Constructor: Luke Vaughn
Relative difficulty: Easy
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THEME: Sketchy — Theme answers are related to drawing.
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Bullets:
Signed, August Thompson, tired graduate student.
Relative difficulty: Easy
THEME: Sketchy — Theme answers are related to drawing.
Theme answers:
Word of the Day: Taro (63A: Root used in making poi) —
The theme was cool, a typical Monday theme. I like that it evokes the sketchy early stages of art specifically. I took two art classes in college, but I still can't draw very well. Here's my final project for my figure drawing class!
- GOLDENDOODLE (20A: Popular dog crossbreed)
- LEAVE NO TRACE (27A: Have an invisible footprint)
- FIVE CARD DRAW (46A: One version of poker)
- COMEDY SKETCH (55A: "SNL" offering)
Word of the Day: Taro (63A: Root used in making poi) —
Colocasia esculenta is a tropical plant grown primarily for its edible corms, a root vegetable most commonly known as taro (/ˈtɑːroʊ, ˈtæroʊ/), or kalo (see §Names and etymology for an extensive list). It is the most widely cultivated species of several plants in the family Araceae that are used as vegetables for their corms, leaves, and petioles. Taro corms are a food staple in African, Oceanic, and South Asian cultures (similar to yams), and taro is believed to have been one of the earliest cultivated plants.
(Wikipedia)
• • •
It's August Monday once again! In November this time. (Am I going to make that joke every month? Probably.) Honestly I wasn't blown away by this one, as you can probably see by the fact that I wasn't really able to find a good word of the day. It was definitely a solid introduction-to-crosswords kind of Monday, no Naticks or tough crosses, but on the other hand the clues and fill were just kinda...blah. It's kind of cool that the constructor had dogs on the brain though. We had SPEAK, STAY, GOLDENDOODLE...and goldendoodles are so cute! I thought for sure it would be LABRADOODLE but that didn't quite fit. The theme was cool, a typical Monday theme. I like that it evokes the sketchy early stages of art specifically. I took two art classes in college, but I still can't draw very well. Here's my final project for my figure drawing class!
Bullets:
- RAP (60D: Genre for Megan Thee Stallion) — Change that R to a W and you could still have a Megan Thee Stallion related clue, but I don't think Will Shortz would be okay with printing it. WAP is a great song though.
- IAMB (18A: Poetic foot with a short and a long syllable) — Do we have any sonnet writers or other kinds of poets in CrossWorld? I used to write a ton of sonnets in iambic pentameter. I've moved on to free verse, but I did some pretty good sonnetteering back in the day. Not to toot my own iamb or anything.
- ESSAY (36A: Part of a test that may produce a hand cramp) — I don't want to jinx anything but so far my essay assignments for library school have all been really cool! Our most recent one was to research different libraries/archival institutions and look into how they're handling the pandemic. I also wrote a paper where I got to interview an archivist friend of mine and ask her about her career. Who knew learning about libraries could be so interesting? ....I knew, that's why I went into this field. :P
- WAYNE (64A: "Party on, ___!""Party on, Garth.") — A little WW scene to start your Monday.
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