Well, I opened up Horace and Frances today to see the review of the puzzle, and found none posted yet. It was at this point that a little light bulb popped in the nearly empty refrigerator of my mind. "Perhaps..." it said to me, "perhaps it's your week to review?"
Gah. Happy I figured it out before tomorrow!
In any case, a lovely start to the week, with the classic idealistic statement "make love, not war" across the front of the four theme answers, and the numerically replaced revealer at 54D: Decade that spawned the slogan [above] (60S). All four theme answers are strong, especially MAKEITSNAPPY. (It occurs to me that I don't think I've ever actually said "Stat!" as a physician in an emergency. Neither have I said the previous phrase.)
51A: L.B.J. campaign to help the poor (WARONPOVERTY) is an extra bit of theme material, since it originated in said decade. I think we'd all agree we've failed on that particular front.
Things I liked today:
- OPRAH directly above OPERA. Also that the latter references "The Magic Flute," not my favorite exemplar (or even my favorite Mozart opera - "Don Giovanni" wins that one), but still chock full of lovely goodies.
- CLEAVES. Such an excellent word. In one sense it means to split, as in the clue, but in the biblical sense, it means to stick together. How is this possible, O English language?!
Things I didn't like today:
- Strange pluralizations, such as PLANBS. I think you can only have one plan B, no?
- Also APERS. Yuck.
- 4D: "Almost finished!" (ONETOGO) - I mean, I get it, but it just didn't feel quite right.
But overall an enjoyable start to the week. Which I am blogging about.
- Colum
What has the world come to? A Monday rebus!? Thought I was breezing through this one only to see 9:35 on the clock at the end. Oh, well, lost a bit with NOTasLUCKY and a few other road bumps. Favorite answer? Maybe WPM just because we're not likely to see that often.
ReplyDeleteabout 6:30, on paper
ReplyDeleteHah! I'm glad you remembered, because we don't have the internets here at the beach! It's only now, on Wednesday, that I am learning of your surprise to be blogging this week. Ah well... what if we didn't blog? What would happen? Nothing and everything.
I agree that the numbers in the grid were shocking on a Monday. One of my brothers was very put out by this. He wondered what the world was coming to. Me, I liked it. And I also like that you're blogging this week. :)