11.09.14 — Colorful Characters

Helen leaving for Troy with Paris, as depicted by Guido Reni

Helen of Troy (from the Iliad) is widely known as "the face that launched a thousand ships". Thus, 1 millihelen is the amount of beauty needed to launch a single ship.~ Wikipedia 

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Sunday, November 9, 2014

“Colorful Characters” Puzzle by Tom McCoy

Edited by Will Shortz

FORM LETTERS, 102A. Impersonal notes … or what four groups of this puzzle’s answers to (totaling 11 words), along with  BLUE JAY, YELLOW SEA, GREEN TEA and BLACK EYE and four groups of words forming four letters, shaped as an I, a C, a G and a J, constitute the main feature of this overly-complicated Sunday crossword:

• [BLACK] HOLES, LISTING and MAGIC (1A. Extremely attractive bodies; 3D. Banning from future work; 40A. ) form a BLACK [I] EYE (85A. Injury found in this grid’s upper-left corner)
• [YELLOW] BRICK, BELLIES and STONE (13A. Building material in Oz); 13D. Lily-livered sorts; 46A. World’s first national park) form a YELLOW [C] SEA (57A. Body of water found in this grid’s upper-right corner)
• [GREEN] LIGHT and GABLES (91A. Give the go-ahead?; 93D. Anne’s home, in literature), form  a GREEN [T] TEA (80A. Beverage found in this grid-s lower-left corner)
• [BLUE] BERRY, RIBBON, MOON (97A. Common muffin flavor; 98D. Top prize; 123A. Super-rare occurrence) form a BLUE [J] JAY (6A. Bird found in this grid’s lower-right corner)

Other — Eponymous AMELIA Bloomer; B TWELVE (63A. Vitamin used to fight Alzheimer’s); COLBERT (43D. Who said “I can’t prove it, but I can say it”); ELEVENTH (48D. 110, to Bilbo Baggins); HARMONICA (94A. Relative of a panpipe); K NINE (17D. Robotic dog on “Doctor Who”); LAINAIS (72A. Hawaiian verandas); MILLIHELEN (34A. Facetious unit defined as the amount of beauty needed to launch one ship); MOTHER (65A. X contributor); NEGLIGEE (47D. Honeymoon attire); SEISMIC (5D. Earth-shattering, maybe); STORK (122A. Baby bird?); TRAIL MIXES (31A. Hikers snacks); YO TE AMO (19A. Words from a Latin lover).

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Puzzle available on the internet at
THE NEW YORK TIMES — Crossword Puzzles and Games.