It was pretty much a given that Patrick Berry's name would come up this week, and when it does, it's always good news. Today he gives us a rare Tuesday treat - a double rebus, of sorts. Six symmetrical answers can be read twice, as in "Crayola crayons" (17A: Art supplies since 1903) and "washing machine" (66A: Laundromat fixture). Pretty impressive. And, of course, the doubled letters work on the way down, too. It's beautiful.
And Mr. Berry even gets in a nice start at 1A: Earthquake-related (SEISMIC). I'd give that one a solid A-. I take a tiny bit off for the slightly odd clue. And we've got to leave room for something truly great.
Excellent Tuesday.
- Horace
17:12
ReplyDeleteI'm back. I was thinking of printing this puzzle out so that Sue could have one to do on her birthday, but the rebus would have made her steaming mad. Indeed, this was beautifully done. I loved that FOGHORN/LEGHORN was spelled out completely there, as well as HERMANS/HERMITS and CHARLIE/CHAPLIN. Amazing. I didn't love ARMHOLE (14A You might put a fist through it), but added points for the nice clue, and for the fact that it comes in right next to CLOTHES. The only decent three-letter fill is TEX (43A Cowboy nickname). I loved the smell of PASTE back in the day...I wonder if that would still be the case.
I love this one, and, although I didn't time it, I probably had more trouble than either Horace or Huygens. For quite a while I had the double letters in ARMHOLE, so it took me awhile to get the theme. Is this really new? I mean, it's great, but I feel like we must have encountered this or something very similar before.
ReplyDelete9:23
ReplyDeleteLove this puzzle. I agree with ET59 that it's not really anything new. Still, very well done. I messed up at first with where the rebuses were to go, but once I got the double nature of the across answers, I figured it out. LILLIAN/HELLMAN and WASHING/MACHINE get the best points because of the triple rebuses. But of course FOGHORN/LEGHORN is the best by far.