Monday, March 25, 2019

Monday, March 25, 2019, Kevin Christian and Andrea Carla Michaels

4:09

I'm not going to draw too much attention to it, but we had a comment on Horace's Report from the ACPT post from a celebrity, so go take a look if you want to see. No need for name dropping here at HAFDTNYTCPFCA. In fact, I just dropped three entire names from that acronym, so...

I grew up around LPS. My first that I purchased was a full recording of Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker - it was a double record with a psychedelic pink cover. I had quite a collection by the time CDs started taking over, including all of the D'Oyly Carte Gilbert and Sullivan recordings (the ones with John Reed playing all the patter song roles), as well as multiple Tom Lehrer records and a few Monty Pythons. This is how you know Horace, Frances, and I were made to be bosom buddies.

Today's puzzle interprets "long play" records as literal acronyms for seven examples of two word phrases. It's impressive to fit seven theme answers (and a 3-letter revealer) into a 15 x 15 grid. I once saw Tito Puente perform in Cambridge, MA, so I liked LATINPERCUSSION the best. Otherwise, I was sadly a little unimpressed by the collection. And why these, and not others?

On the other hand, ELPASO must be a hidden theme answer, no? YES?

I am in favor of IGOR and Young Frankenstein. I have never been in favor of ERIK Satie, who I think is fairly uninteresting. So maybe my response to the puzzle over all is that it was MAA. I mean MEH.

- Colum

10 comments:

  1. Hmm, having seen ERIK Satie in so many crosswords I sort of imagined I'd hear his music someday. Sort of the way I first set my eyes on an etui. But given this review, I am beginning to wonder whether I should.

    Anyway, I don't know if I was just overconfident on a Monday following the ACPT, or what, but today was a finish with one error for a really dumb reason: LEGALPROCEEcINGS. Sure, the cross was someone I'd never heard of, but GAcOT isn't a particularly likely name.

    Does the fill suffer from the theme density? I think so, but there were some bright spots like ENRON and MOOCH. Oh, and a nice clue for ZOOS.

    ReplyDelete
  2. 5:07
    Odd comment above. I enjoyed LEOPARDPRINT because, even if it doesn't quite fit, it brings to mind a brand new leopard-skin pill-box hat. C'mon, this is a decent Monday theme, isn't it? I also liked LAUNCHINGPAD (and one of its crosses, LUNA), and sure, I'll vote for ELPASO as mini-theme. Also, LEGALPROCEEDING is not only a themer, but has a mini-theme in the middle. YOWZA! Now, if I could only get a LOTTOPRIZE, although I suppose I'd need to part with a dollar bill first, which is unlikely.

    ReplyDelete
  3. (I removed the comment that Huygens referred to, which was spam, but then I thought I'd better comment to say so, so Huygens's comment wouldn't look like it was meant for Mr. Kingdon's comment, which it wasn't.)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ah, I see. I'm quite prepared to be seen as odd, but just as glad that it wasn't this time.

      Delete
    2. Yes, I certainly wasn't referring to Mr. Kingdon's comment!

      Delete
  4. And speaking of comments - Colum, you're playing it awfully cool about the comment on the ACPT Special Report. I was considering writing to the author to ask if we could use an excerpt from it on our masthead. Or maybe not an excerpt... just reprint the entire thing up there. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Heh, but the way he played it gave an excuse to use the phrase "name dropping" (which started me in on trying to figure out which letters were missing from the acronym and.... well you can tell I've been solving themed puzzles, can't you?)

      Delete
  5. 4:16

    And as for the puzzle - were we at that same Tito Puente concert together? Were Katherine and Jack there? It's funny that I can't really remember who I went with, but I do know that I saw my dentist there. Heh... As one of my great aunts said, "I've got a good memory, but it's short."

    ReplyDelete
  6. Lord, Horace - it's my short term memory that is all buggy - sorta like some old RAM in a Windows 95 PC tower. If I had been at that Tito Puente concert, I would still be able to tell you who I sat next to and who I talked to at intermission! Ha ha!
    ~MLou
    PS - lots of LPs in Monday's puzzle - how does one even begin to compile such a list? I finished fine, but it took 12:41! BTW - my first LP (not counting all those Monkees' albums) was Led Zeppelin II.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's an excellent first LP to have obtained! I can't remember my first LP purchase, but my best guess is that it was by the Beatles. Maybe Magical Mystery Tour, even.

      Delete