USE YOUR NOODLE
Hello everyone! Back again after some excellent reviews over the past few weeks from Horace and Frannie. I returned from our annual beach vacation in Rehoboth, Delaware yesterday. Such beautiful weather we had!
Today's puzzle riffs on the inventiveness of pasta creators over the centuries. All of the different shapes have inspired English names which then allow for silliness as phrases using those names are reinterpreted as if they were about pasta. Does that make sense?
Sure it does. My favorite two came at the end of the puzzle, with 80A: Kitchen disaster with rotini? (SPIRALSOUTOFCONTROL) - the reparsing of the first word from a verb to a plural noun is excellent - and 100A/108A: Aftermath of a farfalle dinner? (BUTTERFLIES / INYOURSTOMACH). Indeed it is. I particularly liked the avoidance of the impersonal "one's" that so often crops up in these sorts of things. For once, the "your" was easier to use because of the two entries being adjacent.
The other five were serviceable, if not guffaw inducing. However, the real sizzle in this puzzle came from the cluing. I had to take notes as I went through for all of the fun examples.
19A: Collection of threads, of a sort (FORUM) - online, rather than sewing.
34A: Camel relative (TAN) - the color, not the animal.
52A: Competition for boxers (BRIEFS) - I did not see that one coming at all. I thought about the sport, I thought about the dog. I did not think about the underwear.
83D: Low digit (TOE) - yes, I went with Two first.
84D: Global revolutions? (ORBITS).
90D: One form of bark (ARF). Hah!
A very enjoyable puzzle that went pretty quickly. I also learned about MOCHAS and SHOEGAZE, a GENRE of music I was unfamiliar with.
- Colum
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