SURPRISE ANNABEL MONDAY!!!! Sorry I was sick last week (don't worry, it wasn't that FOUL, I'm fine!) but I'm back.
Constructor: Pawel Fludzinski
Relative difficulty: Medium
THEME: QTs— Theme answers were two words, one starting with Q and the other starting with T.
Theme answers:
- QUALITY TIME (18A: Period of undivided attention, as with a spouse or child)
- QUANTUM THEORY (32A: Noted Max Planck contribution to physics)
- QUICK THINKING (39A: Skill useful for handling an emergency)
- QUARTER TONE (57A: 1/24 of an answer)
- CUTIES (61A: Babies (aww...) ...or an aural hint to 18-, 32-, 39-, and 57-Across
Word of the Day: BOIS (56D: ____ de Boulogne (Parisian park) ) —
The Bois de Boulogne (French pronunciation: [bwa.d(ə).bu.lɔɲ]) is a large public park located along the western edge of the 16th arrondissement of Paris, near the suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt andNeuilly-sur-Seine It was created between 1852 and 1858 during the reign of the Emperor Louis Napoleon.[1]It is the second-largest park in Paris, slightly smaller than the Bois de Vincennes on the eastern side of the city. It covers an area of 845 hectares (2090 acres)[2] which is about two and a half times the area of Central Park in New York and slightly less (88%) than that of Richmond Park in London.
• • •
(Wikipedia)
So, what was it about the Across clues for this puzzle? I was afraid this puzzle would take me AGES, because I only got six of them at first. I'm guessing Down-only solvers had a good time this week; the Down clues weren't so bad. Fill was decent other than that initial difficulty; my only complaint was that, while I love Portman, they could've come up with a more original clue for NATALIE. I love when the puzzle seems like the constructor seemed like they had a few things in particular on their mind; in this case, music (ASSAI, QUARTER TONE, and INTROS) and French (GENET, BOIS, NÉE, and -ETTE). French music maybe? Like this classic piece:(Wikipedia)
The theme was, well, cute! It took me a couple clues to pick up on, which was nice. I think I'm not alone in first seeing QUARTER NOTE where I should have seen QUARTER TONE, which is a bummer because I've always thought about myself as knowing at least some things about music, as well as making me CONFUSED about the rest of the theme ("Maybe the T just has to be a part of the second word!"). I like looking back on the puzzle and seeing CUE and IQS. I think
Anyway, speaking of cuties, remember that dog my mom got to replace me? Well................
Bullets:
- GIANT SQUID (3D: Creature that attacked the Nautilus in "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea") — Can we just pause to talk about how cool giant squid are?!? Their eyes are the size of a human head, they grow up to 43 feet long, and in Googling them I just found out two years ago scientists actually captured video of a live one and basically I'm losing it right now here's the video!!!
- EBENEZER (55A: Mr. Scrooge) — Did anyone else used to get absolutely terrified by A Christmas Carol? When I was little, every time it came on TV I would sort of pretend to be brave and enjoy the film when in actuality I was trembling because I knew the Ghost of Christmas Future could show up at any moment. He was so creepy! He didn't even have a face! What was he doing hanging out with the nice ghosts like the sweet young lady and the guy with the beard? You know what, I bet he didn't hang out with them. I bet he just sat off by himself somewhere, staring off into the distance and listening to sludge metal. What a jerk.
- FRAU (21D: Mrs. in Munich) — No words, just:
- NASA (10A: Curiosity rover launcher) — Alright I'm ending this article now after seeing this clue because I can feel a geeky pagelong tirade about how much I loved The Martian coming on. (Maybe I'll leave one in the comments later? It's just a really good movie please watch it)
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