In today's puzzle we find classic opposites ON and OFF, in rebus form, in five theme answers. Neatly, the two words appear cheek by jowl in each answer, such as S[ON][OFF]RANKENSTEIN, and my favorite, PERS[ON][OFF]AITH - do they believe, or don't they? :) And we have a stealth revealer, of sorts, at 39A: Intermittently ([ON]AND[OFF]). It seems like it would take almost an ENIAC to find so many phrases that have this kind of ON/OFF switch, and then fit them all in the grid. I couldn't do it, CANOE? In related news, coasting to work on my bike this morning, thinking about the review, I noticed that adding the letter 'D' to both 'on' and 'off' creates another nice pair of opposites: Don and Doff, which I thought TWAS PERI NESS.
I didn't really make any LUGE mistakes, but I did make a few false starts by entering pOker where MONTE belonged (Betting game), tOes in place of NOSE (Frostbite site), and pOsh in place of TONY (Uptown, so to speak)? On the upside, I got 30D: German for 72-Across off KU_S_ with only the A of ART showing (Notoriously hard thing to define).
To add to Ms. Bérubé's triumph, the rest of the puzzle didn't really suffer at the hands of the theme. I liked both clue and answer "Lummox" and LOUT. I also enjoyed "It can be bounced off someone" (IDEA), "Tearjerker?" ([ON]ION), and "Flying start?" (AERO). And how about "Springs for vacation?" (SPAS) - APPS!
I OBJ only to [OFF]AL, but merely because the thought of it puts me off my chum. The clue made up for it, though: "Variety meat." Right on.
~Frannie.
9:06
ReplyDeleteWoot! What a great puzzle. And an outstanding review as well. I stared for what seemed like an [OFF]AL long time at blank areas of this grid. Fortunately, I pieced it together when I figured out that the movie was about Frankenstein, and then the two rebuses fell into place. Amazing work.
about 16 minutes (paper)
ReplyDeleteAgreed. Nice review (that don/doff realization was brilliant!) and fun puzzle!
23:13
ReplyDeleteThe south SLOEd me down, only because we had two ons down there: TONY/DEIGHTON, where I badly wanted to put in a rebus square, but couldn't figure out how to do it, and eventually decided to not do it, leading to the happy, smiling pencil that I like. (Yes, I know that wouldn't have gone with the theme, and that MONTE is also in the grid, and that [ON]ION also has an on in it that's not part of the rebus; I know all of these things, but still....) Excellent that we get a rebus on a Thursday, finally. Also, lots of reverse ons (CANOE, NOSH, NOSE), but zero reverse offs.