Sunday, December 25, 2022

Sunday, December 25, 2022, John Martz

NOVEL THINKING

A fun literary theme today, with book title clues leading to punny answers. "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea," e.g.?" is a FLUIDVOLUME, for example, and "The Help," e.g.?" is a WORKINGTITLE. Heh.

RAGAMUFFIN

Some very clever clues today - like "One might have three parts, with or without its last letter" (SUITE). Very nice. And for "I, to Claudius," I dropped in "ego," thinking I was all that, but no, it's not our "I" translated, it's his "I" used as a number: ONE. And speaking of false starts, I tried "Shh" for "[I know it's wrong]" thinking, you know, "We shouldn't be doing this, but let's just both be quiet about it...", but no, it was the much more literal SIC. Oops.

But my favorite clue today, by far, is "Cut with a letter opener?" Even as I saw the letters come in, it took me a while to understand that it was TBONESTEAK. A cut of meat that starts with a letter. Wow. Beautiful.

In other news, I put a Phil OCHS quote under my photo in my high school yearbook, little radical that I was. Poor Phil OCHS... through connections at work I later met his niece, which made me very happy. I'm sure I over-gushed about how much I liked her uncle, but she was very nice about it.

Finally, I did not know that there was a Looney Tunes animator called BUGS Hardaway. And I further did not know that it was he who first drew BUGS Bunny, and according to Wikipedia (which Frannie and I each donate to every year, and which I recommend you consider in your charitable donations), when Hardaway was given a model sheet for a new animated short, someone simply wrote "Bugs' bunny" on it, and, well, the rest is history. Fascinating.

I hope you enjoyed this one, and I hope you all are enjoying your Sunday, whether you've spent it opening presents or not. We appreciate each and every one of you who comes to check in on our little blog, and we wish you all the best, today and every day.

- Horace

1 comment:

  1. As a huge fan of the Looney Tunes, I was surprised that I'd never heard of Ben "BUGS" Hardaway, either! This was a nice start to the Christmas holiday for me (I don't do much else on the day), running a little rough, actually, with me clocking in at just over one hour. Unusual. I, too, dropped in ego instead of ONE, which held me up on ONIONY...mmmm. I'm almost certain I've never had a bialy, which I'm now keen to try.

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