The theme today is TOPHAT wearers. We've got four of them in the grid, and a grid-art TOPHAT made from black squares under SUNTANOIL. And me, I see the black squares below the TOPHAT as little arms that are either holding it up, or about to grab it and bring it back down onto a head that lies below the grid. Or maybe the arms are pulling the hat lower onto a SADFACE... can't you just picture it? So can I, but I was not able to find a photo online. Kind of amazing, really... so I'll use this instead:
I was a little surprised by ABELINCOLN, instead of Abraham, but I guess WILLYWONKA uses a nickname, too. I'm not sure about SCROOGEMCDUCK and FROSTY... those could be their full first names.
BRAVURA (Great technical skill) and ADULATE (Put on a pedestal) were nice, and getting the full RANAMOK, instead of one half cluing the other, felt like kind of a bonus. I've never heard the term BLEEDER (Grounder that squeezes between two infielders, in baseball slang), however, and I can't say I like it. In fact, that whole North section is rather unpleasant, with AIRTUBE and SWEARAT standing out so prominently.
I don't know... maybe it's the horizontal symmetry that I don't like today. I'm visually drawn to the entries FRANCA, NATANT, SMELT, and WASON (Had a base, as a runner in baseball) (odd), none of which is especially exciting. We also get a lot of initials and abbreviations (RLS, EAP, SOPH, IVS, AAA, ONEA, DTS, RNA, AOL, CDS, OMN, AGT, OTS, DAS), and, well... I didn't much love it.
Onward!
- Horace
8:00
ReplyDeleteWow, that is quite a list of short answers; I hadn't exactly noticed it. I can see the arms pulling the hat up, then down, in a friendly greeting, and there's kind of a mini-TOPHAT above the larger one. I'd never heard BLEEDER, either, but wasn't surprised since I don't watch much baseball, but I'd assumed that Horace or his brothers would've been familiar with the term. Nice enough Tuesday offering, ONPAPER anyway. Nice to see LLANO in there, even though it was probably a necessity and not necessarily a first thought. Sure, onward.
4:32
ReplyDeleteIt's not the greatest, and I usually expect better gridwork from Mr. Trudeau. Still, fun TOPHAT grid art.