And even the long rebus answers are more irritating than awe-inducing. The long answers-twinkle, twinkle and now I know-aren't compelling. What is it about those puzzles that stretch us to opposite poles of love and hate? I like to be challenged, but somehow I, like Seth, don't find any joy here. I could get verticals with logical possibilities-lapdogs for lemmings, war or air power, isl instead of isla (yeah, I know, abbreviation doesn't add up there), sod instead of sofa, aft instead of afar, hola with a tip of the hat (or sombrero, I suppose), so forth-but it left me with a useless mess. Yeah, I-80 kicked my ass from San Francisco to Teaneck, NJ. I’m not really a musician, either, but when I’m alone in the car with the speakers on full blast, I sound just like Janis Joplin in “Me and Bobby McGhee.” Really. He’s not a musician, is inexperienced with rebuses (rebi?) and can’t hear well, so it was quite the phone conversation explaining 39A and 41A. I feel bad that Dad had to cut his rebus teeth on this toughie. My first malaplop since joining this group – ONS at 20A! Kodak moment! I just kept looking at the MAU_ _ _ _UM and STO_ and kept smelling a – after I parsed it correctly, I loved – hand up for “roo” before OWL and always blinking at the “l” in SOL. I liked 8:02 – I wasted a lot of time looking for Baa Baa Black – my shoe(s) dropped at MAUSOLEUM and STORE. I try to leave Dad to his own devices, especially before Friday, but I called him this morning, and he answered, “I’m taking the day off.” I told him this was gonna be one people loved or hated, and now having just read the comments, I see I’m right. I remember this because "CK" = Calvin Klein = fashion designer.
I like the ".and the rest" quality of "two others." 60A: Place for a butcher and two others ( TUB) - Nice one.49A: Cousin of a bittern ( EGRET) - off the "E" pretty common crossbird.29A: Carrier whose main hub is Kastrup airport ( SAS) - got it off the "S," but didn't really *know* it, and then doubted it after I couldn't make SPA work for 3D: Resting place ( SO FA).Time was a few seconds faster than last week's, though I'm pretty sure this one's going to play harder for most folks (if the NYT times being posted right now are any indication). Went in expecting "SO," so MAU SOL EUM took slightly longer to come into view than it should have ( 28D: Commence hostilities). The "L" part of SOL always surprises me, no matter how many times I see it written out. Everything else was pretty straightforward. Up top, I don't know / didn't remember CHAOS as a place (8A: Source of Erebus and Gaia, in Greek myth), and always throws me, as my first idea for a synonym is always "DANG!" So even with -K in place, ASK didn't come right away. ROO instead of OWL ( 67D: Pooh pal) and DDE instead of IKE (69D: Two-time opponent of 32-Across). Which reminds me-that damned SW corner (and, to a lesser extent, the NE corner) killed me a little. Once I finally broke NOW I KNOW MY ABCS open, I put it all together. I thought maybe the western notes would be a mirror image. Even after I'd gotten the note / rebus thing, I had no idea what was going on song-wise, since I had only the eastern notes (broke through at ISE RE 24D: Rhône feeder) and couldn't / didn't sing them so had no idea what they represented. I thought the puzzle was actually pretty dang easy except for the whole center area. But thematically this one just feels like a miss. And I'll take ambitious over yawny (which many puzzles have been of late). Plus, the notes actually *did* (by the end), help me to get one of the answers (the SOL in SOL AR, to be exact) ( 44D: Kind of power), so fun was had. Now, neglecting the fatal thematic flaw, the grid is not bad, and I always enjoy a rebus. Symmetry would be blown, but at least those damned eastern notes would have something to do. Maybe you could shove YOU ARE in there somewhere. but what about the end notes? Again, great idea, but just Not There in the execution. and TWINKLE TWINKLE, which really only gets you through DO DO SOL SOL.
sort of, and NOW I KNOW MY ABCS works perfectly (in that you sing it to the tune of the notes on the left side of the grid), but then there's those notes on the right.
0 kommentar(er)
