0:06:16
Remember before Zoom? Yeah ... that was great. But now that we have it, we can have a theme like this. One that makes fun of pretty much everyone who has ever used Zoom. At one time or another, we've all heard these lines:
YOUREMUTED
WECANTHEARYOU
TURNYOURMICON
But unfortunately, none of us could probably get away with saying OHFORGETIT. Stupid work.
I made five missteps while solving - AtOn for ALOT (Oodles), culTS for SECTS (Amish, Shakers and others) (What's the difference?), ExES for EKES (Scratches (out)), aciD for ROAD (____ test), and NEedLE for NETTLE (Irk). All of them except the first were corrected during the solve. Luckily, Atlan and Ane looked bad right away when I had to start looking for an error, but this is your annual reminder to check the crosses when you have any doubt! Solving at home, this is a mild irritation, but if I had handed my puzzle in at a tournament, it would have bothered me for a long time.
Moving on, that central SEX ("A conversation carried out by other means," per Peter Ustinov) really anchors the whole thing. The idea of "conversation" works with the theme, and, well, it's a great quote on its own.
HAZEL (Tree with edible nuts) is nice because it was my grandmother's name, and it's also a name that's made its way back - we know a very talented young musician/singer named Hazel. The same has not been the case for my grandmother's sister's name, Gladys. And speaking of HAZEL, it's odd to see HAZE not far away in the same grid, isn't it?
This review is getting long, but I can't go without mentioning the two long Downs - PEACHYKEEN and WIZARDOFOZ, both good entries. And I should also mention the two clues: "Poe's middle name" and "First word of 'Ode on a Grecian Urn.'" Always good to have poetry represented.
- Horace
No comments:
Post a Comment