I always get a good feeling when I see a puzzle with circles in the grid, and today's was no exception.
I knew 1A and 1D, clued as 1982 Richard Pryor/Jackie Gleason film (The/Toy). Great start, but it didn't tell me much about the theme. When I got to 19A: Draftsman's tool (and a hint to this puzzle's theme), I hit the jackpot with T-square, one of the few drafting tools I know. At that point, I just put all the Ts in place and went from there.
It goes without saying that a grid like this is going to have a lot of three-letter entries, but I didn't mind. Tat (34D: Fashion a doily), Tut (50A: King in a celebrated 1970s U.S. tour), tit (32D: Relative of a chickadee), Tex (23D: Singing Ritter), rut (46D: Endless 9-to-5 job, e.g.), and rat (59D: Disloyal sort). By far the best was 12D: Plays a campus prank on, informally (TPs). I never did this, and I'm happy to say I never had it done to me.
Some of the other T-fill was entertaining. 27D: Go __ (deteriorate) (to pot), 62A: Hand-color, in a way (tie dye), 15D: Dutch beer brand (Amstel), and 41D: "__ Cheerleaders" (1977 film) (Satan's). Don't have a favorite, though. Especially liked 14D: Gridiron formation (winged T) and 52A: Attend to the final detail (cross a T).
We see JaiAlai in the grid often, but it threw me this time because of the way it was clued. 4A: Half court game? (Jai). I was pretty sure about 4D: Title guy in a 1980 Carly Simon hit (Jesse), but I just couldn't figure out what half court game meant. Eventually it came together.
Interesting clue at 61A: Field of unknowns? (algebra). Initially had nothing, then the downs gave me EBRA. I thought it might be a two-word answer...you know, some kind of bra. That's been a recurring word of late. Also in that corner was 56A: Ferris in film (Bueller), giving the final nod to 57D: Wall St. action (LBO) -- leveraged buy-out for those who aren't familiar with the term.
To the left of that, 55A: Commits to, as an interest rate (locks in), sitting atop 60A: Intent, as a listener (all ears). Cross a T and tie dye (see above) combine to make that the best corner in the grid. IMOO, of course.
38D: Big name in cellular service (T-Mobile). Not my choice of phone, but it's in the grid fairly often. The longer words usually open up a lot of the grid, but in this case, it didn't help much...I had most of the acrosses over there. Where I needed the long answer was 22D: Influential group (inner circle). Couldn't remember 20A: Satchel in the Hall of Fame (Paige), and wasn't sure what kind of tax they wanted in 31A (land).
Not many (42A: A few) comments these days. I enjoy reading your take on the puzzle, too. You can always post anonymously if you're feeling shy ; )
And thanks to Orange for pointing out that Victor Fleming's co-constructor was Bonnie L. Gentry, NOT Bobbie L. Gentry as the online puzzle showed. Some of you may remember that Bobbie Gentry sang Ode to Billie Joe.
Linda G
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
not deep, but i think that's "cross a 't'" -- as in "don't forget to cross the 't's and dot the "'i's."
like you, i found this puzzle to be pretty smooth sailing for a wednesday and fun as well. have been surprised to read elsewhere about the relative difficulty other solvers had with it. nice to come in with a decent solving time for a change.
go figger!
;-)
janie
As I've posted on a couple other blogs you may know, Carly Simon did me in on this one. Wouldn't have gotten my wrong squares right given another hour solving this thing. Missed the boat today, but I'll be coming around again tomorrow to try Thursday's ;).
But anyway, continuing from what you said, any puzzles with circles, extra letters, boxes, or other strangeness is always fun for me as well. Break a few rules, I say :). So I really enjoyed the concept on this one.
Thanks, Janie. I had it right in the first paragraph about it. I didn't find this one too difficult. I did Google PALADE after, because PAIGE just didn't look right. I was thinking Satchel as last name, not first.
Howard, there was a Groundhog Day puzzle some time ago where there was an extra box popping out of the top of the grid. Very cool.
I wasn't crazy about the song Jesse, but I did like its opening line:
Oh, Mama, say a prayer for me
Jesse's back in town
It won't be easy
I dated a few of those ; )
oh, linda -- i'm a dope and didn't look carefully: sorry!!
"jesse" -- don't ever recall hearing it, but as the fill started filling, started hearing the strains of (i think...) roberta flack's song of the same name.
cheers --
j.
I actually was arrested for TP'ing during my brief college career. Myself and a couple of other idiots were throwing toilet paper at the police from the roof of the dorm. When they entered the building, we attempted to flee but found out we had locked ourselves out and there was nothing we could do except wait there for the campus cops to come haul us off -- which they were happy to do.
This is probably why I never became a criminal mastermind.
Robert, that's too funny. I'm sure, though, that there are several other reasons why you never became a criminal mastermind ; )
Post a Comment