Anyway, today is a new day. Onward!
Time to finish/time I gave up: 31:27
Commentary:
Hooray for celebrating pioneering women! This puzzle was made much easier by the fact that none of the "first ladies" were obscure, so we filled in both the theme answer (BREAKTHEGLASSCEILING) and all of the examples before doing anything else in this puzzle. Nice way to start! Also felt like kind of a cop-out? But we needed the help on some of the other parts, so I was glad for the leg up. I thought the physical aspect of breaking up the top line clue/"ceiling" was also cute. Confession: I had written this whole post and complained about a couple of the "ceiling" clues not making a ton of sense before I realized that they all also go with the word "glass." That's downright impressive! [Second confession: I didn't even realize this on my own, I was reading the constructor's notes in the NYT blog post about the puzzle.] Luckily, my ignorance didn't hamper our solving strategy.
Fun puzzle! But as always, I have some complaints. :D Let's start with a new section though:
Clues I especially liked! Yay!
- 61A Part of a stock exchange MOO
I'm too young for this $h*t
- Sidney Poitier's 1980 autobiography? I have a great deal of respect for Mr. Poitier (shout-out to my mom, who met him once and got him to say "They call me Mr. Tibbs" !!!) but don't know about his 37-year-old autobiography.
- If you just became alarmed that 1980 was 37 years ago, join the club.
- I don't know who Sheena Easton is. Is this a failing of my musical taste or my age?
- 1941 chart-topper "Maria Elena." Lol 1941.
Really?
- I dislike the answer "IT help." Partly because I'm not convinced that is a phrase, and partly because I can't stop seeing "it help," a non-verb-agreeing sentence.
- I get irritated by lots of "saying" answers. They seem like too much of a blank check for weird phrases that are convenient fill. I know there are going to be a few every week, but this week was excessive:
- ITSOK
- NONETAKEN
- DIDIWIN
- IAGREE
- IMEANNO (I made a face at this one)
- ILOSE
- ISPOSE (audible pshh at this one)
- OHGEEZ
- YOUIDIOT
- IMSLEEPY
- 60A Running behind LATISH. Rhymes with radish.
- Can we really say that "tree rat" is slang? I do like making fun of squirrels, though.
- 108A Remove fat from, as a soup DEGREASE. Ew. Also, I think the use of soup as the example points more toward something like "skim."
- If you need this to fit in the puzzle, just put SKIIIIIM.
- The pieces of mosaics are called TESSERAE. All this word makes me think of is, "there is such a thing as a tesseract," a quote from A Wrinkle In Time.
- Raise your hand if you're excited for the 2018 movie version directed by Ava DuVernay! Look at this cast list!
- Flexagons are little paper model thingies. Wikipedia notes that one type of flexagon is called a hexahexaflexagon, and includes this excellent sentence: "Note that the word hexaflexagons (with no prefixes) can sometimes refer to an ordinary hexahexaflexagon." NOTED, THANKS.
- We got totally stuck on the cross that Jim, guest poster on Rex Parker, complains about. Make sure you check out his video of "Iseult crossing the Negev"--get it? Crossing? Cute. Ended up guessing at the vowel until we got it right.
- Guido Reni painted "Massacre of the Innocents"
- I was glad to find out that Guido was actually his name, not just a clue that he was Italian.
- Speaking of casual racism, isn't GYP offensive?
- 24A They're measured by pluviometers RAINS. Pleuvoir = to rain.
- I dunno about the noun "rains" though.
- I bless the rains down in Africa!
- Cheesy song confession: I don't like "Bohemian Rhapsody" (of 96D ISEEA) but I do like "Africa."
No comments:
Post a Comment