SOME LIGHT READING
A cute stop-light theme today, with seven stop lights showing various colors, and with each, you need to use the color with the Across clue, and the action with the Down. For example, 66A "Washington, with 'the'" is the EVER[GREEN]STATE, and 37D: "'That's a touchy subject'" is DONT[GO]THERE. On the other hand, 7A: "Range of light that's invisible to the human eye" is the INFRA[RED]SPECTRUM, and 29D: "Temporary solutions" are [STOP]GAPS. And in the middle, we have 63A: "Listed, obsolescently" (INTHE[YELLOW]PAGES, and in the Down slot, 43D: "'It's my turn' [or] Comment after rambling on," we have ILL[GO]NOW [or] ILL[YIELD]NOW. That's a nice touch.
As usual when faced with a bunch of traffic lights, there are very few uninterrupted stretches of road to enjoy. There are 8-stacks in the NE and SW, two of which are involved in theme answers, and there are four nines scattered around. I played a lot of STRATEGO (Two-player board game with spies and bombs) when I was younger, and I enjoyed the clue for UNGLOVED (Like one of Michael Jackson's hands when performing). "Treacherous places to land for eagles?" was a tricky clue for SANDTRAPS, and appropriate for the final day of the U.S. Open.
I thought RBIMAN (Baseball slugger, informally), VPPICK (Major political announcement before a convention, informally), and LOSEAGAME (Not stay undefeated) were all a bit, well... informal. But "Stage set?" was a cute clue for THESPIANS, and I, for one, enjoyed the deep-French-cut TRENTE (Cinq x six).
It was a colorful solve. Frannie's back tomorrow!
- Horace
Pretty sure they meant ILL[STOP]NOW based on the pattern of the other answers but the version with "yield" is cute.
ReplyDeleteAs for UNGLOVED, I kept trying beGLOVED, eNGLOVED, and I think it was crosses which led me to the realization that the hands are not half full of gloves, they are half empty of gloves.
Jim, I kept trying IN A GLOVE!
ReplyDeleteYou probably already know this, but the red light is always on top, the yellow in the middle, and the green on the bottom. That accommodates partially color-blind people like yours truly and I'm grateful for that and that the constructor followed the protocol, otherwise I'd be...stuck in traffic. Thanks for the week, Horace!