Wednesday, April 22, 2020

Wednesday, April 22, 2020, Jules Markey

14:03

This puzzle features some literal PRIMEREALESTATE: THREEMILEISLAND, SEVENHILLSOFROME, and the THIRTEENCOLONIES. It's nice because it works on two levels. :)

My time was a little slow again today. I have gotten past being duped by "sign of summer," (generally leo), but I was tripped up this time by "Sign of autumn" (LIBRA) - same clue, different season. DUMB. I was also stumped for too long by "12/31". I was thinking more along the lines of 'nyeve.' DAFT. The real answer, RATIO, is much better and works as bonus theme material. My final sticking point was the northwest - too many options for some and too few known answers for others. I don't know many Doors songs and I've never seen "Apocalypse Now." I didn't think of either ATEIT for "Fell on one's face big-time" or BITEME, for  "Buzz off!" which seems a bit on the harsh side of possible synonyms, IMO.
PISA
Photo by Tom Lingner
But, let's leave all that in the PABST and get RITES to the good stuff. How about "Give out one's address?" (ORATE) and "Establishment with steep prices?" (TEASHOP). Excellent! Also clever, but less hilarious to me was "Revivalists, for short?" (EMTS). While the QMCs were funny, I also very much enjoyed two of the non-question mark clues, "Looked too soon, say" (PEEKED) and "It's a knockout" (ETHER). In the fun fill department I nominate
DICEY, MELEE, and NETTLE.

I don't really like the word "Dearie" or its two answers in this puzzle (BABE and PET), but that's only 2 out of 75 answers that I wasn't UPON. You do the math.

~Frannie.

4 comments:

  1. 6:48
    Fun theme! I had the most trouble with the middle north section. I also fell for the "sign of" clue, even though we'd just had it the other day with "Pisces." And PBR was not apparent to me at all, until I ran the alphabet for _ABE. Excellent photo by this so-called Tom Lingner.

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  2. 6:29

    I think Tom's BABE was in the ACTUAL shot, but that was before the EDITS. Apparently the RATIO was off...

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  3. 12:52
    It seems that I took a little longer than usual for a Wednesday, also, even though the theme was right up my alley. I tried pEAs for a pot pie ingredient, mostly because I don't take a MEAT, and I needed a few crosses for CORALRED, but really, I'm not sure what the ACTUAL reason for my relative slowness was. I guess that NETTLE isn't all that well known a term to me, so that may have slowed me a bit in the SE, and I, like Frannie, thought BITEME was a bit harsh, so I hesitated with that one, too. Maybe I'll go OPEN a PABST and consider the causes more deeply.

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  4. Well if I was going to have some MEAT in honor of today's puzzle, I'd go directly for LEVERET. That answer and a few of its crosses aside, the Northwest was the toughest for me. Although it was a satisfying kind of tough in the sense that once I got it, the answers made sense, seemed guessable, even clever. Well, with the possible exception of BITEME which I'm not sure would pass my breakfast test if I were a constructor. But since I did not conatruct this puzzle, I'll just appreciate that it was constructed by someone evidently in their PRIME.

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