Hey, happy LABOR (1A!) Day! And in keeping with our Auntie Mame theme this week, I'll just say that "the problem of LABOR in India is gargantuan."
And now that's we've gotten that obligation out of the way, we can get down to the DOUBLECROSSing of the theme answers. Each half, as you have seen, can follow "cross." Crosswind, Cross-section, crossbar, etc. It's a venerable old theme, and seems just right for a rainy Monday. At least it's raining here by the seashore.
LEWD (Apt rhyme for "rude" and "crude") aptly RESIDEd in the same quadrant as BUNS. ODDSARE that fact did not ELUDE Frannie. She might also have associated BUNS with WINDSECTION, but that's not my kind of humor, so I won't go there.
ACEOFCLUBS (Certain card that can be either high or low in a deck) was a tad random, while SCREE (Patch of loose rock that aptly rhymes with "debris"), on the other hand, was super specific. HUBCAP (Wheel cover that may be chrome-plated) was unusual, DITZ (Scatterbrained sort) was fun, DISSIPATE (Vanish into thin air) was fancy ("disappear" also fits!), and CRETE (Largest Greek island) was true for now, but with global warming, I suppose it's possible that the Isthmus of Corinth might be submerged, and then we'd all be trying to stuff "Peloponnese" into that spot.
A lovely debut (Congrats!), and a fine Monday. How'd you like it?
- Horace
OK Monday, I guess. I agree about the randomness of ACEOFCLUBS, but I thought the addition of "certain" to the clue redeemed it. That adjective signals that it is going to be a specific suit. The puzzle had two names that are entirely unknown to me and could easily have been trouble later in the week: Aidan and Ilene. As you would expect on a Monday, the crosses filled them in with no problems. My favorite parts of the puzzle were the two rhyming C/APs that you mentioned, SCREE (debris) and LEWD (rude/crude).
ReplyDeleteI liked it! There was a certain amount of harum-scarum randomness for me today, as I tried to put BACKGROUNDCHECK in there (not having twigged to the theme yet), realized it didn't fit and just left the wrong letters in there to be corrected one-by-one by the crossers. Not optimal! 3:10 when the dust settled. KONICA - what a blast from the past!!
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