Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
THEME: NIMBUS / CLOUDS (1A: With 7-Across, sources of the circled words) — RAIN comes down in four different circled areas from the NIMBUS CLOUDS at the top of the grid to the PITTER PATTER at the bottom (63A: With 64-Across, sound of the circled words)
Word of the Day: Paul DIRAC (11D: 1933 Physics Nobelist Paul) —
Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac, OM, FRS (8 August 1902 – 20 October 1984) was an English theoretical physicist who made fundamental contributions to the early development of both quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics. He held the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge and spent the last fourteen years of his life at Florida State University. // Among other discoveries, he formulated the Dirac equation, which describes the behaviour of fermions, and predicted the existence of antimatter. // Dirac shared the Nobel Prize in physics for 1933 with Erwin Schrödinger, "for the discovery of new productive forms of atomic theory."
• • •
A lovely little puzzle that felt Monday-easy, though my time says it's pretty much in line with Tuesday. A bit put off at first by the circles (grrr...) and the impossible-to-get-without-crosses clue at 1-Across, but once I got going, and especially once I reached the PITTER PATTER, I had to admire the 
tight theme concept and elegant simplicity with which it was executed. An especially nice puzzle to solve on a rainy Tuesday morning. Solving at 5:15 a.m. has its drawbacks, namely a fine mental haze, so I was slow(ish) to pick up NIMBUS (""NIM..."?? What starts "NIM-!?" Something must be wrong"), but once I did, I went and immediately filled in RAIN in all the circled squares. This led me to believe I was going to have a record Tuesday time. I wasn't even close (see "fine mental haze," above), though the puzzle felt somewhat easier than average. My one hang-up came in the SW, where I wrote in TANS and TOKEN, which brought my quick forward progress to a crashing halt. Actual answers: SUNS (47A: Lies on the beach) and SCRIP (47D: Money substitute).Obviously I do not care for the ADORNER (16A: Decorator) who RETABLEs (39A: Postpone again) the Z-BAR (34D: Letter-shaped beam, my most hated of clues!) , but that stuff seems fairly overlookable, given the final result.
Bullets:
- 24A: Item for a guitarist or a prospector (PICK) — cute clue
37A: Golden State athlete (WARRIOR) — yesterday, Chris Mullin was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. He was a Golden State WARRIOR as well as a 5-time NBA ALL-STAR (love that those answer are paired with one another)- 51A: When Caesar is told to beware (ACT I) — I guess this was supposed to make me think IDES, but I had other problems down there (as I mentioned above).
- 6D: Spaghetti makers' implements (STRAINERS) — true enough.
- 23D: Neaten, as shirts at a men's store (REFOLD) — what you do before you RETABLE the shirt.
- 2D: Polo alternative (IZOD) — the shirt, not the sport.
- 45D: Biblical landfall (ARARAT) — Noah et al. "Landfall" is correct but sounds weird to my ears, conjuring up images of falling rocks ... while sounding like WINDFALL, which I guess ARARAT was, also, kind of.
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]
No comments:
Post a Comment