My time: 17:49, about seven minutes faster than average!
Theme: word ladders. Not only does the puzzle feature a four-letter word ladder, found in the circled Down letters, from RISE, RILE, FILE, FILL, and then FALL, but also the solver must "climb" or "descend" the ladders when filling out Across answers, so they start on one level and end on another.
For example, the two Across answers that share the word RISE are surprise party and undesirable; but when these answers touch the top or bottom of the word ladder they must fall or rise to the next level. So "reason for people to hide" comes out as SURPRABLE and 'not wanted" comes out as UNDEPARTY. You must follow the word ladder up or down, to read SURP[R-I-S-E] / PARTY and UND[E-S-I-R] / ABLE.
It's a pretty clever theme, made doubly clever by the use of RISE and FALL as the ends of the word ladder.
It's maybe unnecessarily tricky, though, to use joke clues within the theme. "Pressing need on the go?" is travel iron, read as TRAV[E-L-I-R] / ON, and that was a tough one to get. (My immediate thought was gas pedal.)
The EDO River has been in the puzzle before, but this is the first time that I know of that EDO was clued as the former Tokyo. After the Meiji Restoration in 1868 the Meiji government renamed Edo as Tokyo ("Eastern Capital") and relocated the Emperor from the historic capital of Kyoto to the city. The era of Tokugawa rule in Japan from 1603 to 1868 is known eponymously as the Edo period.
Philosopher who tutored Nero is SENECA. He became an advisor to him in later life, and then killed himself when Nero ordered it during a terrible purge that included the murder of his own mother.
I used to play DARTS, badly, and even read a book on darts once, and I still didn't know that you start with 501 points. I guess I forgot.
I didn't know the name of any kind of quartz, but it makes sense that a yellow variety would be called CITRINE.
For "parts of ziggurats" I put *STEPS but it's TIERS. That slowed me up a bit.
I've never heard of LESTOIL ("Clorox cleanser") and it looked like a misprint even after I filled it in. Maybe they don't have it where I live, or maybe I just keep my house in a state of filth.
PETER IV was king of Aragon 1336-1387 and was called The Ceremonious. His main achievement was the conquest of Majorca in 1344.
I've heard of ALLEN IVERSON (although I misspelled his first name as *ALLAN), but didn't know his nickname, "The Answer." As nicknames go, it's a bit better than "The Ceremonious," but not by much.
I enjoyed "like a fox" as two separate intersecting clues for SEXY and SLY.
Apparently there's a musical duo called ICONA Pop and they had a hit called "I Love It." They're Swedish and they formed in 2009. I am not hip to the musics of today.
"When repeated, king of Siam's refrain in 'The King and I'" is ETC. That doesn't sound every musical.
I haven't heard of celebrity chef Eddie HUANG, but I'm aware of his autobiography (later turned sitcom) Fresh Off the Boat.
Child-care expert EDA LeShan last appeared October 20, 2018.
"Brand of nail polish" OPI has come up a few times, and was last seen August 16.
San Francisco neighborhood NOE Valley appeared on July 12.
Clever clues: "One who has a lot to offer?" is REALTOR. "Certain sneak" is NIKE. "Amazon worker" is ANT.
I did this pretty quickly, considering the mess the theme made of the grid. There were a few mess-ups (MY B!), but on the whole I did well. I enjoyed the theme, but I wonder if this sort of thing isn't too clever by half for everyday solvers, who tend to resort to looking stuff up. Okay, that's it. I SHALL return Monday.
No comments:
Post a Comment