NUCLEAR FUSION
It's a Sunday puzzle with a rebus, but I'm not exactly sure what the rebus is doing, or why the puzzle is titled "Nuclear Fusion." A first, with ISLAN[DH]OPPED (Traveled from Syros to Naxos to Mykonos, say), I thought, OK, the center two letters are fused into one square, and that idea sort of still works with IFEE[LG]REAT ("That was rejuvenating!"), but it's three words instead of just two, making it a little less elegant. But then we look at the Downs that run off the rebuses, and we find that they are all four-letter, two-word answers, with rebuses at both ends and the same two letters in the middle. As in: [DH]EA[DT] (Race that's too close to call) (to be read as "dead heat"). Maybe this is the real theme? The nuclei of both Down words are fused? But then what of the Acrosses? They are just working in service of the Downs. (And yes, I am fully ready for there to be some beautiful explanation that I just didn't GET on this early Sunday morning, and if you know what that explanation is, please tell me in the comments.)
So, the theme is a little hard to figure out, at least for this rusty blogger, but taken as a themeless with a ton of variable rebus squares, it was a lot of fun. So we're all HAPP[YC]AMPERS, right? Or was it HOHUM?
"Locks up?" (HAIR) didn't quite work for me. I would have preferred something like "coif." Hair just seems to general for that "up" in the clue. On the other hand, I did like the aha moment when PRISM (What might be found at the end of a rainbow) came clear. Nice one.
PALISADE (Defensive fortification) is a lovely word, isn't it? I prefer the plural version that doesn't have anything to do with conflict, but still... and just after that in the puzzle was a word I did not know: FAE (Winged beings of folklore). I see from xwordinfo.com that it has appeared three times before this, in puzzles that I probably completed, but I did not remember it. Perhaps this time I will.
And finally, another word I don't remember hearing before, but that I enjoyed learning: PROMPOSAL (Elaborate invitation from a senior, maybe). Hah!
Overall, I enjoyed figuring out the rebuses, and there were some fun entries. What did you think of it?
- Horace
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