Another horizontal symmetry puzzle! Well, WHATEVS. They do what they do.
This theme of naming a picture made by black squares left me feeling somewhat underwhelmed. Sure, it kind of looks like all those things, but, well... ok... I said yesterday that variety in theme ideas is always welcome, so I'll just stick with that.
What is less welcome, are answers like ITE, ALPE, SERA, INURN (38A: Prepare for entombment, say) ("say" is particularly amusing here, as almost no one ever would say that), and GENII (41A: Ones involved in wishful thinking?). Cute clue on that last one, but still... no.
PRAIRIE is a nice word, but it's not the first thing I think of when I remember my visit to Badlands National Park. On the other hand, I wasn't fooled for a second by "21A: Form of 'sum'" (ERAT). Well, ok, I was fooled for several seconds, because it could also have been ERAs or even Esse, but I thought of Latin right away. Oh, what's that? You all did? ok ok...
"Knight 'hood?" was cute for CASTLE, and FIFI was a surprise answer to "33D: Diminutive of Josephine." I mean it makes perfect sense, but I didn't know it off the top of my head.
Too many oddities for me today to fully enjoy it. Onward to the rest of The Turn!
- Horace
25:44
ReplyDeleteI had THELE_TERY for quite a long time down there in the SW thinking "lectery," which made no sense since I'm pretty sure that's not a word. But anyway, it took me all of the crosses for FIFI to make itself known because, like Horace, it wasn't immediately apparent. I agree with INURN and GENII. Thankfully the latter crossed TUNINGFORK, which I filled in with only a couple of crosses. I enjoyed the GALILEI clue/answer, and it seems that PALAU is my type of place; I should add it to my list of possible vacation destinations. It's a shame that the long answer is GENERALHOSPITAL, and that it crosses OILUP, something I will probably never do. I, of course, entered LUNARYEAR off of the clue.
12:12
ReplyDeleteI actually enjoyed this one quite a bit, trying to figure out what else the mysterious black squares could be. And the answers were pretty rewarding.
I also did not like GENERALHOSPITAL as all. Not only because it had nothing to do with the theme. The clue was 16A: "Winner of 13 Outstanding Drama Series Emmys". But I thought that was a daytime show? So wouldn't it have won "Daytime Emmys"? I didn't think daytime soaps won Emmys. I actually didn't fill it in for too long for this reason. Ok, I just googled it and I think I am right. "Emmys" are prime time Emmys. Also, I had no idea that this show is actually still being aired. Wow, it has won literally hundreds of daytime emmys. But no Emmys! Ok, too much time spent looking at this.