Evan Birnholzs guide to the March 6 Post Magazine crossword, Thanks, Captain Obvious!

Since time immemorial, people have used cliches in everyday writing and speech. Just like I did right there. Some publications (I wonder which ones?) will tell you that it’s better to avoid them, or at least consider substituting them for less trite expressions. For Captain Obvious, however, cliches don’t really exist. That’s because he interprets all figures of speech literally. He’s like a conversational Amelia Bedelia, though I can’t imagine Captain Obvious gets himself into wacky trouble the way Amelia does. The only risk he takes is that he might elicit groans from crossword solvers.

…. On second thought, that’s actually a pretty dangerous situation. The captain is a hero to us all.

The gist is that Captain Obvious is speaking to you using some cliched filler phrase at the beginning of a sentence, and since he means it literally, it’s your job to fill in the blanks:

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• 23A: [“___, it will be nighttime"] is AT THE END OF THE DAY.
• 34A: [“___: You can see it in slow motion right when that wide receiver grabs that football"] is HERE’S THE CATCH.
• 53A: [“___, you will not have shown any signs of embarrassment before"] is AT FIRST BLUSH.
• 71A: [“___, remove all but the last five pages of ‘Les Misérables'"] is TO MAKE A LONG STORY SHORT.
• 90A: [“___, and then I won’t have that object in my possession"] is TAKE IT FROM ME.
• 108A: [“___, there is physical space separating you and me"] is JUST BETWEEN US.
• 121A: [“___, I recommend sobbing noisily"] is FOR CRYING OUT LOUD.

Today’s puzzle is actually an expansion of an old puzzle with the same title that I wrote on my website Devil Cross. I just liked the character of Captain Obvious enough to do it again. In fact, the theme is relevant to my childhood experience. I’ve mentioned this in previous interviews, but when I was young a couple of speech therapists diagnosed me with something called Semantic Pragmatic Disorder. It’s a language impairment that, among other things, makes it difficult to understand the meanings of idioms and expressions because you interpret them literally. While I don’t think it’s one of those problems with a “cure,” I was able to work around it — at least I hope so, since the whole purpose of this job is wordplay.

Other notable answers and clues:

• 29A: [“Blast!"] is DAMN IT. This isn’t the closest I’ve come to swearing in a mainstream crossword, though I did wonder if it might ruffle a feather or two. I’ve never really understood the “dammit” spelling. It makes sense phonetically, but then if you removed the word “it,” it would be “damn” and not “dam” or “damm.” That would work if you were upset about a dam being built, I suppose, or whatever a damm is.
• 43A: [Talk show host who sounds like he could perform brain surgery on the Scarecrow] is DR. OZ, though he’s not a brain surgeon by training but a cardiothoracic surgeon. So I took some liberties with this clue, but no more than he takes with the medical community. The clue has an added benefit, though: If you didn’t know who this was and similarly didn’t know 44D: [Avis subsidiary offering auto-sharing services] was ZIPCAR, then the reference to “The Wizard of Oz” can help you resolve that crossing.
• 57A: [Vespers prayer] is an EVENSONG, a choral rendition of an evening prayer. I like this word, though I know it may not be the most common musical term out there. The choir I sing in has sung many liturgical works, but I’m not sure if any of them would qualify as an Evensong.
• 107A: [Holder of a pair of asses?] is Noah’s ARK. Okay, maybe DAMN IT wasn’t the edgiest part of this puzzle, after all. Feel free to interpret this clue however you like, though I was going for a pun on poker aces.
• 133A: [Origin of the word “epiphany"] is GREEK, appropriately enough, once you figured out the answer to the clue.
• 10D: [“The Masochism Tango" musician Tom] is LEHRER. My parents once owned an old LP of Tom Lehrer. For a guy who wrote as many light-hearted rags as he did back in the ’50s and ’60s, he had quite the dark sense of humor in songs like “I Hold Your Hand in Mine” and “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park.”
• 31D: [Alan of “Bridge of Spies"] is ALDA and 38D: [“Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation" heroine ___ Faust] is ILSA. Both answers are crossword staples — though ILSA tends to get the “Casablanca” treatment, which I already did with LORRE (28A: [Peter of “Casablanca"]) — so I’m glad I could make a reference to recent movies this time. I saw “Bridge of Spies” just last week via Redbox RENTAL (75D: [Redbox transaction]).
• 40D: [Ally of ’90s TV] is MCBEAL. Maybe tough to parse that clue since it should be pronounced like the name “Allie” and not like a term for a comrade in wartime.
• Pun echoes with 58D: [It’s a small whirl] for EDDY and 114D: [Small world?] for ATLAS. Could have made this a triple play if something like PLUTO showed up in the grid (and if astronomers still considered it a planet).
• 122D: [Pablo Neruda’s “___ to the Onion"] is ODE. Sadly, he didn’t write it in tribute to the satirical news outlet.
• Two adjacent football misdirections with 125D: [“Wild" card game] for UNO and 126D: [Home of the lions] for DEN. I guess a den could also be the setting for a wild card game, like Cards Against Humanity or other games that might get a bit risque.

One last thing: I intended the last three Post Magazine crosswords to be on the easier-to-medium side of difficulty, but be warned that next week is going to be tougher. See you then!

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**Special thanks to Erik Agard, Matt Gaffney, and Bruce Ryan for test-solving this puzzle, and to my copy editor Jenny Abella for her thorough fact-checking and proofreading of clues.**

(UPDATE, March 6 @ 12:15 pm ET: I should mention that I’ve added a few comments over at Diary of a Crossword Fiend about reusing part of a theme from that old Devil Cross puzzle of mine, given the recent crossword “Gridgate” scandal that erupted late on Friday night. Both puzzles were my own original work, but it doesn’t hurt to cover one’s bases.)

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