The Squid and the Whale
◆ · By Sommersmith · Published 2022-03-18T10:00:25.956Z
This crossword celebrates the 30th anniversary of one of my favorite albums by They Might Be Giants (hereafter: TMBG), and features quotes and trivia from their whole career throughout the puzzle. I hope you enjoy it whether you're a TMBG fan or not!
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1A
Klapp who delivered the line "I don't want the world, I just want your half" over the phone for TMBG's "Ana Ng"
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Across
- 1AKlapp who delivered the line "I don't want the world, I just want your half" over the phone for TMBG's "Ana Ng"
- 5ATable salt, formulaically
- 9AKatz's, e.g.
- 13AProtest singer Phil whom TMBG imagined marrying Marvin Gaye in "The Day"
- 14AChunk of ice
- 15AComputer you might have used 2-Down on
- 16A*What you might say to someone admiring a five-foot-nine-inch portrait of your wife
- 19AMerits
- 20AAdmitted to the clergy
- 21AEquilibrium
- 23A"I ____ so much trouble!"
- 24A*Body parts at which we have the world's wealth of information, thanks to the internet
- 29AOrg. that might give you a loan (if you're a developing country) or a message that will self-destruct in five seconds (if you're Ethan Hunt)
- 32AScottish denial
- 33ABiblical brother whose hunger was matched only by his hairiness
- 34AStaple gun relative
- 36AMuslim holy books
- 38A*Advice for someone who forgot to bring sunglasses to the beach
- 40APenners of poetic praise
- 41ATropical fish whose name anagrams to "swears"
- 42ARave partner?
- 43AEnding for id or char
- 44AFantasy publisher named for a rocky mountaintop
- 45A*Me, but with a goatee
- 49A____ of March
- 50A"Four-Eyes About to Rock, I ______ You": 1999 essay by the bespectacled John Flansburgh, riffing on an AC/DC song title
- 55APlaces for people to pump out the jams
- 59A"Gymnopedies" composer Erik who shares a vibe with TMBG that I'm having a hard time describing but hopefully you get it
- 60ATMBG album released March 1992, named for a cancelled NASA moon mission and featuring this puzzle's starred entries as song titles
- 62ASinger/dancer Basil whose hit "Hey Mickey" appeared on the Belgian compilation "Was Het Nu 70, 80 Of 90?" alongside TMBG's "Birdhouse in Your Soul"
- 63ALanguage related to Hindi and written in an Arabic-based script
- 64ACalls them They May Be Giants, e.g.
- 65A"Then / Is when I maybe should have wrote it down / But when I looked around to find ____..." - TMBG, "Broke in Two"
- 66AAbound (with)
- 67A"Unwelcome vision of ____ fingers / Push back the hands of time" - TMBG echoing Homer's famous description of the dawn
Down
- 1D"On a summer evening, the song of the Tudlow can be heard; its characteristic gasping is both a mating call and a cry for help. The number of gasps follows the Fibonacci sequence, often reaching as high as 55 or 89 gasps before the animal _____ consciousness." - TMBG, "Turtle Songs of North America"
- 2DDiscontinued Apple messaging software
- 3D"_____ and the Princesses of Power": 2018 Netflix reboot of a 1980s spinoff of a show based on an action figure line
- 4DNBA and NAACP, e.g.
- 5DGrp. with Lions and Bears, but not Bengals or Jaguars
- 6DSaxophone type occasionally played by John Linnell
- 7DIronically named "Cowardly Dog" with a Cartoon Network show and a TMBG song about him
- 8D"I'll follow you"
- 9DEmotional state of the letter D in TMBG's "E Eats Everything"
- 10DKey of TMBG's "I'll Sink Manhattan" and G maj. relative
- 11DLollygag
- 12DLike many Starbucks orders in the summertime
- 17D"You wish!"
- 18DSecret hideout
- 22DTendons
- 25D___ a soul
- 26DParental justification that's as unsatisfying as it is hard to counter
- 27DSaag ______: Indian spinach-and-cheese dish
- 28DFigure (out)
- 29DHow Rome wasn't built
- 30D"You've got the soul of a treadmill / And the eye of a merchant ______ / The stomach of an arachnid / And the spine of a vending machine" - TMBG, "Tractor"
- 31DOne you might play second fiddle to
- 35D"You probably get that a ___ / I'll bet that people say that a ___ to you" - TMBG, "You Probably Get That A ___"
- 36DRap pioneer Blow whom you're free to talk like, according to TMBG in "Where Your Eyes Don't Go"
- 37D"I don't want a bagel, I don't want a bean, I wouldn't like a bag of beef ___ beer" - TMBG, "Dinner Bell"
- 38D"4 Years of ____ Breaking - A Question In Song": 2020 TMBG song reflecting on a highly unconventional presidency
- 39D"That hurts! That really hurts!"
- 43D"My package has arrived!"
- 46DHeartthrob
- 47DLike a cat next to an empty bag, perhaps
- 48DCrosby, Stills, ____ & Young: band whose song "Ohio" was covered in live performances of John Linnell's "State Songs" side project
- 51D"The World Before _____ On": TMBG lament about all the technological progress we were promised that hasn't materialized
- 52DIn _____ (gestating)
- 53DLevels of stadium seating
- 54DItty-bitty
- 55DMany TMBG fans might have day jobs analyzing it (them?)
- 56DGenre big with Tokyo teens
- 57D"You may not believe this but it has been shown / The reason clouds are white is that they're made out of ____ / And when I found out I slapped my own face / For now I know why skeletons are up in outer space" - TMBG, "Or So I Have Read"
- 58DOn TMBG's self-titled album, one starts with "Everything Right Is Wrong Again" and the other starts with "(She Was A) Hotel Detective"
- 61D"This is my last stick of ___ / I'm going to cut it up so everybody else gets some / Except for Ashurbanipal, who says my haircut makes me look like a Mohenjo-daroan" - TMBG, "The Mesopotamians"
Also that's an impressive amount of thematic material.