Today, we get a pair of revealers that together explain on how to solve the puzzle's theme (
MERGELEFT and
PARESDOWN). Before I had the revealers, I figured out the trick of the side-by-side shaded answers at 28 and 29 Down with "taught a lesson". In that corner, I already had
ESC ("Key used for exiting"), Bésame
MUCHO (bolero song) and
POOL ("Collect all together") at which point it was pretty easy to see [
SCHOOL]. All I had to do was add [
ED]. :) I did have trouble with 11 & 12 Down, "secretly plots (with)" because at first I had 'Laze' for "Lie about", and I had no idea what to guess for "F in music class?" Luckily, once I deleted 'aze' and took a harder look at 10D ("Nose around"), I was able to
ROOT out the correct answer
LOLL and I could see [
COLLUDES]. It's fabulous that with a trick puzzle like this each part of the "merged" answer is also a valid word on its own.
Other C/APs that deserve a NOD include:
"Shifts from neutral, in a way" (ACIDIFIES)
"Shiner?" (RAY)
"One who's up to the minutes" (STENO)
"Hermès, par exemple" (DIEU)
"Creator of an animal shelter" (NOAH)
"Blue notes?" (SEXTS) - ha!
"Set up for a swing" (TEED)
All in all a DEFT WORK.
~Frannie.
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