Making up for yesterday’s rainy day, we had a lovely sunshine filled day for the beach today. Waves were high, water warm enough for good jumping.
The puzzle today gives us two creatures out of legend, half human, half other creature. Then, the theme answers take each half to fit into a standard phrase. Thus, the MERMAID is split into [WOMAN]OFTHEWORLD and DRINKLIKEA[FISH], while the CENTAUR breaks apart into [MAN]HOLECOVERS and BEATSADEAD[HORSE]. I was slowed up by guessing Chimera for the second monster, but that’s a creature with a lion’s head, a goat’s body, and a serpent’s tail, so I have no idea how that would have split up.
I liked the third answer the best of the choices, both because of the clue (“…circles around the block?”) and because the “man” is somewhat disguised in the answer.
In other areas, I liked the clue at 11D: A host of answers? (TREBEK), in honor of the late great Jeopardy! host. 55A: Where you might search for a lead? (IMDB) is also great, both for the cleverness of the clue and the website, which is a host of answers for me, typically.
Life is certainly bucolic for me here in Delaware, but no EWES are going “BAA” nearby. That’s a different kind of vacation.
Finally, I liked having MAMABEAR and the OLDDOG cheek by jowl. That would certainly undo any bucolicness that might be going on. Bucolicity? Oh, well. Close enough.
- Colum
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