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Treasured strings crossword4/6/2023 ![]() Finally, thinking about Dana Carvey doing his impressions of PEROT on SNL made me laugh out loud. And I absolutely loved, as it made me feel smart to know a piece of esoteric trivia. plays on the "man's man" phrase with amusing results. led me to think about YSL, IZOD, etc., but it's the simple SEW. Misdirectional clues are my personal favorite, especially ones which don't have the giveaway question mark. It's like when Brendan Emmitt Quigley debuted WHAT THE. It's awfully difficult to get your shorter entries to shine, but OK BUT is fantastic. ![]() CALVIN AND HOBBES, RETROVIRUS, WIFESWAP, SKYBOX SEATS, PROTEST VOTE, BELT SANDER, MELON BALLS, RACE CARD, HOW DARE YOU! Need I say more? No, but I will. This gives me the perfect opportunity to lay out what I personally look for in a Saturday puzzle.ġ.) Sparkling entries. But as a crossword entry, I love it - it's a contemporary and somewhat edgy phrase.Īn absolute beauty from Evan, exactly on my personal wavelength, giving me everything I want out of a Saturday puzzle. It's always struck me as a term that allows those who use it to ignore the very real impact of racism in the present day. For all I know, there's some constructor out there who got a puzzle accepted with HOW DARE YOU in it, and now they're gnashing their teeth about that!įinally, for various reasons, I usually hate it when people say "Gosh, why did so-and-so have to play the RACE CARD" in normal conversation. Still, I don't think solvers will mind having seen CALVIN AND HOBBES recently in the Times, and besides, other publications have used it as a marquee answer as well. ![]() ![]() It's just part of the business, and it's partly what motivated me to go independent with my own crossword website, where I can publish my work right away. But the long wait time between acceptance and publication means that sometimes other constructors can beat you to the punch on marquee answers or themes while you wait. Silk, who scooped me on ANYONE ELSE on August 2, 2013. That little hissy fit wasn't directed at Ian - he didn't do anything wrong, of course. My wife can confirm that I blurted out "Oh, son of a b****!" when I cracked that answer - he beat me to debuting CALVIN AND HOBBES in the Times (it's only the best comic strip of all time, and I won't hear any other suggestions otherwise). I enjoyed solving Ian Livengood's excellent puzzle from December 27 of last year, but look at 8-Down from that grid. I'm thrilled to get another Saturday slot, but due to a little bad luck, this puzzle's appearance in the Times is actually slightly bittersweet for me. Constructors, take note: I asked Will if he would accept SNES (the initialism for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System), which would take the place of SNIT and thus make A WAR unnecessary (as shown in this fill), but he said that SNES would be a "near puzzle-killer." Me, I like the Super Nintendo, though I can see why it might not fly well for the Times. A WAR is hardly the worst answer one can have in a puzzle, but I look at it now and I wish I could swap that out with something else. I'm glad with how relatively clean it turned out, though I've found that as I've built more puzzles in the last year, I've developed a pretty nasty aversion to partial phrases.
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