My time: 13:32, not great but still faster than the average.
Theme: VAN / BEETHOVEN, from whose oeuvre three SYMPHONIC works are hidden in circled letters: the Eroica in PUERTO RICAN, Pastoral in SPANISH TUTORIAL, and Choral in SCHOOL RALLY. Finally, we have the famous G-G-G-[E FLAT] / F-F-F-D, the "dramatic opening" of his Fifth.
That's a lotta Beethoven! Is it his birthday or something? That single rebus square just about did me in. Tricky stuff. I could not figure out how D[EFLAT]ED could be written out in only four squares.
The theme did help me out, because once I knew it was BEETHOVEN works, I filled in the circled letters quickly enough, which in turn served as a big step to the full answers.
I had a lot of mistakes in the fill. For "randy look" I had *LEER instead of OGLE, and for "shells you can eat" I confidently put *TACOS when it was PASTA. That kept me confused for quite a while in that center north. For the three-letter "choose" I obviously put *OPT but it was TAP this time.
"Jewish month of 30 days" I put *SHABAT but they wanted SHEBAT (sometimes written shevat). That's the fifth month. The assumed Akkadian origin of the month is Šabātu meaning strike that refers to the heavy rains of the season. I guess I was confusing it with shabbat, the Jewish sabbath.
SLUE is a new word on me. A variant of slew, meaning to turn or skid.
Brooklyn and Cleveland are both neighborhoods called Heights, or as here, HTS. One is in New York and the other is, strangely enough, in Ohio.
For the hymn "____ So Sweet To Trust in Jesus" I put *IT'S but the title starts with 'TIS.
For "Prince ___ Khan" I put *ALI but it turns out to be ALY Khan. He was a son of the Pakistani Sultan Mahommed Shah. A socialite, racehorse owner and jockey, he was the third husband of actress Rita Hayworth. He served as the Permanent Representative of Pakistan to the United Nations from 1958 to 1960. Though also known as Ali, his first name was typically spelled "Aly" in the press.
The pelvic bones, or ILIA, last came up in 2017.
I've gotten OGEE before, but today I initially put *AGEE for some reason, and couldn't understand why it didn't work. It was featured here in November 2017.
Clever clues: "Grumpy coworker" is DOC. "Class struggle?" is TEST.
Lots of tough stuff in this Thursday! Hard going until the PENNY dropped. This puzzle TAUT me a few things!
No comments:
Post a Comment