![]() ![]() This is at least the third time one of my puzzles has come out on one of our retreat weekends, so it’s basically a tradition at this point! Happy July! I’m on a retreat with my a-cappella group this weekend. I always thought that REDDIWIP had that contorted name because of legal loopholes (because it wasn’t really whipped cream, something like that) but that seems to be my own propaganda. There’s a 1963 song by Johnny Thunder that uses “de” rather than “the” there is also a Hanna-Barbera cartoon character of the same vintage, a French Canadian wolf (lupine, get it?) who goes by “ Loopy de Loop.”ģ1D: You can probably vaguely picture the can, but the misspellings are tricky. There’s a 1926 silent film with this title, which is neat if you think of ERROL Flynn at 42D, even though the clue refers to the modern director (and Errol Flynn debuted in talkies, I think, a few years later).ġ5D: Straight down the middle today, I love the surprise of “de” in LOOP DE LOOP, versus “loop the loop,” which has been in the puzzle before. From shrinking wetlands comes the endangered BOG TURTLE, which rarely grows bigger than four inches in length.ģ0A: Only because I like to make these connections - isn’t it nice to have PAPYRI, which are covered in hieroglyphics, near EMOJI KEYBOARD? What goes around comes around.ĥ0A: I’m far more familiar with “tin-pot” dictators than TIN GODS, a term that sounds quaint (and seems to have been most popular in the 1800s, in political coverage and a Rudyard Kipling poem). (“Don’t make me laugh!” OK, here’s an inflation joke.) I tried to jam a bunch of put-downs into this spot before GOSH NO filled in, which sounds like something Beaver Cleaver might say.ġ8A: This cute little thing is a debut, and might be a cute little misdirect too, if you got LAILA ALI first and thought of a “box turtle,” natch (box turtles don’t box, by the way, the box refers to a defensive maneuver). This is a good example: “Don’t make me laugh!” sounds scornful, like what you’d tell someone offering you less than five times what you’re trying to sell your old Honda for. The double-entendres are great: “ High branch,” “ Diamonds” and “ Green party” are lovely, and the reference to raiders stumped me.ħA: Sometimes these conversational entries are harder to deduce than new-to-me trivia. I think of puzzles like this as congenial, even though they’re difficult, because even when an entry is frustratingly hard to pin down it turns out to be good fun. (Check his notes for more offerings, many of them tough as nails.) This puzzle is typically challenging and creative - with thrills, chills, and references to both newsprint and the proletariat. On the other hand, Ryan McCarty has been exclusive to Saturdays for a couple of years now - in The Times at least. I like the second bit and I like to think that the solving thrill of those six long-crossing entries in the center, four of them debuts, is the kind of thing that Saturday solvers can have to themselves, even though I know it’s not true. SATURDAY PUZZLE - This grid reminds me of yesterday’s themeless, rotated and with its middle filled in. ![]()
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