Saturday, March 28, 2020

Saturday, March 28, 2020, Erik Agard

0:15:40 (F.W.T.E.)

OK, well, I didn't know HAUDENOSAUNEE (Native name for the Iroquois Confederacy), but the puzzle did prompt me to look at the Haudenosaunee Confederacy Web site a bit. I have long been interested in the groups that were here in America before we arrived, but my focus, when I did focus, was on the groups in the Pacific Northwest. The HAUDENOSAUNEE are in the eastern Great Lakes/upstate New York region.

EDNA St. Vincent Millay
My favorite American poet
It's good to learn of them, but the ending of their name, combined with the obfuscation of the clues for 38D and 47A, gave me some trouble. I ended up guessing incorrectly on 38D, and I'm actually not quite sure whether I initially had an E starting it or not, but whatever the case, it wasn't until I tried one or two nonsensical combinations around the X that I finally saw INT and EXT as the opposite kinds of shots "in a screenplay." It was that "in a screenplay" that really made me over-think it.

Anywhoo, aside from that area, this moved along rather fluidly. STILETTOHEELS (They don't give you much to stand on) and ITSRAININGMEN (1980s disco hit that became a gay anthem) came pretty quickly, and helped to pull the middle together. Up in the NW, I tried getACAB at first, and sofaS instead of COATS (Chesterfield and others), but my French helped again today with ATOI ("Merci ____ aussi"), and then PALEOLITHICDIET (Vegetables, fruits, nuts, roots and meat, classically) eventually helped to clear things up.

ETESIAN (Kind of wind across the Aegean) is another entry that is entirely new to me, but fortunately, the crosses in that quadrant were more to my liking.

Favorite clues: "Person on horseback?" (CENTAUR) and "Rider on a carousel?" (SUITCASE). Those were the days... remember when we could travel? Sigh.

- Horace

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2 comments:

  1. HuygensMarch 28, 2020 at 9:54 AM

    27:13
    I started finally getting some of the answers down in the SE and the remainder slowly filled in. I'd never heard of HAUDENOSAUNEE either and needed each and every cross for it, and it still didn't look right so I checked the crosses over and over and over again. My last entry was the "T" in the EXT/INT cross. I'd tried Nyet at first where NEIN goes, which slowed me quite a bit over there. The GSIX entry really helped. I knew that _____DIET would end 3D, so ALDA was my first guess for 48A, which gave me UPLATE, then PAINMED, OPCIT, SOAPED, DET and SUITCASE, in that order. I needed all of that for ETESIAN. OVINE was entered only after I'd entered shorn and couldn't get any crosses. In fact, even though I generally don't like a proper company name, DUPONT was a gimme for me and caused me to erase shorn. Anyway, all of that for a decent time for me for a Saturday.

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  2. Kelly ClarkMarch 28, 2020 at 3:45 PM

    I had a blast with this puzzle...I'm with Huygens, the G-SIX entry was a great help in that corner. But I totally fell in love with IT'S RAINING MEN! :-)

    Nice picture of EDNA, Horace!

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