SATURDAY PUZZLES — It is becoming that we have had some scorching Saturday barbecues this scorching July; immediately’s is not any exception. I used to be optimistic at first after encountering a number of raids, however I bought hopelessly caught at a central level. The top outcome was a sluggish decision time that was as sluggish as once I get a few quick padding bits after which stare at a puzzle for some time.
John Lieb has been doing puzzles for The Instances for almost a decade, nevertheless it’s been a couple of 12 months since he final (one other difficult saturday, in collaboration with Brad Wilber). In the present day’s grid has a reasonably low phrase rely and is open, that means there are massive swaths of stable white squares that make issues difficult for each builder and solver. There’s additionally an entrance I do not assume I’ve seen earlier than, which does not occur fairly often to this veteran.
deceptive clues
15A. It is beautiful how this entry, with the clue “Monodon monoceros, extra familiarly”, crosses 5D, “An animal whose title actually means ‘nostril'”. We all know {that a} nostril job is a rhinoplasty, and we all know that RHINO (5D) is brief for “rhinoceros.” So “monoceros” is, er, “one ceros” (“one horn”). Curiously, “Unicorn” suits into 15A, however the entry right here is NARWHAL, that arctic whale with the flamboyant fang.
31A. This aviator, the “first individual to fly alone world wide (1933),” has been featured in The Instances’ riddles over time, however solely partially, by his first title. WILEY POST is a debut. One other reality about Mr. Publish is his well-known loss of life: in 1935, crashed a airplane in Alaska that actor Will Rogers was additionally carrying, killing them each.
37A. I acknowledged this clue, “Circuit Constructing Block”, as computational, however got here up with “logic board”, which is shut however not fairly proper. The proper reply is a debut and refers to one of many quite a few switches in a digital circuit that deal with a number of inputs, a LOGIC GATE.
13D. It is a good twist! I bought the entry for “Reverse of chopping” at crossroads and was stumped – ATTEND. “Lower”, on this case, refers to skipping faculty, say, to observe a Cubs sport.
22D. There might be solvers within the viewers who will pounce on this observe, “Music Training Technique.” I will need to have lower that class. I figured I might finally determine it out, which did not, or get it in crosses, which it did, although I needed to search on-line to verify my work and discover the origin of SOLFÈGE, which left me speechless.
I seen the phonetic components “sol” and “fè”, which could possibly be “fa” as in “do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-ti-do”, however did not consider that as a result of the sequence was backwards. (“sol fa” as a substitute of “fa sol”). It seems that SOLFÈGE, or “solfeggio”, is a type of solmization, or assign a particular syllable to a corresponding musical word. This follow dates again not less than a thousand years, to an Italian monk who selected syllables that shaped a mnemonic for a hymn (which did not embrace a stag, a doe, an extended, lengthy working path, or a needle pulling a thread).
Builder’s Notes
Over the previous few years, I’ve admired and loved unthemed puzzles with open middle sections, notably Ryan McCarty’s (he is bought a number of superior grids!), and needed to strive writing one myself. Additionally, getting an unthemed puzzle accepted today, with so many builders writing such great puzzles, has been a problem, so I assumed I might strive one thing I hadn’t accomplished earlier than. (My rejection pile is nicely populated with 70-word no-topic riddles…)
Making the grid took for much longer than normal, however I used to be fortunate to have flexibility within the NW and SE corners by having the ???SCIENCE and ALPINE????? letter patterns. work with. As a long-time AP Statistics professor, he was glad that a kind of areas grew to become DATA SCIENCE. Additionally, for a very long time, the WHO’S THAT entry was WHO’S THIS, and fortunately, the primary one led to a lot cleaner, extra attention-grabbing filler. I hope this gives a enjoyable Saturday problem for solvers!
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