A lovely little Mad Lib-style, mid-week love story is told in the puzzle today. The "fill-in-the-blank" clues used to be the ones I looked at first when I was just starting to do puzzles. God ... When was that? Maybe when I was ten or eleven? Maybe even earlier. My brother Bobby used to deliver the papers, then he'd come home and work on the terrible AP puzzle that was included in the Worcester Telegram. I was probably just five or six back then. Anyway...
We start, appropriately, at the beginning, with "Once UPON a time," and end with "happily EVER after." just like every love story should. And along the way we get such fun crosswordese as OBOE, EDEN, IDLED, and ADO. I like that the two main characters are in band, and that they enjoy silly puns. It's a relationship made in crossword heaven.
So, when I read it, I thought of Ava and Dana as women, but Dana doesn't have to be female. I wonder, though, if there isn't some side-theme in "Oberfell v. HODGES, Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage." But I suppose if we're just tying in any old fill, we'd have to consider ENDINTEARS (Conclude miserably), and we wouldn't want to do that. And who knows how old these two are. There could be a big gap, because AGE is "Just a number, it's said." Oh, and one more fill-as-possible-theme entry could be LEOV (Pope after Benedict IV), because it's an anagram of "love." And RIDABLE? ...
Sorry.
I laughed at "Knuckle-headed gesture?" (NOOGIE), and NERFBALL (Round, squishy toy) brought back fun memories. There were some little things, like EDD Roush (Last played in 1931) and UMIAK (Inuit skin boat), but all's fair in love and war, right?
- Horace
I absolutely LOVED this puzzle. So much so? I didn't want it to end. Silly? Yes, indeed! Off the wall? You betcha! Just a reason to kick back and enjoy the INANITY of it all? Why not? Thank you, NYT...and why, much as I love you Horace, did I think Frannie was writing this review?
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