Well, this is an absolutely charming puzzle today. The central black squares are in the shape of a duck, and I count no fewer than eleven answers which have something to do with ducks. The most of them are direct synonyms for the word, such as 1A: Duck (AVOID). The others in this light are SHIRK, TAKECOVER, DODGE, STOOPDOWN, and BATHTOY.
We also get references to well known ducks of popular culture in DONALD and the DUO of Bugs and Daffy Duck. There's an EGG that a duck lays, and David MAMET's "The Duck Variations." Altogether, it's a veritable ZOO of ducks.
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| A different DUO |
With all of those entries to account for, it's no surprise that we end up with fill like REUEL, TANA, and EULER. I recall studying a lot of Euler's work in Geometry and subsequently in a class I took called Metamathematics, which eventually led to demonstrating Gödel's "incompleteness theorem." Ah, the heady days of youth.
Still, there are nice answers like MONARCH, RATSNEST and TOETOTOE. It's a silly concept overall, well carried out, perfect for a Wednesday, that olio of oddities day.
I'm up in the Adirondacks, enjoying a mini-vacation on Lake Placid. Today, we're going to High Falls Gorge and up Whiteface Mountain. There was snow yesterday, but it's warming up today, perfect for a little hike. Hope you all get some rest and relaxation soon as well!
- Colum
Sounds amazing, Colum! I would have loved to have taken a Metamathematics course back in the day, one of my favourite books being 'Godel, Escher, Bach'. Very cute puzzle today, I almost want to say "ducky"...it was only thanks to fortunate crossers that I was able to get TANA and REUEL.
ReplyDeleteOoh, how I love that little ducky! Totally agree that this puzzle is a charmer. Hope you enjoyed that hike, Colum!
ReplyDeleteI didn't even notice the grid art until after I finished🦆 Agreed that the fill suffered, but I'll take it🦆
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