluing. This word is actually a HOMONYM of that word. What an "error in judgment" on my part.
- 11AI am an archaeologist. Someone is talking to me about an age? I don't remember which. Copper! I know what that is. But that's not all. Apparently, you need something else too, to go with the copper? And it makes something much better, much harder. What's that thing that it goes with... I can't remember.
- 12AOne part of my body is this. There was a fish that I left on the counter for like, at least 2 days, and it was not refrigerated. And I did a stupid thing. I put it in my mouth, and chewed, and swallowed. And now, like I said, one part of my digestive tract (not my mouth) is this.
- 13AAs a child, I was raised inside a large cube with a bed in the center and no other furniture, as part of an experiment conducted by Stanford University on the effects on young children of living inside large cubes. Upon turning 18, I was able to leave the cube, and afford to rent a small apartment unit as part of the small stipend that Stanford University was providing the survivors of the experiment. I rapidly found the bed in the new apartment, due to my strong sense of smell, but as I lay down, with my newfound freedom, I noticed something strange. In this room I was in with my bed, there was a small door built into the wall. What room could be behind this door?
- 15AOkay bear with me on this one. Last night, I went to some tiny Mediterranean village and spent the night with someone who has a finite life span. When I came home, 15 across was super jealous and angry with me. For a second, I imagined just like, completely destroying them with lightning from my hands, but, that would be unbecoming of me.
- 16AI look down at my hands. How strange they appear from this angle. Immediately, I am overcome with a desire to demonstrate an abstract numerical concept. Slowly, I raise the index finger of my left hand. Yes. Then, I raise my right pinky, and the middle finger on my left hand, while leaving my index finger elevated as well. Yes. This is good. I close all my fingers. Then, I raise every finger on my right hand, while leaving my left hand shut. This too, is good. Very good. Finally, I shut my hands and stick out both of my thumbs. No! Terrible! This is not correct. This does not demonstrate the abstract concept that the previous gestures demonstrated!
- 20AI am a high ranking official at the department of commerce. Every day, this is all I do. It costs a great deal of currency. But that doesn't matter. Because it is essential that we do this. There are just some things we cannot make for ourselves. Chocolate, good beer, reliable cars, also terrible cars...
- 22ADuring supper, I was surprised to realize that the enormous anthromorphized carrot that I was eating was trying to communicate something to me by spinning rapidly and gesturing at small letters on the sides of my dinner plate. Alarmed, I.... ahhhhhhh ahhhhhhh ahhhhhhh... the word "alarm" has triggered the self-destruct ability of this clue. You look down at your hands and this clue has caught on fire. You douse the clue in your fish tank and look at the scrap of paper to see if you have salvaged anything. All that remains is the first word of the clue, "During". I guess that's all you have to go off of for this one. It should be enough to guess the word, to be honest, as it is a pretty straightforward synonym.
- 25AYou have an uncanny resemblance to a man I saw on television who drowned/froze in the Atlantic Ocean (it was staged for dramatic effect, don't worry). You also seem to have been born in a summer month. Are you by chance a ___?
- 26A"Well, it's one for the money, Two for the show, Three to get ready, Now go, cat, go! But don't you... Step on my blue suede shoes..." you turn off your record player and pick up the Elvis record you had been playing. You examine the text. Wow. That's weird. THAT is what Elvis's middle name is? You wonder if he was named after that guy from the bible that made the golden calf.
- 27ACats are weird. Did you know when they drink, they use the underside of their tongues? Like, they flick their tongues against the surface of the liquid and catch the liquid under their tongues. Look it up! It's true! Anyway, I just poured my cat a bowl of milk to drink. I'm looking at it drinking. I wish there was a word to describe the action of the cat, like, what the cat does to the milk...
- 28ATraffic! High taxes! Ah! Where am I? I look around to orient myself. There are many cars speeding by and honking. It is warm. I climb to the top of a tall tree. I can see the ocean. And some hills, with strange letters on them, that seem to identify a neighborhood. I move towards the hills. Throngs of people swarm around me, with strange metal boxes that flash and click. I trip and fall to the ground. What's this? A row of smooth metal shapes fastened into the sidewalk, with letters emblazoned whose meaning I cannot ascertain. I do not recognize these pointy shapes. What are they called?
- 29AAll these kids, with their phones. They're always clicking feverishly on the screens. Pressing buttons with their thumbs. I think it's some way of communicating with each other. If only I knew what the system, or the service was, that allowed them to do this?
Down
- 1DRegretfully, I must inform you that I found myself in considerable debt (I don't even wish to say how much truthfully) and as punishment, my creditors have shrunk me down to the size of a pea until I can pay off my debt. I have no idea where I am. What's that I spy? Some enormous oncoction of flour, egg, butter, baking soda, and chocolate? It rests in a solemn mound upon the flat, metallic plain upon which I am standing. I climb to the top of it. What an amazing view. More of the mounds like the one I am on stretch off into the distance in orderly rows and columns. Perhaps there are 24 or 36 in total. If only I had a word for this "assortment", or "collection", or "grouping" of mounds that I am lost among.
- 2DImagine for one second that Alexander Hamilton's wife is a gymnast. The gymnast part will be important later, so don't forget. She is doing some complicated maneuver that involves her spinning around a balance beam at approximately 800 kilometers per hour. Unfortunately, she mistimes her move and spins around at about 850 kph, which results in an unfortunate effect. Her body breaks the speed of time, and this causes her body (and her name) to be reversed. Also, due to the high g-forces, one of the "G"s in the g-forces kicks out the "Z" from her name and replaces it with itself. What is her new name (which, might I add, is quite apropos considering she is a gymnast in this thought experiment)?
- 3DDid you know that 70% of humans are water? Or wait, no. 70% of humans live on water? Or is it 70% of the Earth that is water? I'm actually not sure. But what I do know is my body is only 50% water. That is because someone has removed most of my blood. Don't worry! It's for a good cause. I'm a...
- 4DOh no. Oh god. Oh no. Not the most common letter in the English language. Anything but that... Alas. That is the letter that I end with (my fourth letter, to be clear). But it gets worse. If "luck" would have it... acutally, "luck" does have it. And by "it", I mean, my three first letters. Get it? This is definitely my worst ____ by the way.
- 5DWhat a strange object this is. It rests upon me, with little symbols covering the lower half. I touch it gently, and see-saw it open and shut. A light turns on! It is whirring and humming. How excellent. Uh oh. There's a little peep-hole on it. I hope no one is spying on me through that.
- 6DThe other day I was speaking with my friend, Taylor Swift. She was quite enraged. She told me about how she made this very important deal to have her new album cover (Reputation) printed on the sides of all the trucks in the world, as a viral marketing campaign. But her record label misunderstood her, and instead only printed it onto the sides of trucks from one company. "What company?" I asked. "I don't remember" she said, "but I think they do logistics, or shipping, or something."
- 7DNaturally, I was chilling in Chicago when an urge overcame me to construct a dirigible. This took me about 48 hours of hard, sweaty work. When I had finally constructed the dirigible, the natural course of action was to travel to my nation's capital to lobby congress to make zeppelins our nation's official airship. Once I was in the air and on my way, I asked my navigator "what direction are we traveling in?"
- 8DI am playing a game with a friend who doesn't want to play this game. As a result, they protest by sitting down on the floor and not engaging at all. I am completely unperturbed by this, and figure I will win this game easily as a result. I take this odd stick with an oval end with criss-crossed cords, and a small ball. I stand across from my friend who is still sitting. I use the stick to knock the ball diagonally towards my friend. My friend ignores me. That is okay. I do the same thing again. And again. And again. Sweet! I've earned a point. I repeat this procedure a second time. And a third. And a fourth. My friend is still ignoring me. That is fine, I am winning. I repeat the procedure a fifth time. Now a sixth. It seems I have now won... what is it called, a...
- 14DA man comes up to me. At first, I think he might be wearing a Japanese schoolgirl uniform, for some reason, but when he gets clsoer I see this is not the case. He has a funny little scarf tied around his white shirt. He also seems to be staggering, like he cannot find his balance. He asks me if I can direct him to the nearest tavern, saying he only has a few hours before he has to embark. What is his occupation, I wonder?
- 17DTea time! Tea time! Tea time!!! Here I am at a little table drinking tea with my friends. I start to talk to them, but they're not replying. Why? They're just staring at me silently. Did I do something wrong? Am I wearing my shirt backwards? I start to sweat, suddenly socially anxious. Why are my friends ignoring me :( Oh wait. Haha. I remember. They're not humans, they're...
- 18DIt's really a long story, but do you remember the insurrection at the capitol building from a few months ago? Okay, by a strange accident (don't ask, really), I had been locked inside a trick cabinet in the office of US senator Tammy Baldwin several days before. I had food and water to survive, but it took me a few days to pick the lock. Once I picked it, I was afraid to come out, because, obviously, that would surprise Baldwin and her aides, and I didn't want to cause any trouble. However, when everyone was evacuated during the insurrection, I saw my chance to escape. I climbed out of the cabinet and was about to leave, but something caught my eye. On the floor of the office were arranged, in a row, 26 alphabetized stacks of paper. Each stack of paper was exactly 500 sheets. I picked up the fourth stack of paper from the left. What could I call this stack of paper? I found myself getting veeerrry sleeeeepy contemplating what to call it.
- 19DYou walk along a long residential street in a normal suburb, collecting many octagons. When you have acquired a large amount of these octagons, you take them to your lab. In this lab, you have an instrument that allows you to annihilate all matter that does not contain symbols representing phonemes communicated through the Latin alphabet (letters). You push these octagons through the instrument, annihilating most of their matter. What do you have left?
- 21DI'm really sorry, but unfortunately, after completing the task outlined in 19 down, you have realized that you have used the wrong objects for your experiment. You need to collect more samples. You go downtown and walk into multiple restaurants. At each one, you stumble into the back of the store and steal only the doors that contain human-shaped drawings emblazoned on them. When you get back to the lab, you eliminate all the doors that seem to have skirts drawn on them (skirts seem to interfere with the dimensionality drive of your instrument, causing it to heat up to 6000K and melt a hole in the floor of the lab). You then pass the remainder of the doors through your instrument. What do you have left?
- 22DYou walk into your shed. In the shed, you find a metallic tool that looks like someone took a metal rectangle and fastened tiny triangles all along one side of the rectangle in a row. You take this tool and rub it back and forth furiously against whatever object is closest to you (you'll have to substitute your own arm if you exist in a dimension with no objects, I'm really, really sorry). The tool starts to move so fast that it breaks the speed of time. The tool has now been completely inverted, and that includes its English name. What is this new tool now called?
- 23DIt's made of cloth, and it's on top of my head right now. No, stop it. You just took an egg and cracked it over my head. That's cheating. The answer to this clue is NOT egg. I made this clue before you cracked the egg over my head. Please do not do that again. I am allergic to egg, and if that were to get into my eye, I could go blind!
- 24DOkay, so, technically I shouldn't be giving you tax advice, but if you promise not to rat on me to the government, listen closely: I know about your business selling human-pig chimera organs on the black market, and I don't care. You're making a lot of money, and you don't want to pay taxes on all of it. I understand. You should place some of your money into this special account, and all that money that you put into this account will not be taxed until you retire, which presumably will be at a lower tax rate, since it seems like you just sold a windfall of 30 human-pig hearts at 40,000 dollars a piece, to a single buyer who must go through like, 3 hearts a day. What's the name of this type of account you ask? Why, it's called a...