Monday has reared its ugly head, and I find myself late home from work after a busy day in the hospital. Fortunately, a fun and slightly tougher than usual puzzle awaited me.
The theme is revealed at 56- and 58A (PARTING / WORDS). We get three examples of phrases where you can find letters across the gap between the two words which are ways of saying "good-bye!" RADIO / STATION hides "adios," DATA / TABLE hides "ta-ta," and SLATE / ROOF hides "later!" I like the concept a lot, but I think the first one is the strongest. The other two are fine but lack a certain vim and vigor.
Also, once the theme is figured out with the revealer, did we really need the circles? The age old question lives on.
The rest of the puzzle has some lovely answers. The two long down answers are both quite evocative, with TRIPLEPLAY and GUANTANAMO. I also liked MEDALLED, although in this household, we much prefer to use the term "podiumed."
 |
| OROMEO |
10D: Fake name given by Odysseus to the Cyclops (NOBODY) was always one of my favorite parts of the story, although the follow-up where he blinds the poor fellow (and really it was all his fault to begin with, and many of his crewmates ended up dead because of it) seems overly vicious. Also, it leads to Poseidon making him stay away from home for twenty years or whatever.
I would also like to point out that if I tried to do a HEADSTAND, it would end up with me being PASSEDOUT, so the words are well placed symmetry-wise.
Answers like CRAMER, NBCTV, and deciding between MEDICAre and MEDICAID slowed me down somewhat. But an enjoyable Monday over all.
- Colum
MEDALLED - ugh!!! Puts me in mind of the biz-heads who use the word SOLUTION as a verb around my office. Blah ... Raced thru this one in a nippy 2:26
ReplyDeleteYeah I was briefly debating whether MEDICAID should have been clued as "federal/state program" but thrn I figured that well I could live with it if my crossword didn't get that deep into policy wonkery.
ReplyDelete