Sunday, March 24, 2024, John Kugelman

FEELING POSSESSIVE

Hello everyone! I'm back for another scintillating week of puzzles and moderately interesting reviews. Thanks to Philbo for his contributions, both this past week and over the last year. 

It's been a crazy weekend, to say the least. Put together a birthday party for my wife with many guests planned to be arriving into Albany from out of town (not the least of which were Horace and Frances); combine that with a freak ice and snowstorm, stopping many of said out-of-towners from arriving (but not stopping H&F); on top of which the power goes out, but that's okay, because we have a generator; followed by the generator breaking. 

So our planned karaoke party went from a rented room to our family room, to our living room with candles, a piano, a guitar, and a lot of very game singers. Turned out to be a ton of fun, just far away from original expectations!

Thus, apologies for the delayed review this evening. The power is still not back on in Albany, so I had to wait until I made to NYC to write this blog post.

A place BASQUES might live near

Anyhoo, a fun theme today. Take a verb phrase in the present tense, change the verb to a noun with a possessive apostrophe inserted before that final -S, reparse and clue wackily, and as they say, hilarity ensues. Honestly, I didn't quite get it even after filling in many of the theme answers. For a hot second, I thought we were going to move a letter from one word to another, when I looked at 95A: "And ... cut!"?(SETSATEASE). See, that could be "sets a tease," like what might happen in a hair salon? 

Yeah, I agree. No go. Instead, it's "set's 'at ease'," or the command on set to relax. 

I think I like HOLDSWATER and TAKESORDERS the best. I didn't really chuckle at any of them, but I think they're all solid.

Clues I liked today:

27A: Pool side (STRIPES) - as in the game pool, the opponent being "solids."

33A: People who might answer "What's up?" with "The sky" (WISEASSES). Excellent.

105A: 85 to 115, typically (IQRANGE). I knew what they were getting at, but put in "level" for a while.

6D: Homebodies? (UMPS).

39D: Swinger's attire (GOLFSHIRT). For a moment, I was thinking perhaps "nothing."

Pretty fun solve, overall.

- Colum