If it were up to me, they could run Tom Swifty themes once a week. And this time, they get better as the puzzle goes on.
I mean, come on, those are nice.
In other news, I liked 1-Across, "Game pieces used in Othello and Connect Four" (DISCS). I don't know about "One foot in 'the grave,' poetically speaking" though. It's a cute clue, but is "the grave" really an IAMB? I don't know, maybe. Sometimes, when you try to pronounce something normally it seems impossible to do so. Also, it's funny that the very word IAMB is, itself, a trochee. Maybe. Let's move on.
"Festoon" is a lovely word (ADORN), and CHOUX pastry brings to mind The Great British Bake-Off, which is in the middle of a new season on Netflix. It's jumped the shark a little, but we still watch it.
I didn't love "Kind of column" (ONES), but maybe just because I had no idea what it was for the longest time. "Visiting the Natl. Museum of African American History and Culture, say" was a tricky clue for INDC, and I wasn't sure about Peggy NOONAN. And "Flat, for short" (TWOD) was unexpected too. That was a tricky little section!
Overall, though, I loved the theme, so I loved the puzzle.
- Horace
I think I buy that "the grave" is an IAMB. Maybe there is a sentence/poem where it isn't, but since you hardly ever stress "the", it would seem to be the exception.
ReplyDeleteI stumbled on LOLA because I just wanted to fit in "bugs" there and I it just wasn't working.
ONES also took me a while, but largely because I wanted OpEd.