Sunday, November 21, 2021

Sunday, November 21, 2021, Adam Wagner

SCREEN SHARING

I don't know how, but I never even noticed the circles in this puzzle until after I had finished, so I kept wondering why they gave two dates for the theme clues. Duh. The answer, as you all know, is that within the longer film title is the title of another movie starring the same person mentioned in the clue. PICTUREINPICTURE, as the revealer reveals. Selma Hayek, for example, was in both FROMDUSKTILLDAWN and "Frida," in 1996 and 2002 respectively. And Brad Pitt was in OCEANSELEVEN and "Seven." You get it.

I liked seeing FABIANO Caruana in the grid. In 2018 he nearly became the first World Chess Champion from the U.S. since Bobby Fischer, but after drawing 6-6 in the regular games, he lost in the speed chess tie-break to the reigning champ, Magnus Carlsen. The Voltaire quote: "Clever TYRANTS are never punished," was interesting, and I enjoyed the unusual clue "[swoon]" for ITSLOVE. And how 'bout the amusingly straightforward "What 2 is vis-à-vis 1" for MORE?

PEGLEGS ("Walking sticks?") was a little surprising, but "Get on the stick?" (POGO) made me smile. I don't often think of POGO as a verb. And speaking of motion, I also liked "Pickup line?" for NEEDALIFT. "Absolutely devoured" (INHALED) was fun, and HATFUL "Amount of tips earned by a street performer, maybe" got a guffaw.

I didn't love ARCED (Took a bow?), and APRILS (Shower times) got an UGH. I might rather have seen it clued with reference to Sara Teasdale:

How many million ____ came
Before I ever knew
How white a cherry bough could be,
A bed of squills, how blue!
 
And many a dancing April
When life is done with me,
Will lift the blue flame of the flower
And the white flame of the tree.

Oh burn me with your beauty, then,
Oh hurt me, tree and flower,
Lest in the end death try to take
Even this glistening hour.

O shaken flowers, O shimmering trees,
O sunlit white and blue,
Wound me, that I, through endless sleep,
May bear the scar of you.

But then, maybe that would have been too long.

- Horace


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