Happy Hallowe'en! I guess we had our seasonal puzzles last week.
Instead today, we get five examples of song titles whose first two words are repeated. I would like to take this moment to personally rank these five songs by my own level of appreciation of them. Here goes:
1. WILDWILDLIFE. Talking Heads is always a good choice for the top of a list.
2. MERCYMERCYME. Marvin Gaye's music was cool.
3. BYEBYEBLACKBIRD. I have never actually heard this song. I will now take a moment to listen to it on iTunes.
4. I leave this space blank.
5. (tied) REDREDWINE and ICEICEBABY. I can't stand either of these songs.
I like the theme just fine, and I can't think of any other examples of the top of my head (although I'm sure there are plenty). It's impressive to find symmetrically matching answers in terms of length.
The rest of the puzzle is pretty good. There are several slots for long answers going down, and I feel that the chosen words are reasonably interesting. EXCISING and MENSCLUBS are two examples that would be better without the odd end(ing)(s). FRENETIC is fun. There is an odd odious AWN and ODEONS here and there. Twice an answer split across two entries has the second word coming first by clue number (AGE / MODERN and BABA / ALI), which feels off.
But it didn't feel BLAH. So that's good.
1A: Twin city of Raleigh (DURHAM) gets a B+, and was the first answer I put in.
Hey, it's the end of October! Which means tomorrow either Frances or Horace are taking over. I might not be back on blogging duty till January, 2017, so see you next year!
- Colum
4:44
ReplyDeleteI had to Google REDREDWINE, because I was sure it was released before I left high school, and I was right! It was a re-release that reached #1 in 1988. Sooo... there's that... but even with my high school connection, I'd still put Marvin Gaye at the top of the list.
Anywhoo, I much enjoyed this Monday puzzle from Mr. Collins. The long Downs were above average, and the shorter, below-average Downs were barely even noticed. I swear, I didn't even see ELOI until I read Jeff Chen's review. And now I see KOPF, which is unusual on a Monday. But whatever - we've also got WONKS, and DREGS, and AMITY. Thumbs up!
5:49
ReplyDeleteI'll be the tie-breaker: Colum is correct with WILDWILDLIFE at the top! I mean, c'mon, Horace...Marvin Gaye? FRENETIC is my favorite long-ish down. ASIAGO reminds me I haven't been in Italy for a long time, now, and AMITY brings to mind both "Jaws" and a nice Pinot Noir from Oregon, so that's good. I was expecting a Halloween theme, but this was fine.