Wednesday, April 11, 2018

Wednesday's New York Times puzzle solved: April 11, 2018

My time: 5:38, beating the old record by ten seconds!

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Even though classical music is not my forte, I had little trouble with this Keiran King puzzle that plays with phonetics (which are more my bag).
  • The first themed clue, BARBER OF SEVILLE, is by ROWE / SCENE / KNEE (Gioachino Rossini), "so to speak."
  • CANON IN D, by PACK / BELL / ELLE (switch the last two to get Johann Pachelbel), is the one that I picked up on first, because it's everywhere!
  • Then there's NOCTURNE, by PAN / SHOW (Pancho Vladigerov, a very influential Bulgarian composer whom I've never heard of).  
  • And you can't forget MOONLIGHT SONATA, surprisingly by VENN / HOE / BATE.  Wait, what?  Who's that?  Constructor King drops the ball here and puts BATE / HOE / VENN (Beethoven, natch) backwards in the puzzle.  I'm sure that the Pachelbel and this one were not his ideal, but this one especially strikes a bum note.

I did not know that the strict definition of VICAR is a deputy or substitute, as in the stand-in for a bishop.  However, now that I see it, it's obvious, as in the word vicariously.

I somehow recalled that "Dirty Jobs" (and "Deadliest Catch") host Mike ROWE appeared November 15, 2017.

Clever clue: "What makes ale pale?" is PEE --- as in the letter, not the pale yellow urine.

And that's it.  Aside from the theme, there was nothing new to me here.  IMHO, I am really starting to HONE my skills and getting faster at crosswords.  It goes to SHOW that the blog is paying off!

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