Wednesday, April 11, 2018

Wednesday, April 11, 2018, Keiran King


What a very odd theme today! Four classic musical works cross-referenced with two or three words that, when spoken together, rhyme with the name of their composers. As in, the BARBEROFSEVILLE by ROWE SCENE KNEE (Rossini), or CANONIND by PACK ELLE BELL (Pachelbel). Two other classics round it out, and I am especially happy to see SHOW PAN in there, because, as I said a few days ago, my father has started doing the puzzles, and I do not think of or hear a Chopin NOCTURNE without thinking of him and his playing of them on the upright in our house while I was growing up. (Hi Dad!)

So... I guess I like the theme. It's musical and it's ridiculous - two good things. But there sure is a lot of it! How did the rest of the puzzle turn out? Well, let's talk right away about PEE, shall we? (Sorry, Dad!) I am usually a fan of these tricky clues (like last week's somewhat controversial "Need for making soap from sap" (ANO)). Today, however, the clue "23A: What makes ale pale?" is clever and funny, but I still have a little anxiety thinking about a PEE in my ale. Too much?

I love the trivia in 55A: One of 14 lands neighboring China (LAOS) and 32A: Grp. that once plotted against Fidel Castro (CIA), and we thought for a moment that a new clue for EEL had been created (59A: Prey for a barracuda), but I checked over on and found that this is the second time this clue has appeared. And speaking of xwordinfo (Hi Jeff!), you might enjoy perusing the list of prior EEL uses in the NYTX.

Overall, I like the whole tone of this. The clues are uniformly good, there's very little junk, and it's even polite! (40D: Word of good manners (THANKS)). It is, in my opinion, a very good debut puzzle!

- Horace


  1. 4:12
    Love the theme. How patently absurd to sound out the composers' names in homophones. My only complaint is that Rossini's work, Pachelbel's work, and Beethoven's work are all specific examples. While a NOCTURNE is often likely to be by Chopin, there are plenty of very famous nocturnes by other composers (I think of Debussy and Britten as quick examples). I guess that's a victim of symmetry.

    But it's a lovely grid and very smooth. Nice work, Mr. King!

  2. 44:30
    I really wanted 23 across to be WATER, and then I was hoping that somehow it would be PEA. Alas, now I know. GAH! Tool for tilling and tool for telling were fun clues. CANONIND ... GAH again!

  3. 7:25
    Any music-themed puzzle gets a thumbs-up from this quarter. To add to the above, AORTA is nicely-clued despite the question mark (which may actually be needed in this case), and I always enjoy thinking of VINOS. I didn't know about the homophone representations of composer names in the grid until I read Horace's review, but that's pretty nice. It would have been better had the components crossed the song names/type, but we can't have it all, can we? For once, I wasn't MISLED for a second on PEE, and who doesn't love a VENN diagram? Rare Wednesday that I finished faster than the Tuesday offering. SURVEIL is a nice word, and who else thought that the clue for BOBA Fett was several words too long?

  4. 11:42 (fast to typical for Wednesday).

    Broadcast TV is something I haven't thought of in some time, but I'm told a lot of people watch channel TWO and the others. Don't remember POOH in a puzzle before but xwordinfo says it has been used moderately often.

    Nice puzzle, surprisingly free of dubious answers considering the theme density (obviously, letting the downs be anywhere helps, but even so...)