Like, fine, but not great, as far as this week's puzzle.
Time to finish/time I gave up: 1:02:01
Commentary:
Another slow solve for us this week as we split puzzling and baby watching. I also thought this puzzle was pretty hard for two reasons:
1. The theme--which I enjoyed because I am always proud of myself when I remember things from high school chemistry like element symbols--was such that you couldn't really guess the answer until you had a decent number of letters filled in already.
2. A lot of the fill was hard for me...or, as Rex puts, it "dated/stuffy." That section on being too young is going to be a long one this week.
We got particularly stuck in the mid-SW corner around SCION, ILDUCE, LUCKYDOGS, GINSU, ECOLI [this one was troublesome because we had EBOLA for a while] and also in the NE at BABOON, BLOAT [we had BLOOM], BETHEL, ZORRO, ENCORE, etc. Complaints about some of these forthcoming.
Clues I especially liked! Yay!
- 65A Existentialist Kirkegaard SOREN As a philosophy wife I am always proud when I know the answer to phil-related questions.
- 75D Modern acronym for "Seize the day!" YOLO!!!! Mostly I like this because it broke open DAGUERREOTYPE for us, but also it made me laugh to yell out yolo.
- 101D Ballet school supporter BARRE. I kept trying to make, like, Ailey...or Medici...or something fit in here so the pun (if we can call it that) amused me once Jamie got it.
- 117D Image on a Wisconsin state quarter COW. Is this a shot from the author about how lame it is to put a cow on your quarter? Or just a statement of fact that I have shaded with my urban elitism?
I'm too young for this $h*t
This week, let me just prepare a list without a bunch of comments so as to keep this a readable length.
This week, let me just prepare a list without a bunch of comments so as to keep this a readable length.
- CECIL the sea serpent of old cartoons
- EDSEL the bomb (I take it this means "bomb" for sales) developed in the 1950's
- ENL is presumably short for "enlargement," like an 8 by 10 photo. Haha photo labs, so retro.
- ZORRO rides a horse named Tornado (which I have learned from Wikipedia is usually pronounced "tor-NAH-do," i.e. in Spanish.)
- LILABNER married Daisy Mae in 1952
- The phrase SONNYBOY
- The phrase GALPAL
- GINSU infomercials
- Side note: I am exactly the right age for the Olsen twins. Fun fact: they are 3 days older than I am. And almost as successful.
Really?
- CAPRI is a chocolate-banana cocktail. I'm not much of a liqueur drinker to start with, but this sounds vile. (The "really?" in this case pertains to the existence of the drink, not the cluing per se.)
- Now hear this! SOUND. Like...a sound is something you could now hear? Or "Sound!" like an interjection that means "now hear this"? (Sound! We will be having Kraft macaroni and cheese for dinner!) I am missing the boat on this one.
- "That's great!" GOODY. I think the last person that said "goody" was Shirley Temple.
- Seaman's chapel BETHEL. This definition is not on the first page of Google results, therefore it's not real.
- Think piece? IDEA. This is lame and doesn't merit a ? clue as if it were cute.
- It's time to retire the word "muff" from non-slang usage. Too awkward. [If you, dear reader, are too old for this reference, just trust me.]
- TNOTE is...something about finance...yawn.
- NUN is a letter on a dreidel. I need to learn my Hebrew alphabet better if I'm ever going to be a true crossword expert.
- A PEWEE is a bird. Also, flycatchers are a type of bird. I learned both of these things at once. (My theory prior to googling was that this was "pee-wee" baseball and the kids were fly (ball) catchers. Cute, right? No? Allie, you're ridiculous? Ok.)
- The capital of Togo is LOME.
- KPMG hires CPAs, so I guess this is also something about finance. Zzzzzz.
- DAGUERREOTYPE is French in origin, je crois.
- SARTRE wrote "I exist, that is all, and I find it nauseating." That guy was always a barrel of laughs.
- Quatre halved is DEUX.
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