Such a strange central grid-spanner - DOYOUQUARRELSIR (Response to thumb-biting in "Romeo and Juliet." It's odd, yet I do but keep the peace so I put up my sword. ... sorry. Just trying to work in a little of the dialog that follows that line. It's not really working...
So anyway...
That NW corner was a tricky one! BIGIFTRUE ("That would change everything," in internet lingo) and ONSTEROIDS (To an extreme) did not come easily. I didn't get any help from "Rebecca in the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame" (LOBO) or "Trickster in Polynesian mythology" (MAUI) (Huh. Who knew?). I did get [something quite] ATROCIOUS (Like the sound of "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious," per the song of the same name) off the clue, but it didn't help as much as I hoped it would.
"It's a mouthful, frankly" (HOTDOGBUN) was hilarious. And "Bracken, e.g." (FERN) reminds me yet again of Frost's "Birches" - "They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load, / And they seem not to break; ..." It's been a big week for poetry here at HAFDTNYTCPFCA. And why not? I've been immersed in poetry for the past many months. And what I am immersed in, you will be immersed in. That's the way this works.
I like how ROSAPARKS (Activist who said "You must never be fearful about what you are doing when it is right") and IMMOVABLE (Not going anywhere) are symmetrical. And how GETRICHQUICK sort of leads to CHEAPDATE.
"Additional solutions?" (SUMS) was cute. And it seems like we've seen SEMORDNILAPS somewhat recently, haven't we? I didn't remember it off the clue (Words that form other words when read backward), but I did remember that it was "palindromes" backwards once I got a few crosses, so that helped.
I enjoyed AMOUR (Theme for a troubadour), "Yes, MAAM!" I did, but I'm guessing the other french word - TOILE (French for "canvas") will seem very Saturday-y to some solvers.
Overall, I enjoyed the challenge. Lotsa names I didn't know, but I learned a few things and had a few laughs, and when that's true, I'll SMILE.
- Horace
I have to log a DNF for this one, as there were three boxes on which I erred and subsequently gave up. Here are the crosses that did me in: BIGIFTRUE/ATROCIOUS/MAUI (sadly, as I'm familiar with the Brother Iz song that chronicles some of Maui's exploits), and BIERS/TOILE. Oh well, I had a 31-Saturday-in-a-row going before today. Nice cluing in general, though. Maybe I shouldn't have given up so quickly, as I see I worked on the puzzle for only 47:11.
ReplyDeleteEek! What a challenge, but what a beauty! HOT DOG BUN clue cracked me up. After I finally finished, I didn't get the congrats message, so I carefully went over the whole thing and my mistake was having BEERS -- which is correct, imo, crossing TOELE, which, I don't know, looks French enough to me. Anyway, I changed that first I to an E and there you are!
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