AT THE HALLOWEEN PLAY ...
A Sunday puzzle full of holiday pun! Er, I mean fun. The imagined lines from reviews of a Halloween play were all quite good, I thought. My favorite might have been "... Frankenstein had ____" (AVARIETYOFPARTS). Heh. But "... the skeleton gave a ____" (BAREBONESRENDITION) was also quite nice.
My favorite part was not the theme, however, it was 21D: "Apt thing to wear during allergy season?" (ASHOE). This clue made me laugh out loud, and it is the first to make me go back into our "Favorite clues" list for quite some time. Really, it MADE my morning. Colum was right yesterday about ABCD (Passing options) being gutsy, but I think this was even better.
But I am not surprised, because Mr. Collins is a veteran constructor. Today he presents a nice mix of straightforward clues ("Number of sides on a hendecagon" (ELEVEN) and "Mortar = sand + water + ____" (CEMENT)) with some fun cleverness ("Final destination, perhaps" (POINTB) and "What you're doing at every moment" (AGING) (Too soon!)). He throws in a double double ("Them's fighting words!" (ENGARDE and ITSWAR) and "Tickled" (PLEASED and GLAD)), and just a few bits of crosswordese for good measure ("As I Lay Dying" father (ANSE) and "Capital of Samoa" (APIA)).
I've NARY a complaint. It's a fine end to what was, overall, quite a good week. Frannie takes over tomorrow, and I'll see you in a few.
- Horace
p.s. Not that I think anyone actually could this year, but I'll say it anyway. Don't forget to vote!
38:05
ReplyDeleteA little on the tough side compared with a normal Sunday, IMO. Especially the SW where we had the ACOLYTE/DOT/LIVEOAKS/VACA/NITTI crossings. I tried fIrEOAKS at first, but things didn't look quite right, and when I finally noticed that Dee should be DOT, that gave me ACOLYTE and things fell into place. I wanted aTL off of the clue for 59D, but SERAPE saved me (as it did for APIA). "Stranger Things" names are unknown to me, but I was able to get enough crosses to come up with LUCAS, which gave me SEED instead of bEan (which it's not) at 56D. Everything else was fine, and the theme answers, as Horace mentions, are amusing and well-clued.
This was fun! Although it made me sad that we can't have Halloween this year -- I mean the kind where the kids come to your door and you get to eat all the leftover candy. My favorite was Frankenstein's VARIETY OF PARTS.
ReplyDeleteA very fun theme, which I enjoyed immensely. Kelly - I read that you can still give candy out, using a drainpipe or other clean tube to slide the candy into the tot's container. And who says you still can't eat all the candy... uh, I mean, leftover candy?
ReplyDeleteLOL! 'Course I like the drainpipe idea, too :-)
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