January 16, 2022
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Analysis | Solution to Evan Birnholz's Jan. 16 Post Magazine crossword, “Captain Obvious, Attorney at Law” - The Washington Post

Injured while solving a crossword? You may entitled to financial compensation, so call the law offices of Captain Obvious today! Here he’s working with law-based expressions and spinning them in his usual literal way:

  • 23A: [“___? If not, nobody will testify for me”] is CAN I GET A WITNESS.
  • 36A: [“___ must be really smart birds. How else could they have gotten their law degrees?”] is LEGAL EAGLES.
  • 48A: [“___? That’s when the judge is a marsupial”] is KANGAROO COURT.
  • 66A: [“___, but they’ll be back after lunch”] is THE JURY IS STILL OUT.
  • 89A: [“___ would be a festive decoration for the hearing”] is TRIAL BALLOONS.
  • 99A: [“___ have a better chance of winning damages for plaintiffs than weak ones”] is STRONG SUITS.
  • 118A: [“___ when they need a nap after arguing against the prosecution”] is THE DEFENSE RESTS.

In 2009, around the same time that I first tried writing a crossword, I recall having a quarter-life crisis about whether I should go to law school. I figured that it might be a decent career fit since I’d gotten used to arguing about politics with friends and family, and I liked the abstract, romanticized idea of being an admired public defender standing up for the little guy. Just about everyone I knew in college who went to law school told me to reconsider, since that image I’d built up in my head isn’t the trajectory in real life for almost any lawyer.

Of course I still wonder how life would have been different if I’d followed that path instead of crosswords, but maybe I’d have fallen into the hobby anyway. Perhaps I’d have come up with this puzzle idea as a way of avoiding assignments for torts class. Captain Obvious certainly didn’t spend that much time working hard in law school, but I’m going to say that’s what makes him a good attorney. He always wins his cases guaranteed, or your money back.

  • 73A: [“Ay yi yi”] is OOF. I hadn’t seen the clue’s phrase spelled out before; if it’s hard to hear it in your head, imagine each “yi” has a long I sound, as though it sounds like “eye.”
  • 92A: [Brand that created a cookie-flavored wine with Barefoot in 2021] is OREO. Oreo has entered that weird zone in the cultural imagination where you could hear they pulled any kind of publicity stunt, no matter outrageous, and you’ll think it’s true. So is this one.
  • 97A: [“That’s interesting”] is “I SEE,” and …
  • 98A: [“That’s terrifying!”] is “EEK!” It amused me how these two clues ended up adjacent to each other.
  • 122A: [“Part of Your World” singer in a Disney film] is ARIEL, and …
  • 123A: [Flipping gymnastics maneuver] is AERIAL. I thought this adjacent pairing was amusing too since they’re homophones of each other, or at least close enough to be considered homophones.
  • 124A: [Deep-fried cylinder] is TATER TOT. I joked with some friends when I wrote this clue that it sounds like something a robot would say when it describes a tater tot: “I require deep-fried cylinders for fuel!” It sort of has a similar vibe as Captain Obvious in that way.
  • 39D: [D___ish] is EVIL. Insert the word “evil” into that space and you get the synonym “devilish.”
  • 49D: [Those inspired by the band Bauhaus, perhaps] is GOTHS. The previous week’s puzzle had the answer GOTH, clued as [Person with a similar aesthetic as Lydia Deetz from “Beetlejuice,” maybe], and I didn’t expect the plural to show up again this soon. I thought this was an interesting blog post about goth subculture and the role of music in shaping it.
  • 120D: [Greek letter in Margaret Atwood’s name?] is ETA, literally hiding in Margaret Atwood.


source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/01/16/solution-evan-birnholzs-jan-16-post-magazine-crossword-captain-obvious-attorney-law/

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