I had an eye-opening discussion with Jim about this themeless. In our regular jibber-jabber about the week's worth of puzzles, he ...
read moreI had an eye-opening discussion with Jim about this themeless. In our regular jibber-jabber about the week's worth of puzzles, he noted that for today's, EVE CURIE was his favorite entry / clue pair, by far.

I didn't literally fall out of my chair, but I wanted to. (That'd have given people at my local coffee shop something to pep up their day!)
I struggled with EVE CURIE, eventually piecing her together, and grumbled that the puzzle was being teachy. Okay, EVE CURIE is crossworthy, no doubt, but why not save that trivia for another puzzle, to spice up the usually boring short entry, EVE?
Jim usually summarizes his feelings about each puzzle with a single line or thought, but here, he wrote a theme paper. His well-thought-out discourse:
- The clue is an amazing piece of trivia.
- There's no way I know that answer.
- But wait, families with Nobels? There can't be that many.
- Oh, yeah, Pierre and Marie Curie both won.
- So the last name must be CURIE.
- And we have a three-letter first name that we can easily get from crosses.
It's rare that my opinions change so drastically, but it does happen. EVE CURIE shall hereafter stick in my mind, with a positive connotation.
Perhaps I'd have been more tolerant of learning a new name if I hadn't already struggled with ENESCU, ZACHARIAH, and ALISON Lurie.
Because they're so difficult to construct, 68-word puzzles will generally have some wastage. This was a perfect example, as DETESTED, ASSAULTS, even EMPHATIC weren't emphatic enough to make me sit up. Thankfully, Luke included enough solid phrases — SPEED DATES / HEAVEN SENT / ON RETAINER made for a snazzy triplet, just for starters — to make up for some of the potential left on the table.