I've grown to love Ms. Carroll's puzzles, and today's is no exception. The revealer comes at 54A: Risky baseball strategy that's indicated four times in this puzzle? (SQUEEZEPLAY). I had not figured out the rebus theme before getting to this answer, even though I recognized that something like that was going on when I couldn't fit CURBYOU[RENT]HUSIASM into the 15 boxes supplied.
You could nitpick and say that these are musicals, not plays, but who wants to spend the energy doing something like that? Instead, I love how these one-word titles are squished into their squares. T[HAIR]ESTAURANT crossing COC[HAIR]S is excellent, especially with the clue for the latter ("Runs together, in a way").
I actually finished with the unhappy message that I had a square incorrect, which was because I put an S in at 61A: Body image? ([CATS]CAN). sCAN seemed to work, and sUP for a condiment? Well, I convinced myself. I should have stopped before filling in my last square because I only had 3 musicals represented in rebus form... Ah, well.
Who can argue with 1A: Fake news source? (LIAR). I don't see why the question mark is necessary.
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| SENNA |
Mostly the clues are straightforward today, probably due to the tricksy nature of the unpredictably placed rebuses. I like 38D: It's cut by a dancer (RUG). Also 6D: Tips for shoemakers (AGLETS). My source for this knowledge is the oldtime Sniglets.
ROIs today include Amy Lowell's LILACS (published in 1922), as well as 16A: Smallest South Pacific nation (NAURU). Thank goodness for Sporcle. I never heard of this country before learning all 147 of them to finish geography quizzes.
Finished with one error in 7:16.
- Colum
I tried hENNA instead of SENNA until I figured out LILACS from crosses. I know of AGLETS because of crosswords, as do many solvers, I'd imagine. And I'd never heard of NAURU either, and from its location, it seems one would need to stop off in Oahu, probably for a day or two, before catching an infrequent plane to the (other) island. Definitely not conveniently placed. I figured out that there was a rebus with CURBYOU[RENT]HUSIASM, because that was the only possible answer, but it wasn't until I got T[HAIR]ESTAURANT that I understood the theme. SOBERUP is nice.
ReplyDeleteI suppose that people in Nauru might think that we're not particularly conveniently placed, though...
DeleteSpeaking of SOBERUP, the Urban Dictionary Word of the Day yesterday was "Kentucky Sober." I was hoping it meant the opposite of sober, but really it was something about not having enough money for drugs.
ReplyDeleteAnywho... I, too, am always happy to see Ms. Carroll's byline. I like the theme, but T[HAIR]ESTAURANT took me forever, because I had filled in _rESTAURANT immediately, before I understood what was going on, and that incorrect "r" made things tricky for me. As usual, the answer was to take everything that you are not absolutely sure of out and start fresh.
Loved "Fake news source?", even with the question mark. Very timely for New York politics... sigh.