After finishing this puzzle, I had a number of questions that begged to be asked.
1. Is a FALSEBOTTOM what occurs after plastic surgery?
2. In HORSEHOCKEY, how do you get the ice skates on their hooves?
3. Why is FENSTER clued from the German (and with an abbreviation to boot, which was confusing) rather than with the eponymous uncle from The Addams Family?
Well, I can answer that last one. It's because it's Uncle Fester, not Fenster. That answer is definitely an ANOMALY, though. This was fun, and tough.
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| Mount AVALON, in New Hampshire |
Highlights included:
- NOTELL / MOTEL
- MNEMONIC: here's one for the cranial nerves - On old Olympus's towering top, a Finn and German viewed some hops.
- 3D: Cooking title (IRONCHEF). I used to love this show, and I'm referring to the original Japanese version.
- 49A: Something the Netherlands has but Belgium doesn't? (CAPITALN). I'm telling you, as I was solving this corner, I refused several times to believe this was what Mr. Eylar was going for.
The whole middle section is brilliantly done. And it's all worth it for 38A: Who once described puritanism as "the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy" (MENCKEN). Well said, sir. Well said.
- Colum
28:18
ReplyDeleteI'd never heard that MNEMONIC above, which is not surprising. Yes, this was a great and fun one. I was able to enter VERONA off of the clue. I love short clues for long answers, e.g. 16D Recalls (LOOKSBACKON). It's a shame that FROST wasn't clued with a quote; then we'd have a nice trio with KEROUAC and MENCKEN. Also, oddly, as I'm no foreign language expert, I was able to enter the OCEANO and EAU answers from their clues. I'd never heard of BELEM, LOY, MOD or the SOO Canals (I tried "ear" first). I also never heard the term OROIDE, trying "pyrItE off of the clue. Excellent LOWLIFES/CLODS pairing, and I loved the CEMENTSHOES clue/answer. AVALON brings to mind, of course, the Roxy Music album.