Greetings, Dear Reader, Horace here. I've been spending the weekend in a small beach community. Last night we saw and heard fireworks exploding all up and down the coast - some sanctioned, many more not - and today we will stand on the side of the street and watch a parade pass by. I'm not feeling especially patriotic, but perhaps THATTOO will eventually pass. They say the long arc of the moral universe bends toward justice, but lately it has been straightened out by idiots dreaming of a less just past. But I digress.
Let's instead focus on Bartholdi's copper Colossus standing at our sea-washed, sunset gates. Her golden door is now more often shut than open, but this mighty woman with a torch will now need to accept more homeless and tempest-tost souls from within her own teeming shores.
Anyhoo... she holds a torch, she wears a crown and a gown, and she holds a tablet - all things found at the ends of the longest Across answers. The ASPRIRINTABLET (One way to deal with a pain in the neck) is the most hidden of the items. The other three are metaphoric in those phrases, but the phrases only work with the understanding of the actual items.
There's a nice nod to one of our pre-1776 ERAS with ENG. ROYALS, and ATON of foreign words and initials (YSL, EDER, COSI, KAHLO, ETTU, PSI) to keep us humble. You can bet the FBI will be watching Mr. Haight closely from now on! :)
Lastly, isn't it funny how ATTAR doesn't sound all that sweet?
My own MEH attitude about the country notwithstanding, I did enjoy this Monday puzzle, and I hope you all have a lovely holiday.
- Horace
Now now, let's hope for some metaphorical ALOEGEL to soothe that maybe -patriotic soul. Personally I try to focus on the "yearning to breathe free" and some of the other sentiments I can get behind, although I can see why that seems a bit tough at times.
ReplyDeleteAs for the puzzle, I too enjoyed it. Most interesting answer? Maybe LILI but that was just because for most of my solve I read the + in the clue as addition and was wondering how to turn CII into a four letter woman's name. Turns out it was concatenation but it took most of the crosses for that to sink in.
I don't yet know anyone named LILI, but I doubt that I'd freak out, or even hic, if you were to say yes, I do. Most of the clues were pretty easy, but I spent my last 3 minutes of 15:11 sorting out YESIDO, EDER, and COSI (not knowing the latter two). I also didn't know AGEE or ATTAR, but figured them out from the crosses. Fortunately, I needed neither aloe nor aspirin after this one. I'll save those salves for when I feel like a STOOGE later this week.
ReplyDeleteLILI! I liked the clue, just because the alternative -- at least long ago -- was "Leslie Caron title role" which, if 4 letters, had to be either LILI or GIGI...so I'd just put in the two Is and hope the cross words would help. Nice tribute to Lady LIBERTY and what she stands for.
ReplyDeleteI don't think TOWNANDGOWN was a thing when I was in Northfield. It was just Carls and Townies. (And, I suppose, Oles). A wonderful tribute to the Statue of Libertines. I mean Liberty. ASPIRINTABLET is poor, and kind of mocks what's in her left hand, don't you think? YESyouDO!
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