SethG here, subbing for the vacationing JimH. Jim's off for a coupla days on what he called his "dream trip of a lifetime", a whirlwind tour of European landmarks avec parachute. As I understand it, he and the boys will climb up and jump down from the Eiffel Tower, the Tower of Pisa, the white cliffs of Dover, Ostankino Tower, and the Trevi fountain. Have a great time, Jim!
It's pretty obvious at first glance that there's something a bit odd (but very cool) about the Thursday, June 19 puzzle (answers) by Joe Krozel. The grid appears to have only 360-degree rotational symmetry, and the black squares spell the word LIES. I saw it, thought "Thursday! This is gonna get weird...", and dug right in.
So while I knew Fe-as-in-Ferrous means "iron", I wasn't too surprised when Mother TERESA made it obvious that the answer was NEON. After that, I just sat back and enjoyed the ride. Father of Jacob? Enter something biblical. Standard office-closing time? Must end in AM. Tennis champ Ernie ELS? Well, only if Andre AGASSI can play golf. I especially liked the inclusion of my favorite Romanian and yours, Ion ILIESCU.
After I finished I went through the puzzle to see if there actually were TEN factual inaccuracies. I counted nine, figured TEN was the TENth, and couldn't decide whether that seemed fair or not within the puzzle's internal logic. It only occurred to me as I was writing this up that I'd missed 1. 1A, that is—OTTO von Bismarck ain't French.
I'm fairly new to every-single-day puzzling, but something about this seemed familiar. And I finally figured out what—check out Jim's entry about one of his favorite puzzles, and you'll see what I mean.
Finally, any excuse for a clip is a good excuse for a clip here at The JimH Crossword Blog. Enjoy some classic SNL, and I'll see you once more tomorrow.
