Saturday, August 15, 2020

Saturday, August 15, 2020, Joe DiPietro

28:04 (FWOE)

Solving a puzzle in a car while music is playing turns out to be more challenging than I'd have expected. Also, I think this is a tough Saturday for sure, made harder by some misguesses on my part early that took a long time to remove.

But let's just take a moment to acknowledge the beauty of that staggered central triple stack. 29A: An order might be one (SECRETSOCIETY) was incredibly hard for me to get past the nice misdirection of the clue. In addition, I had puLLSUPTO at 32D: Arrives at in a vehicle (ROLLSUPTO), and boy, were those first two letters difficult to get myself to let go of.

34A: Bar requirement (LIQUORLICENSE) is excellent, and finally fell into place when I realized (and not for the first time in a puzzle) that LAQUINTA is two words, not one. That and removing the above mentioned U which allowed me to put the Q of EQUATE into place.

Finally, SAMUELBECKETT is excellent, especially in full name, and with the excellent quote as the clue. Such a lovely set of answers and clues. That would be enough, or "Dayenu!" as we say at Seder, to make this puzzle a strong themeless. But wait, there's more!

First, I'll get my mistake out of the way. 11A: "No ___" (MSG) was a nice way for me to think I'd gotten a toehold in the NE. Because I put in Mas, which worked partially. Then I put in sLO for GLO Worms. Never had them myself, but once I corrected that S to a G, it made sense. But why did I leave it in place? Because I imagined that "No MSS" could be something an editor would say to aspiring authors, as in, "don't bother submitting to us at this time." Ah, well.

ITS PAT
Meanwhile, 11D: Prepared to move to the sticks? (MADEANEST) almost works. It's cute, but really, once you (as a bird, that is) have made your nest, you're no longer preparing to move. In my opinion. I'd have preferred "Moved to the sticks" as the clue. But that's hardly a SOURNOTE.

In other areas, I liked OPENANEWTAB more than ADCLICKRATE, but enjoyed that these symmetric answers both were internet-related.

15A: One taking a bow (ARCHER) was an excellent non-QMC. I considered actors, fiddlers, and even dressmakers before getting the actual answer. Similarly, 2D: Finer cut, usually (SIDEA) is a wonderful non-QMC for a bit of crosswordese.

Very glad for this Turn: all three puzzles satisfied immensely. Tomorrow, Horace takes over. Good luck matching! Although perhaps you'll do better than 3/7 FWOEs in one week...

- Colum

2 comments:

  1. 35:34

    "Moved to the sticks" is a brilliant, and much, much better, clue for "Made a nest."

    Hard for sure today. I spent a long time in the NW, where I had entered insiSTS for "Commands" (BEHESTS), and antsY for "Anxious" (ITCHY), but nothing seemed to work with those. Finally, I decided that ADCLICKRATE and ASIS must be right, and things started to fall.

    It really was a great Turn. I got through the whole week without a FWOE, but I credit that to it not being my week to blog. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. 44:36
    Whew! I thought that it was just me that found today's puzzle pretty difficult. I see that I beat both of your times, albeit in the less desirable manner. I tried clickCounTs (see that it works for two crosses?) at first where ADCLICKRATE goes, but for the first place where a correct cross is possible in my erroneous entry, I tried the incorrect roCks (instead of CACTI). However, I did want ARCHER, so I at least doubted my stab, and I really didn't think that any landscaper worth his salt would have trouble handling rocks. I agree that MADEANEST doesn't quite work, but I'll accept it. THATISSICK is a nice one and that's pretty good trivia on HERBALPERT. CUTLERY was tricky (I tried Charger at first), and SIMULCAST is good, as was the clue for ATBAT. Nice, difficult Saturday.

    ReplyDelete