An exciting visual theme today. When completed, there are plumes of ASH (in circled letters) raining down all around the top of the MOUNT and LA/VA oozing around the bottom half of the pictured volcano. Cool.
The puzzle had a pretty good flow to it and some great fill, including SITSPAT, PHALANX, LEST, INDEEDY, and SPATULA.
As a bonus, the puzzle included a few clues that are a real blast:
"A bug might produce one" (ERROR)
"Surfer's destination?" (URL)
"Accessory that's good for changing times" (DIAPERBAG)
And "Grants may come out of it" (ATM) - ha!
Has anyone else noticed that LIEV Schreiber is hotter than molten rock right now? He's the darling of Puzzleland.
A couple of today's clues deepened the mystery of the QMC (Question Mark Clue) for this solver. Why do the clues "Mobile home?" (CAMPERVAN) and "Where hogs go wild? (STY) have question marks? It defies LOGIC.
There seemed to be a plume of partials and abbreviations (ETD, CDS, THX, VOL), perhaps a result of the subduction necessary to create the visual effect, but my only real complaint is the clue "Now!" for ASAP - it makes me blow my top. :)
~Frannie
6:39
ReplyDeleteFun theme with grid art = good puzzle. I agree with everything Frannie said. Now I bet she's sad she didn't say something about how the words are more important than the music in songs.
LOL.
Delete8:41
ReplyDeleteWords more important than music? Am I missing something? I also agree with Frannie; this puzzle was extremely well-done. And THEMIKADO is in there! (Ah, is that what I'm missing? Some dig on Sullivan?) Too bad CANALS, since it crosses NASA, wasn't clued with Mars somehow, even though that was a Lowell ERROR.