Tuesday, July 25, 2017

Tuesday, July 25, 2017, Alex Vratsanos

0:06:10

Tuesday's puzzle children are full of grace.


Spread out, to varying degrees, as though on the rack, inside longer answers, are found today the names of the four evangelists.

And speaking of entertainers, it's quite a coincidence that "Ed Sullivan," whose variety show ran from 1948-1971, fits into 11-Down, which is clued with "Variety show host of 1951-1971" (REDSKELTON). I thought first of the more famous host, which slowed down that whole NE area. Also slowing it down was the difficult, at least to me, 21A: Didn't buy, say (LEASED). Tricky!

1A: Discharge, as from a volcano (SPEW) - B.
Favorite: 23D: What gives you the right to bare arms? (TANKTOP). So silly.
Least: LACTI (19D: Milk: Prefix). LACTI? What about the more common, "lacto?"

There were some dusty old words today, like ESCARP (would have preferred either more "escarpment" or less "scarp" here), ABAFT, and ENCASES. And there were quite a few names aside from the four circled ones. I didn't find this especially inspirational, but it was a serviceable Tuesday.

- Horace

2 comments:

  1. 4:50
    I don't much care for JOBHOPPING, but it's acceptable. The other three are nice phrases which hide the names well. I liked both ARGO and NAUTILUS in the puzzle. ALTI and LACTI not so much, although at least there's some consistency in the choice of -I as endings. I'd thought we'd left the ": Prefix" clues behind years ago. I did not fall into the Ed Sullivan trap - didn't even think of him, but likely because I had enough letters in place already. It's a pretty good Tuesday, actually.

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  2. 7:01
    The odd Tuesday that I solved a bit faster than this week's Monday. Like Colum, I had a few letters in, so REDSKELTON was not a problem. I tried GRANDJURist at first (GRANDJUROR), but it didn't quite fit. ABAFT, being as I am a quasi-sea-faring captain, is welcome, as was Zoe SALDANA. FINALOUT was nicely clued. I didn't love the PAW/PAD/CUJO mini-theme, but the puzzle itself was, as Horace mentions, serviceable.

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