IN PLAY
Horace: Happy New Year! The HAFDTNYTCPFCA team is all together today, and at least two of us have done the puzzle, so it will be something of a joint review.
So it's a new year, but the puzzles continue much as they have since time immemorial. Or at least since, what, the early 1990s?
Anywho, I'll let Colum talk about the theme, and I'll steal a little thunder by talking about some of the better C/APs like "Food that's easy to get hooked on?" (BAIT), "Stage partitions?" (ACTS) (Hah!), and the lovely "It lacks value" (ZERO). And how about "Big shots they are not" (BBS). Nice Non-QMC.
Colum here: I am happy to say that the tradition of New Year's Eve has been rekindled for the first time since pre-pandemic times. It's been great to have the rest of the team here in Upstate New York. Not only did we solve today's puzzle, we also solved the recent New York Times Puzzle section metapuzzle together! Good times.
Our theme today finds hidden words inside of longer answers, and then reinterprets those answers in the form of "X in Y." Thus, 31A: Seminal 1980 hit by Joy Division (LOVEWILLTEARUSAPART) has "erupt" hidden inside, which is then reinterpreted at 82A: What characters in musicals often do (BREAKOUTINSONG). Hah! I love that the reparsing clues are in order relating to their respective answers. My favorite is finding "doodle" inside DOCTORDOLITTLE, and then reinterpreting that as PICTUREINPICTURE.
How many of you thought the fictional doctor's name had two Os in the last name? I was pulled in the wrong direction by Eliza Doolittle from My Fair Lady. But that spelling was not correct for this fake individual.
To address the elephant in the room (at least in our minds), we've discussed the fate of this blog, and have decided to keep going at least for now. I can't say that we weren't swayed by Mr. Shortz's recent comment.
Here's to a great New Year! May 2023 be better than 2022.
H: I left that last one for you, Colum. :) And I'll also say that it was really fun to work on that meta-puzzle together. Colum had done a lot of it, but hadn't yet solved the meta-puzzle, and after he explained it to Frannie and me, it only took a very short time for us to work it out together. Good times, indeed.
And as for the blog... yes. I have been swayed. Happy New Year. :)
Horace & Colum
Whaaa? We decided to keep the blog going?
ReplyDeleteWell, that's nice about keeping the blog going. I see you caught Frannie by surprise, though. POSESNUDE was very well done, indeed. Decent enough trick to today's puzzle. I didn't know what was going on before reading the blog, mostly because I didn't devote any time whatsoever to trying to figure it out. Went fairly quickly for me, taking just over 21 minutes. It was a little SIMPLER than some Sundays. In other news, we'll be the closest to the Sun that we'll get for the year (perihelion) in a few more days (January 4, 2023 at around 11:17 AM), so enjoy that (91,403,034 miles or so).
ReplyDeleteNeat!
DeleteHello! With respect to the blog, I recall offering to help out from time to time, back at the ACPT, which was meant sincerely, so ... if you ever need backfill or something ...
ReplyDeleteHappy January! Speaking of ACPT and this particular puzzle. I regularly make mistakes online that would never happen in person, as they're straight typos that I don't notice until it's too late. (I should maybe slow it down a little.) But in this puzzle - I put in NOSE instead of NOTE, which I makes less sense but not zero sense - and would have done the same with pencil and paper and would have cost me dearly at the tournament. As long as I'm making those kinds of errors, I'll never dine at the head table, as it were :)
Happy 2023 everybody!