GOING FOR A SPIN
Hello, all you NYT Xword solvers! And others who have stumbled onto a blog looking for collaborations between Latin poets and Boston cooks? I'm back to pen a week of reviews, after a lovely vacation on the Delaware beaches. We had it all! Tornado warnings, impressive full moons, and mostly sunny days battling jellyfishes in the warm Atlantic waters.
But what a Sunday puzzle to come back to! The theme is silliness - an exercise in misleading adspeak for a broken down hooptie (a word we learned from the Urban Dictionary in years past), where each characteristic is represented in glowing terms. Thus, the fact that the car was found in a ditch gets it called an OFFROADVEHICLE. I particularly liked 82A: "... and the broken door locks?" (KEYLESSENTRY), and 110A: "... and finally, the missing front tires?" (REARWHEELDRIVE). Fun stuff, especially with the bonus clue at 37D: How the car in this puzzle's theme would be sold (ASIS).
Beyond the theme, though, there were a plethora of fun clues, befitting a punny style of grid construction. 1A: Pen name (BIC) starts us off in the right frame of mind. Take nothing at face value! Or, with 9D: What someone flat-footed lacks (ARCH), take it exactly at face value.
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19A: It's right around the present (WRAP) is a great example of how the English language lends itself to misleading clue writing. 97A: Safari destinations? (URLS) is a nice hidden capital. I was also amused by 117A: Legend who occasionally used his head to achieve greatness (PELE).
Maybe my favorite clue is 45D: It has a rind but supposedly no rhyme (ORANGE). It reminds me of the great late Tom Lehrer, who came up with this:
While making love
Makes for bizarre enj-
Oyment thereof
Can't beat that, and so I end my review there. See you tomorrow!
- Colum
Hilarious Lehrer quote. I hadn't heard that before, I don't think. And if I had, it was nice to be reminded of it. :)
ReplyDeleteMy favorite themer was "... and what about the leaky roof?" - BUCKETSEATS. Hah!