Sunday, May 18, 2025, Garrett Chalfin

HALVING THE LAST WORD

Fun theme today of doing just what the title says - splitting the last word in the theme answers and reinterpreting as two separate words, then cluing appropriately. As in:

MAKINGANIMPACT (Casting a total brat in the school play?)
SALESPERSON (Metric in a competitive family business?)
TAKEOFFICE (Remove from the champagne bucket?)
and the most absurd
LOVEHOTELS (Be crazy about Chicago trains with broken A.C.s?)

The long Downs were good, with COFFEEOCLOCK (Time for a pick-me-up, humorously) and the difficult to spell CONNOISSEURS (Arbiters of taste). Continuing with the french, we have BEAUCOUP (Much in quantity) and DES (French for "from").

What did you think of CAPE (Where the Pilgrims first landed in the New World)? Seems a little spare. I would have expected either the full Cape Cod, or else maybe "The Cape"? 

On the other hand, I loved CHAOS ("The score upon which reality is written," per Henry Miller). Ain't that the truth. I feel like I have been living in a tornado recently. Since yesterday morning I've driven about 500 miles, attended a luncheon, a graduation, a reception, a graduation party, a group breakfast, and a Eurovision party. And now I am writing this review. And then I will collapse. 

- Horace