0:16:56
I found this puzzle somewhat odd. The theme was clever, but didn't it also strike you as a little strange? Maybe it's just that I was doing this puzzle only hours after hearing about the terrible bombings at the Boston Marathon. I was, and am still, distracted and distraught. It makes me deeply sad to see large-scale acts of senseless violence come so close to home. In past Aprils I have stood at that point, across from the bleachers, to watch the end of the race. I know many people who were on the course yesterday, watching or running.
As terrible as it was, it's no worse (and probably quite a bit better) than things that go on in the world every single day. Drone strikes authorized by this country are, apparently, delivering much more powerful blows and causing much more violent death and destruction in other parts of the world. Perhaps experiencing it at home will change our ideas of what's right and what's wrong. Of who should mete out, and who should meet destruction.
But let's return to the puzzle, shall we? To the bread and circuses that placate the masses, that keep them from actually finishing and acting on their thoughts of reform or rebellion.
I've never heard of NEO (16A: Prefix with platonic) or 49A: Suffix with lex- (EME). I don't think I've ever heard of ICOSA as a 5D: Twenty: Prefix (I guess Greek should be next on my list of languages to learn). The use of so many brand and corporate names - REDBULL, NESTLE, GEICO and 12D: Verizon or Sprint - seems a little tawdry. And seeing Nike's old slogan BOKNOWS (13D: Onetime catchphrase for athlete Jackson) seemed a little odd. How long ago was that? Is it already twenty years? And speaking of old-fashioned, 51A: Photo ___ (LAB)? What's that?
On the plus side, I liked HELLA (29D: Very, slangily), and LISP (26A: Someone who has it can't say it). XAXIS (54A: Horizontal graph line) looks nice.
Overall, more bad than good. That's my opinion. Possibly skewed by circumstance.
I'll end with more lines from the 42D: 1971 hit with the lyric "You may say I'm a dreamer,"
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace.
- Horace
Time unknown, but around 15 minutes (no stopwatch where I was today).
ReplyDeleteWhat...you know those words, or did you have to look them up somewhere?
I had JPEG at first, but didn't know what a "LIJBODANCE" was, so it needed to go. I remembered the BOKNOWS one, and it definitely was at least two decades ago. I didn't know it from sports, though. I remember a MST3K that featured a movie starring Beau Bridges and Ron ("Ronny") Howard called "Village of the Giants" in which the 'bots at one point featuring a particularly terrible scene said "Beau knows acting!"
I loved XAXIS, of course, and thought the theme was OK. What about SEXSHOP (41D Store for couples, maybe) mentioned in the same puzzle as SODOM? And who doesn't love 72A Like Cheech & Chong, in most of their movies?
We know what words? I've mentioned the ones I didn't know. The rest seemed normal enough. And yes, SEXSHOP and SODOM were a nice pair. But do you think Cheech and Chong were really high while they were filming? Well... maybe so.
ReplyDeleteProbably not while they were filming, at least not Cheech.
ReplyDeleteThe words to Imagine.
Oooohhh... right. I looked them up, just to be sure. But really, I think you, I, and many others, know the words to that song pretty well.
ReplyDelete