Everybody loves a good rebus puzzle. At least if you define everybody as me. Or as "at least" me. Now I'm tripping myself with my own syntax.
In any case, I had a strong suspicion something was going on when I had PIN_ at 1D: Fool (PIN[HEAD]), only I couldn't see what I was supposed to put in there because I was parsing the clue as a verb rather than a noun.
At 25D: Moved up the corporate ladder, say (GOTA[HEAD]), I was fixated on the possibility of "raise" going in that square, so things were stuck for a while longer. I didn't see where the other two rebuses were going to go yet, so it wasn't until I figured out the revealer at 55A: Lucy van Pelt's frequent outburst to Charlie Brown ... or how to fill some squares in this puzzle? (YOUBLOCK[HEAD]) that it all became clear to me.
To be fair, I did not really remember her saying that until I had it filled in. I was looking for "Good grief!" But that's what Charlie Brown said, not Lucy.
SHAKINGMY[HEAD] at all of these digressions.
The clue at 19A: In-flight call? ([HEAD]SORTAILS) is just the sort of fun I like to see in good QMCs. On the converse (or is it inverse?) there's 60A: One making a scene (STAGEHAND) - an excellent non-QMC. Why, we have eternally wondered, are some clues decorated with a question mark, and others are not? It seems to me that 19A didn't really need one, and 60A could have had one. It's a mystery.
 |
| We got to see this when we were last in Europe |
Meanwhile, I love the quotation at 63A for TOLERANCE. It's a quality we all could use more of nowadays. I have my own biases as to which side of the political aisle cultivates it more (and perhaps is more inclined to the increase of education), but we'll leave it at that. I also love MOONRIVER, the song, the movie it was in, and the composer.
My assignment for anyone who has never listened to Maurice Ravel - go listen to his Piano concerto in G. It's a wonder, extremely exciting, jazz-inflected, a delight. 8:29.
- Colum
Nice one! Still not used to rebuses, which slow me right down. BUT : I put VIC instead of VIV and wound up FWOE in 8:42. Also, on autopilot, starting with RANCE in 63A, put in IGNORANCE at first, which doesn't make sense at all! Agreed on Ravel. Ravel is wonderful.
ReplyDeleteI'm still a little tired of Ravel from the ubiquity of Bolero after the movie "10" came out, but I suppose maybe that's a bit unfair.
ReplyDeleteAs for this puzzle, the clue for 1A was used on Jeopardy that aired the night before this puzzle ran, so that was a gimme. Not that anyone knows many other five-letter, named works by the man. But even with that, and many other gimmes (MOONRIVER, REDONION, AVEC, OROMEO ...) the rebus didn't come until the revealer for me, either. It was another gimme once I got there, but by that time I had already slowed down a bit, and after finding my FWOE the clock said 15:51.
I thought I was so clever thinking of VIc for "Nickname composed only of Roman numerals," but I didn't notice LEcI.
I was exactly ten minutes longer on my solve than Horace at 25:51, but oddly figured out the rebus relatively early. "The Peanuts" being a long-time favorite for me, since before I could read, probably for the last 51 years or so, YOUBLOCK[HEAD] is part of my makeup. But I already had other rebus squares filled in by the time I got there. I was confused for a short moment with VIV because that's a long way around to go for a "9" when IX would do, but of course the constructor meant the individual letters/numbers, not the final representation. I don't even know if VIV is strictly legal, but I suppose it's just as valid as VIIII would be.
ReplyDelete