Today, I solved INCAHOOTS with Cece and Hope, with one assist from Phoebe, who knew BOYLESLAW. By the way, that 1A (As thick as thieves) gets an A from me. Strong clue, great answer.
I had anilS before tealS, finally settling on CYANS. Which I've often thought of as green rather than blue. Actually, Wikipedia tells me it's between blue and green. On the other hand, it's the source of Prussian blue, so there's that.
Hope got ORALPHASE (17A: Nursing is a key component of it). I took a moment to understand. I was thinking so definitely about hospital care, but it's referring to breastfeeding. Very nice.
Was MULAN actually a princess? She's listed as one of the Disney "Princesses," but is also clearly not an actual princess in the sense of being the daughter of royalty. My goodness, I'm running into a lot of controversy today!
We're all big fans of YESAND around here. Improvisation is fun, but more to the point, it emphasized positive interaction and support. If you haven't seen it, I recommend The Incredible Jessica James, available on Netflix. It's lovely and funny and sweet. Yes, and it's about improvisation, at least in part.
Cece got OVERTHERE off of the E, so shout out to her. I liked 52A: Explosive theory? (THEBIGBANG).
Three quarters of the puzzle was finished in about 10-11 minutes, leaving the SE corner, which held out for the remaining 6-7 minutes. Even with IMBACK and LEBANON in place, it took quite some time to figure out any of the acrosses. First off, I had Golf in the place of GLEE. GAH is a tough find. POMELO even more so. I'd guessed MAGI for 56A: Birthday visitors?, but had not entered it.
In the end, Hope got ANALGESIC, and we were home free. A group effort, which is always fun.
- Colum
21:43
ReplyDeleteExcellent photograph. I lolled a lot. Is she eating potato or cake?
I love dropping in 1A on a Saturday, and like you, the whole top was done very quickly, but I got mired in the depths, and finally asked Amy what Gatsby's first name was to finish the thing. I just couldn't parse YESAND. My recent "Intro to Acting" class didn't get there, I guess.
In my opinion, cyan is definitely more blue than green, and it sort of replaced blue in the old "red blue yellow" primary color scheme that I learned in grade school. Now, of course, it's cyan, magenta, yellow, and frequently black (K). Unless you're talking about color printing from negatives with an enlarger, and then it's red, green, and blue. But I digress.
I liked this one quite a bit. Very smooth, and nicely challenging.
Oh, that's a cake. You should google her sheet cake rant from last week's prime time Weekend Edition.
Delete18:18
ReplyDeleteReading your review had me a bit jealous as I had to solve this one all by myself.
I have no idea about kneeholes, but the rest of it came pretty smoothly. Hardest was POMELO.
That was a great Tina Fey skit. Watched it with friends the night before Lollapuzzoola. I just hope she only had to do one take.
OK, Colum and Mike, I watched that rant now. Excellent.
Delete33:58
ReplyDeleteIt seems that it took me the longest, but I found the solve smooth, and no errors on a Saturday is always a victory. I knew BOYLESLAW right away, too. HONEYWINE went right in; I keep meaning to try mead, but never seem to remember it when we're stocking up on the staples at Yankee Liquors. JAYGATSBY also went right in, as did OVERTHERE, which gave that whole corner away. My only slowdown was in the SE with ANALGESIC, POMELO and KNEEHOLES. Good clue for BASEMETAL.
Oh, and shout out to Phil LESH, of course!
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