Today, the first thing that came into my head when Frannie explained the theme to me was fellow blogger Amy Reynaldo's phrase, "Tuesdays Gonna Tuez." How else do you explain a theme that takes four six-letter words for types of paper, then splits them exactly in half and "wraps" them around the back of the grid? It's a strange idea, but I've gotta say, it's also quite beautiful, and it works. The revealer, WRAPPINGPAPER, is perfect right there in the middle, and the symmetrical circles are pleasingly placed. Also, without the circles, I'm not sure I ever would have figured it out. It might just be my favorite circles puzzle ever.
And, it's a debut! Congratulations, Mr. Patterson. I am already waiting anxiously to see what you come up with next.
Of the first six Across answers, only PEAR (Tree for a partridge, in a Christmas song) was somewhat interesting, although even that seemed odd in July. But the Downs came through, with the amusingly clued AMULET (It works like a charm!), Wise as ANOWL, and the quaint SODAPOP.
It gets very college-y in the middle with BAILED (Left unexpectedly, in slang) and BEERME (Slangy frat house request). I liked the Boston-centric clue for ONE (Number of lanterns "if by land"), and it could easily have been amplified with a reference to Rosie Ruiz in the clue for REENTERS (Joins again, as a race). Too soon? And I had never really considered that NATO was founded to resist Communism, but I guess it makes sense.
There are little bits of alphabet soup, as Frannie once called it, (IED, ENE, REI, EMT, ETS, UIE), and I'll always think of the drink as "iced tea," not ICETEA, but I'll not get INAMOOD about it. Overall, if Tuesdays are gonna tuez like this, I say yes PLEASE.
- Horace
I totally didn't get the theme until I came here. I tried (during the solve and after) the two sets on a row "wrapping" the letters in between, or one row of three "wrapping" with the row of three below it, but didn't think of wrapping from the right side back to the left side.
ReplyDeleteWhich is unfortunate because it is a nice concept.
My most amusing hiccup was putting HIREe as the user of a job board. But the cross cleared that one up before long.
Favorite answer? I'll say PEAR, just because this was a delightful way to clue it.
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ReplyDeleteI agree with Horace on iced tea, but I'll accept ICETEA for a puzzle if necessary. I'm a fan of a STOCKSPLIT and of some WINOs. I don't believe I've ever said SODAPOP or BEERME, though. And yes, lots of threes in there, but this was definitely a fine Tuesday and an excellent debut, so I'll accept those, too.
Beautiful theme! My one glitch was not remembering what CARBON paper was, sheesh! On the other hand, SODA POP popped right in. :-)
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ReplyDeleteFortunately it was easy enough to finish the puzzle without understanding the theme in the least. Thanks to Frannie for explaining it! It's very clever.