Friday, February 26, 2021

Friday, February 26, 2021, Chuck Deodene

A lovely triple-stack and two 15-pins anchor this lovely Friday themeless. What a lovely early start to the weekend! Let's dig in, starting with the biggies -

SPACETELESCOPES (Things used by star witnesses?) is a beautiful C/AP, and one that can lead to SCENICPANORAMAS even more vast than those available at the Grand Canyon!

PUTAFACETOANAME (Meet somebody you've heard lots about) is a common expression, but for me it doesn't mean a whole lot. I can't always bring to mind the faces of people even after I've met them. I think I read that Oliver Sacks had a similar condition - perhaps even a worse case of it. Is this ODD confession a CRYFORATTENTION from one with a little too much Amour de SOI? Could be. And speaking of self-expression, ARTISTICLICENSE (Creator's leeway) is one permit you don't want to let lapse!

Sven and Ole go fishing. It’s such a great day, they rent a boat so they can fish from the middle of the lake. They row out, drop their lines, and before you know it, they're catching fish, one after another after another. They can’t believe what a great fishing spot they found.

Sven says, “This is the best fishing spot in the county. It’s just too bad we didn’t bring some paint.”

Ole asks, “Paint? Why should you want paint, to go fishing?”

“Well Ole, don’t you see, so we can paint an “X” in the bottom of the boat, so we can find this spot next time.”

Ole laughs at him. “Sven, don’t be such a dummy! Next time, what if they give us a different boat?”

I thought TACTIC (Bit of strategy) was a fine start today, and off of that I loved the unexpected straightforwardness of CARGO (Boatload), which crossed the cleverly-clued COMBS (Makers of parts). I tried "Zoomer" before SKYPER (One having a certain video chat), and SCENICoverlookS before SCENICPANORAMAS, but other than that, things went slowly but surely along.

TAW (Large marble) is a classic example of a KOFCA-esque word. (New definition in our glossary!) TAT, on the other hand, I would call classic crosswordese. 

IMBECILE (Dolt) always reminds me (happily) of The Three Stooges, and SHETLAND (Northernmost part of the U.K.) reminds me (somewhat bluntly) of the fine British TV mystery called SHETLAND.

Overall, as I said up top, a lovely Friday themeless. It put me in a good mood, which is a nice way to go into the (almost) weekend. I hope you enjoyed it too.

- Horace


5 comments:

  1. I enjoyed most of it. The NE gave me some trouble. In fact, around ten minutes' worth. I never heard of IMPASTO, LATENEWS wasn't coming too quickly, IRA Levin isn't known to me (I tried aRi for a while), Never heard of this SVEN and Ole pair (would've been better, IMO, being StaN and Ole, which I tried for a while), and I was unsure about EXIST, even though I put it in first. The rest was fine, and fast, and I finished in around 17 minutes save for the aforementioned NE, giving me a final solve time of 26:53, which is somewhat long for a Friday. Funny that RAH and BAH appear side-by-side. I'm just finishing up my massive "Star Trek" project, where I watched each episode of each series, in order, then the Animated Series, and finally all of the movies, in order. I have the final three movies to watch now, and I'm finished. So I liked seeing BEAMUP in there. I didn't love MAINROOM, but not really much to complain about in this one. A nice challenge.

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  2. What a workout for me! Took me an hour, at least. IMPASTO, I didn't know and still don't. (Even though I *love* the van Gogh painting.) And then I kept wanting to PUT A NAME TO A FACE...like, you know, when you meet a Facebook friend in real life. Still I struggled on, really admiring the clues. Amazing construction, isn't it?

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  3. Excellent themeless! I think the middle triple stack is remarkably smooth. Prosopagnosia is the word for the loss of the ability to recognize faces, which is sort of what "the man who mistook his wife for a hat" had.

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  4. Funny what comes to people. I dropped IMPASTO in off the clue. It is paint applied so thickly that it casts shadows. That's how I think of it anyway.

    That Star Trek project is quite ambitious, Huygens! After it all, will you be happy or sad if they release another movie?

    And thanks, Colum, for putting a name to the face-recognition situation. I sometimes wonder if it's really a thing or if I'm just being really dumb. With me, it might be a little of each.

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    1. Happy, of course! I love the later movies with the new bunch, and they haven't had one in five years now. On another note, I am keeping up with the newer series(es?) as they come out: "Discovery," "Picard" and "Lower Decks," which is extremely funny, but references every series out there. Once, for example, a character referred to another's sex appeal as "a Captain Kirk sundae with Tripp Tucker sprinkles." That's the original "Star Trek" and "Enterprise" references.

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