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Spring jauntily / MON 10-7-2019 / Filmmaker Rob / Bird: Prefix / "Right," slangily / Skillful handling of a situation
Monday, October 7, 2019
Constructor: Keiran King
Relative difficulty: Easy
Theme: SQUARE ROOTS — Some Down answers are the square roots of their clue numbers.
Theme answers:
- ONE (1D: √This clue's number)
- TWO (4D: √This clue's number)
- THREE (9D: √This clue's number)
- FOUR (16D: √This clue's number)
- FIVE (25D: √This clue's number)
- SIX (36D: √This clue's number)
- SEVEN (49D: √This clue's number)
- SQUARE ROOTS (60A: Some Down answers in this puzzle)
Word of the Day: RAE (62D: Issa of HBO's "Insecure") —
Jo-Issa Rae Diop (born January 12, 1985),[1][2] known as Issa Rae, is an American actress, writer, director, producer, and web series creator. She first garnered attention for her work on the YouTube web series Awkward Black Girl.[3] She subsequently gained further recognition for creating, co-writing, and starring in the HBO television series Insecure.[4][5] For her acting work on Insecure, she has received two Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy[6] and a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series.Since 2011, Rae has continued to develop her YouTube channel, which features various short films, web series, and other content created by people of color.[7][8]
• • •
Hi, it's Annabel! I'm late this week but that's because last Monday was Rosh Hashanah! This year is 5780, and now that we're in the 80s again I assume shoulder pads and teased hair are going to come back in style. I, for one, am psyched. L'shanah tovah to anyone else who celebrates!This has been my favorite Monday in awhile. While I didn't love the theme, which seemed a little corny, I felt like it helped serve as a jumping-off point for some interesting fill. I hope there's no ARSONIST on the FOREST FLOOR but those were two of my favorites--love a little bit of wordplay for ARSONIST, and I just love the imagery of FOREST FLOOR. Maybe I'm just crunchy, but that phrase is up there with "cellar door" for me in terms of pleasing phrases in the English language. And there were lots of other nice, solid words, like THORAX and EXACTO. Loved the nod to ROMANTIC ERA poetry; it made me feel like my English degree was worth something!
Bullets:
- ORE (63D: Valuable rock) — Alternate clue: the second least valuable resource in Settlers of Catan, after sheep. Seriously, it feels like everyone ends up with piles and piles of ore and sheep, until the late game when you can't get ore for anything.
- ARR (17A: Opposite of departure: Abbr.) — The restraint it took to not make this a pirate-related clue is quite frankly astounding.
- SIRI (40A: iPhone voice) — I have an Android, which is usually amazing, but it does mean I don't get to experience things like this:
Signed, Annabel Thompson, tired.
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
[Follow Annabel Thompson on Twitter]
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72 comments:
Congratulations on the internship, Annabel Monday!
Hi Annabel - good to see ya. But you forgot to mention that the square root of 5780 is 76.0263112349. L'shanah tovah to you, too and congrats on the internship.
Great job by the editor, IMO.
I set a personal Monday record on this one, and I like math, so obviously this is my favorite puzzle ever.
Or at least it should be, I guess. The theme is really dense and there's a lot of cheater squares in the northwest/southeast. The fill gets rough in places and it's a ton of short stuff, but it's honestly better than I expected. This seems like it would be really hard to pull off technically, so I'm impressed on that level, but I didn't even notice what the theme was doing until I was done (I noticed that the themers were just counting up, so I just started filling in numbers and didn't see the square roots until I got to the revealer). So the theme was only impressive after the solve. So as far as solving experience goes, it wasn't all that fun while doing it.
Fun Monday.
Except the theme-ers were as easy as one, two, three (literally). It was nice to have each number start in its own appropriate square (literally) but it required no thought on our part to see the answer.
It might have been more fun to clue them individually - The loneliest number, Group for tea, Goldilocks theme, etc.
The reveal (60A) could have remained the same and it would have been a nice ah-ha to see the "trick", or to admire the effort, after the fact. Instead was all so obvious. I guess that's what made it a Monday, but it still seemed a bit more rote or mechanical than necessary.
Lots of good six and seven letter material. Some nice longer ones as well.
See notepad my puzzle tells me, I didn’t see the notepad, as usual, so I decided not to go back and read it. As it turned out I didn’t need a note. Easy as ONE, TWO, THREE. No comments up yet, but I’m sure I’m not the first person to say that.
Two write overs, bounce before PRANCE and brat before PEST at 55D.
Easy-medium. Pretty smooth puzzle given the theme constraints, liked it.
I am usually a pretty gentle critic, but, man, I *hated* this one. The weird placement of the black squares creates so many short answers. Yeah, I know it's Monday, but there are way too many three-letter answers in this puzzle, and most of them, even at three letters, are contrived: TVS, PCS, SGT, FTS, CPA, VIN, ESC, NTH, NYC, RAE, USC, HAN, AVI. Come on. And all the theme did was spoil the grid answers remaining once you suss it out. After I solved the second one (square root of four), then I knew. "Oh, the answer to 9 Down will be THREE...16 Down will be FOUR..." and so on, without even looking at the clues. And the revealer clue didn't even reveal anything. "Some downs in this puzzle." That's it. It wasn't any wordplay or any kind of insight or anything else. Just "some of the answers are square roots of their clues, but you already know that because we included the square root symbol in each of those clues, so there is absolutely nothing to reveal."
I can live with a lame theme or a bad grid, but not both. If you're going to torture your grid in order to make the theme work, it should be a really great theme. This was about as dull as themes get. Just really not good.
Keiran, you had a vision with this puzzle, and where many constructors would have ditched it after turning left, right, and every which way without success, you stayed single pointed -- through 17 layouts over five months (according to your notes)! -- to manifest it, keep the junk out of it, and place within it some lovely answers. Your persistence and drive for excellence are inspiring to me, and I stand and salute you for it.
⎷4 = ±2
Your post sounds like what Rex might have written and I concur.
The oodles of three letter words were a bit of a turn-off. Then you get to a SQUARE ROOT puzzle and it takes me back to math in high school. I remember thinking that I will never ever have to use it in my ROMANTIC life. Then I get to 7D. SHAGS? Making love? No...it's more like "wham, bam, thank you ma'am." I bet our friend @JOHN X will concur.
Phew....got that off my chest...or is it BOSOM? Anyway, the longies were nice. I see FOREST FLOOR and I think of the leaves that are now falling. Is there anything better than riding your bIKE through a bunch of them and hearing that crunchy sound? I love Fall.
Doesn't EXACTO need a mundo?
Always a delight to have Annabel Monday. Today is the first day of a new life. Remember, you are on this earth only once....If you're fortunate, you will love your job. I was fortunate.
Annabel,
loved your write up/review of constructors' grid. Good luck today and throughout your internship on Capitol Hill.
Why the cheater squares in the corners? To avoid having a 64D since the constructor couldn’t possibly have gotten an “eight” to fit at 64D. I’m wondering how the various online apps rendered the square root symbol.
I made some late responses yesterday, including this for @quasimojo:
Ozymandias
BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
Hey, I know it's Monday, but, you know, really?
Agree with the too many threes complaints, and I'm pretty sure the revealer was pre-approved by Captain Obvious.
Nice review, Annabelle, and good luck.
Very fast, but did a lot of downs. I remember learning about SQUARE ROOTS from my older brother when I was still riding TRIKES.
@Gill.i
Yes, EXACTO requires MUNDO. GOOD CATCH,! LOL,!
This must have been difficult to construct so I really appreciated it for that alone. Too many three letter answers? Perhaps but look at those long answers. I thought it all was worth it and had a fun relaxing solve. Good start to our week.
I agree with @ GILL I. that love has little to do with shagging.
@Hank, love your idea of changing the cluing to make this a little more challenging. Clever! Lively write up Annabel, couldn't tell you were tired. Off to the airport after running the Twin Cities Marathon yesterday. (won my AG) Poor Twins; have to get those homer hankies working tonight!
Very Monday. Easy and basic.
Your lens cap probably has little plastic holes at the edges. Put a string through one of those and tie it to your strap and you never need lose it.
Fun writeup from Annabel today. Welcome to DC. Be sure to get out to Great Falls to enjoy the FOREST FLOOR (and the falls).
@chefwen I had a Tigger PouNCE before PRANCE.
“Know only from crosswords”: Issa RAE.
Hey All !
I can imagine trying to get the SQUAREs into the corresponding number Downs was a bear of a task, so I commend Kieran for that. As @Nancy always says, this puz was more for the constructor than the solver. OK puz to solve, but didn't have the 'Wow' factor that all that hard work put into it required.
Was wondering why the funky strip of blocks were in the NW/SE. Now I see to get the √Downs to be in their actual number spots. Will actually let that slide, as that is pretty cool. Counted 32 threes, price you pay for a grid like this.
LOLed at EAZY-E. A certain @Masked One not only had 32 weejects, but a built in EAZY E. Good stuff.
Four F's. Nice.
Puz was fun and good for what it aspired to do. I got the clues like √1, √4, etc. with nothing actually written in the clue itself.
FTS -Foots? Har.
OWIE FINESSE
RooMonster
DarrinV
My five favorite clues from last week
(In order of appearance):
1. Hippo campus? (3)
2. Like the 70s vis-a-vis the 60s or 50s, say (6)
3. He, but not she: Abbr. (4)
4. Perfect, and then some (6)
5. Large print source (4)(3)
ZOO
WARMER
ELEM
TENSES
BEAR PAW
I'll echo @Lewis's kudos for the constructor's persistence.
Unfortunately, the finished product did nothing for me. Fully SEVEN answers are outright gimmes -- eight if you count the so-called revealer. That's understating it, really. They're not just Monday-gentle, not just easy -- they actually could have been pre-filled, for all the resistance they offered. That's for tots riding TRIKES, not for the NYT.
And this may be harsh, but sorry -- if you have a theme like this with a square numbered 64, you must make its answer EIGHT no matter what you have to do. If you can't, keep trying or move on.
I don’t get it. How is this even considered a puzzle? If you know how to do square roots — and everyone should, they’re utterly elementary — then the clues are dead giveaways. So right off I just wrote in all the theme answers. How is this even remotely a challenge? I know Mondays are supposed to be relatively easy, but this … much better would have been to make the clues the numbers, with the answers “square root of …” you know, clue: TWO. Answer: SQUARE ROOT OF FOUR.
If for some reason you don’t know how to do square roots, then the clues might as well have been written in Greek.
It’s difficult to generate any enthusiasm for a puzzle that pays homage to a vulgar, gun-worshipping mysogynist.
<a href="https://youtu.be/IseTsOa9ubw”>Easy-E Eazy Duz It!</a>
According to Jeff Chen, some editors reject crosswords with twenty or more Terrible Threes. This one has 32, the most I've ever seen. Just last week we had an excellent puzzle with none.
As usual, I enjoyed Lewis's clues of the week. I'm surprised that "Peace in the Middle East" for SHALOM didn't make the cut.
Lol @Z yes I saw it. Never heard of that poem or its author. 😘 Thanks for posting it.
Btw here's a similar one for you.
"Fame is a fickle food
Upon a shifting plate
Whose table once a
Guest but not
The second time is set
Whose crumbs the crows inspect
And with ironic caw
Flap past it to the
Farmer’s corn
Men eat of it and die"
Emily Dickinson
meh... very easy, not very interesting.
On the website, the clues used what looked like a check mark "√" for the square root sign. I didn't even need to know anything about the square root til I came here...all I did was fill in the numbers as they appeared in order. So, while I'm sure it took some time and energy to figure it out, it fell flat for me because it didn't help to even be remotely aware of the theme in the solve, and because I was just filling in the blanks as I went.
I also thought the theme would have something to do with three-letter abbreviations since there were so many early on: TVS, PCS, SGT, FTS, even CPA. Now that I know that's not the theme, that seems to be too many abbreviations. I get that there are a lot of three-letter answers, so maybe it was more a problem with the grid itself.
Also also, I don't see OOZES to be equal to "trickles." When something trickles, it drips. Water trickles. Tears trickle. It's a slow stream, yes, but I wouldn't use it to describe something that oozes...like lava or tar or sap. Sap would trickle if it was watery.
Shelley also wrote: “I fall upon the thrones of life; I bleed”, which is how I feel reading “Annabel Monday” statements.
Not a lot of thinking required, but some. And, what with FOREST FLOOR, SOLILOQUY, FINESSE and THORAX, a bit more sophisticated than the usual Monday.
I want to focus, though, on 7D. Does SHAGS have the same shock value for a Brit that the F-word has for an American? (Any Brits out there to answer?) I ask for a particular reason. When back in the day I was on the French Riviera with a high school friend, we met two British guys that we went out with. At one point I asked in all innocence: "The word 'Bloody' is a bad word for you, right?" The guy who was my date turned beet red, looked down at the floor, didn't seem to know what to say, and finally stammered: "Oh, that's very naughty." Very naughty, that's what he said! I felt like a fallen woman. Of course it was 1960, which was still the repressed Fifties. But what I learned is that one's own society determines what's shocking and what isn't. You could run around yelling "Bloody" in the USA until the cows came home -- even back in 1960 -- and no one would be the least bit shocked. So I'm curious about SHAGS.
Man, one of the rare times when I’m actually really looking forward to Rex ranting and raving, and this garbage heap of a puzzle gets wasted on Annabel (no offense to Annabel, only to this grid). Well, we can all play Rex here in the comments, I guess. 1) This isn’t a theme. It’s a list of consecutive numbers, which is literally the most boring possible list. 2) I can appreciate constructors setting themselves difficult technical challenges, but it seems like there was zero attention at all given to the solver here. 3) Annabel is right that there are a few interesting long answers (FORESTFLOOR, SOLILOQUY, plus a nice THOREAU quote), but so much of the rest is dull-as-dirt crosswordese.
Maybe this puzzle is meant as a balm to Monday-only solvers. Let everybody set a new personal record, feel good about themselves, and then forget about it.
I thought 1D was a cute way to clue ONE when it was the first answer I dropped in, and still thought so when I was wondering how the theme would relate to FORESTs or FLOORs. But nope. A single cute clue turned into “literally just write out the first seven numbers, that’s it, that’s the concept.” Bah!
Thanks, Annabel!
Today's puzzle played quickly for me. Not a personal best, but close to it. The math did get rather repetitive after awhile, though.
Again, I'm sorry, but I can't help but see a story here.
ONE ERECT ROD SHAGS TWO ROMANTIC VIOLINISTs -- THOREAU-LY and with FINESSE -- then PRANCEs across the FOREST FLOOR, among the OAKS with SQUARE ROOTS, while THREE OLD GURUS SLUR CHIMES, "ARR, ARR! HUH, HUH!, PFFT!"
OK, I agree: it needs some work.
The concertmaster of an orchestra is *always* a violinist.
@Sir Hilary 8:36
There was a 64 Across, but not a 64 Down. The theme was in the Downs. As you see, there is also a 1A, 4A, 49A. Which is another reason for the funky grid and the 44 blocks.
Props again to the constructor. Wonder if he has any hair left. :-)
RooMonster
@Xmarksthe spot. The square root symbol came up loud and clear on my MacBook laptop.
nothing to complain about - a fine monday start for the week.
i noticed a kudos for the editor from "WS." isn't he usually "mr grumpypants"?
lots of three letter words. ugh!
what happened to LMS? i've been away for a while and have not seen her post lately. indeed, was hoping to hear her comments on "a while" vs "awhile."
If this garbage made the cut, I would hate to see what gets rejected. When I got to number four, I had had enough. I think a first-time solver would be just as likely to give up puzzling forever as to enjoy any part of this.
@merican, "needs some work"? It's already ten times more creative than this dreck. Thanks for that.
Annabel,
I always like your reviews. I loved your comment about Rosh Hashannah and the return to the 80s. Good luck with your internship!
@American in Paris. Thumbs up, though your Thoreau pronunciation needs work based on the Concordian discussion last week.
@Nancy in NY. No shag is not an F bomb. It is just shagging.
@GILL I:
Then you get to a SQUARE ROOT puzzle and it takes me back to math in high school.
Then you must be a geezer just like me; square roots are now taught to elem kids.
EXACTO doesn't have to be paired with anything, if clued correctly: craft knife.
Repeating my missive from last week - seems like some should skip the Monday puzzle.
I thought it was darn clever.
@RMK Not so! Wind-and-brass ensembles, which don’t feature any strings at all, also have concertmasters. Yes, such groups are more often referred to as “bands,” but some do call themselves “orchestras.”
Like @Sir H. I felt that if you’re going to have a clue 64, you have to tie it in. But I noticed that the constructor had given himself an ESCape—I figure you can do that once in any given puzzle.
I felt FOREST FLOOR should be themish as well. I mean, you can imagine that water OOZES around those SQUARE ROOTS down there, but that’s quite a stretch.
EXACTO is a sharp answer, though.
Huge fan of this puzzle. My jaw dropped when I got to the revealer and realized that the down answers were the square root of the clues! I was in awe of the construction, and the solve wasn’t that bad either although extremely fast even for someone like me. A surprisingly delightful Monday.
This must’ve been misplaced. It belongs on a supplement for middle schoolers. Square roots - come on. The rest was even easier. No challenge, just a waste of (very little) time. Perhaps not so easy to construct but not a good excuse.
I thought this was an awful Monday. Seven of the downs plus SQUAREROOT were just complete gimmes that required no thought.
It seemed like a feat of construction putting the numbers at the right downs but feats of construction don't impress non-constructors.
I thought I'd set a new record during the puzzle but surprisingly would have been 30s over even if I'd spelled EAZYE right and was a minute over after hunting that down.
Why come up with these boring themes? So you can make an even more boring puzzle.
I didn't understand the theme until I'd finished. Yes, as someone suggested, those theme clues looked like Greek to me. I just ignored them as the fill was so EAZY even for a Monday. Once I noticed that the themes were just single digits in numerical order the solve got even faster.
My only speed bumps were BOUNCE/PRANCE, EASY/EAZY, a minor SOLILOQUY spelling issue and briefly wondering what FTS stood for. Between math and basketball it's hard to say which is less interesting to me.
"Yeah, I shagged her. I shagged her rotten." Austin Powers
Another Catan strategy: settle on the ore and wheat, then city up immediately. It throws people off.
Square root of 64 = E.N. = Eight Notincluded. QED.
Congratz to Annabel, and good luck in "The Swamp". Nice job, on the write-up + bullets.
32 weejects! Now that's what M&A's talkin about! Kinda re-adjusts the weeject count average, after that zero-weeject SatPuz (yo, @mathgent).
staff weeject pick: FTS. Hard not to look at that pup as some sorta weirdo measurement, like SQ. FTS. (yo, @Roo)
BTW: Is that PCS clue really accurate? M&A thought that TRS-80, Commodore, and Apple II did more pioneerin in that there PC-area, than did IBM. Mainframes-forever IBM just sorta jumped in, after in saw the PC market succeedin … right?
fave fillins included: 32 weejects. SOLILOQUY. FORESTFLOOR. AEROSOLS. GURUS. EAZYE (speakin of which …)
fave moo-cow eazy-E MonPuz clue: {Leaning Tower city} = PISA.
Thanx for all the rootin around, Mr. King. And congratz on yer #2 NYTPuz.
Masked & Anonym007Us
**gruntz**
The knife is X-Acto.
Just another damned example of the ruination of humanity by Norman Vincent Peale - the relentless pursuit of positivity. Let's all just lah-di-dah our way through life, ignoring the demonstrably negative aspects of the shit-storm we're experiencing as 2010s draw to a close. The Russians are claiming vindication over their poisoning of Sergei Skripal because Trump believes their denial, and we're all supposed to find some positive in that, as we must in all things. Now, the mathematically ignorant NYTimes xword puzzle insists that all square roots are positive, because every thing must be positive. The fact that -2*-2 = 4, making -2 one of the two square roots of 4 doesn't matter, facts don't matter. Nothing matters if negativity can possibly be attached to it.
It would take someone, even an ass such as myself, to change 7D to MINUS, and clue it as "Something that may or may not be missing from 1D, 2D, 4D, ...", but no we can't allow the possibility of something negative impinging on our psyches.
Oh well...
The concertmasterless Sun Ra Arkestra.
This was a good puzzle for a first-time solver, I thought. And as an experienced solver I admired how the roots were matched to their appropriately numbered "squares" in the grid. Maybe too many short answers, but some good longer ones: ARSONIST, VIOLINIST, THORAX, LENSCAP, SOLILOQUY – oh no, what if it's a girl?!
Having "to the nth degree and "remove from power" in the cluing was cute. I wanted the answer to the latter to be: ASAP.
(My links aren't working in preview mode for some reason so I'm testing what happens when I publish...)
No dice. I had linked a clip of the Sun Ra Arkestra and the "Soliloquy" from "Carousel".
I am a huge fan of Breaking Bad. I always thought that the 2nd to last episode, which was called Ozymandias, was the greatest television episode of all time.
Now I see that the poem is a spot on description of our protagonist in his last days. Thanks, Z, for helping me realize that.
@Nancy, I seem to recall that when the Austin Powers movie, "The Spy Who Shagged Me" came out in England, they could only show a redacted name on theater marquees. Whereas, I was in Iceland a week ago and they played some rap music on the radio with the mofo and N words unexcised, things you would NEVER hear on the radio here. I can't say that I found it a refreshing change. Though I find it ridiculous the way some songs have been "cleaned up" for radio by bleeping the bad words; it's blatantly obvious what the bleeped word is so whose sensibilities are being assuaged by that?
I forgot to put down my start time so I have no idea if this was easy for me or not. It didn't feel like it was moving all that fast, not sure why. EXACTO saved me from misspelling SOLILOQUY - I wanted two I's as the middle vowels.
@amyyanni, congrats on the AG win. I did the 10 Mile race and found it quite challenging as I didn't train for it very much due to a cycling knee injury. I was not envying you marathoners at all! A great day for a race, though.
And congrats to Anabel on the internship and to Keiran King on his sophomore puzzle.
EAZY puzzle with the most boring theme ever! (Though I do appreciate that it was hard to put together.) Didn't notice half the threes, getting them filled in on crosses. There were some nice longer answers thankfully.
The square root symbol as used in the clues always refers to the nonnegative square root.
Re Joe Dipinto @ 12:31 PM,
In addition to having "to the nth degree" and "remove from power" we also had "Austin Powers".
Kind of cute.
@Nancy. A lot of the British side of the family here use "Bloody Hell" all the time. It's almost like " OH MY DEAR GOD..." They would Never Ever utter SHAG. If you said something like" I just had a nice little SHAG with my wife last night" you'd most likely get a kidney pie thrown at your face.
@Anon 4:17 ??? Maybe some platforms, but not the paper, nor .puz
@Hank – oh yeah, missed that one. It would've been funny if they'd worked in a couple of other references -- power lunch, power nap, power tie...
Eeyore is an ass. @Southside Johnny: how is putting someone in a crossword paying homage? No-one mentioned THORAX & THOREAU. BTW, is putting left-winger REINER in the puzzle paying homage to him?
@M&A:
M&A thought that TRS-80, Commodore, and Apple II did more pioneerin in that there PC-area, than did IBM. Mainframes-forever IBM just sorta jumped in, after in saw the PC market succeedin … right?
It's late, so likely no one will see this, but all of the above made these machines with Other People's Parts. For IBM that was a break from before; they made nearly everything they sold from scratch much as a baker starts with flour, water, yeast, etc. The others never did anything more than (buy it in Apple's case) assembly.
I get these puzzles six weeks late, but wanted to say that I enjoyed the artistry of getting all the square roots are to the right positions.
I just finished reading the book the over story. In it, the forest floor is referred to as the understory. Another nice phrase. Aunt Nancy, in a story similar to yours about bloody, I saw a man turn bright red when someoneShowed off her Yiddish with the word schmuck.
Once again having to plow through "Older posts" several times because the syndilink was still on Sunday (grr!), I implore the appropriate entity to WAKE UP AND SMELL THE COFFEE!
At least it was worth it this time for an excellent Monday. No great shakes to suss out the theme (hence Monday), but at least it wasn't immediately obvious what was going on. My paper has a tough time with printing symbols. Alas, 64 doesn't have a down! However, it does contain the letter E: first letter of EIGHT!
Primo Q crossing: SOLILOQUY with SQUAREROOT. That alone was worth the price. A close second is SIX/THORAX. Add to that a Z in the EXACTO center square--even if it does take a rapper--and we have a Scrabble-rich yet unforced grid. Issa Rae gets a DOD curtain call. Sorry, I can't give an eagle to a rapper-infested puzzle, but a tap-in birdie for sure.
OLD OAKS ODES
LET THOREAU DIRECT a SOLILOQUY,
ORE TWO, ORE THREE, ORE FOUR,
to FINESSE ROMANTIC reverie
on OUR SERENE FORESTFLOOR.
--- ROD REINER
note: did not OPT to use SHAGS, LAY, ERECT, OOZES, etc.
All of my uncles, even the ones that married in to the family, came out of the service after WWII ranked as some level of SGT or the naval equivalent. My dad came back as a Staff SGT at age 19! And even uncle Merlin, probably FIVE or SIX years older than Dad, a nice guy but not particularly bright, came back as a regular THREE striper. I've been told that the rapid promotions were due to the high number of casualties. Something to consider as we recognize Veteran's Day.
Nice bit of constructioneering with the SQUAREROOTS and all.
Fairly easy and apt Monday. Or is it ept? Eh?
@Rainy - from last week - you may have had that (Friday) treat under another name. Italian ice? Sow cones? Choose your syrup and enjoy.
Diana, Lady-in-Waiting for Crosswords and real Ice Cream
Clever and disingenuously idyllic, @Burma Shave, spiced by the note and citation of ROD.
Oops. @Rainy, that's SNOW cones. Not sow cones. shhsh
Diana, the fat-fingered typist
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