There’s a lot more medal-worthy fill in this puzzle and it comes to us not only through the two eight-letter entries-the curiously satisfying ODDITIES, and MISSOURI with its enlivening clue -but also through the healthy number of sevens. The gold? Why to PISTOL PETE-and I don’t really follow basketball all that regularly, but I’m lovin’ his nickname.

Of our five themers, I’m definitely on (snow) board with all but the third one, which never genuinely gets out of the gate for my money. Looks like a “must-miss” to me… Not Jen’s week, eh?, what with the announcement of her impending divorce from Justin Theroux (I know, a simply shocking development, right?…). And it’s not like I have to go foraging very far to find ’em! I think I’m gonna have to give ’em a try as they’re a staple in some wonderful Indian, Caribbean and African recipes. Always see them at the supermarket, but have never eaten them. It’s kind of fun to say her name, but given her questionable place in the pantheon, I don’t find her a worthy contender in this particular competition. To poor/scathing reviews to judge from the New York Times’ Michiko Kakutani. She was an Italian author (another early-ish death… age 60…) and the English translation wasn’t released here until 1999. Also had a vague recollection of the ruckus it stirred in the publishing world, as the Nabokov estate wasn’t in love with what Ms. But did it register with you? Does it seem like a name that might be well-known to new solvers? Did the title of the book register? Only by googling the author did I have a vague recollection of the book, which was published 1995 and is the Lolita story told from her pov. Here’s a name that absolutely fulfills the requirements of the theme set. Died too young! At age 40 in 1988, not long after his 1987 induction in the HOF. Doesn’t mean they all make for great fill, but if you need a set of words to warm up with in advance of, say, some public speaking appearance, this’d be a fine place to start. Because of all that plosiveness going on with the alliterative Ps, these themers really pop. Instead it calls out two-word names and phrases whose first word begins with the letters P-I (half “PIPE”) and whose second begins with… the other half. The Olympics are on, but today’s puzzle is not about this kind of halfpipe competition.

Pioneer 35mm cameras crossword clue