Faithful, to a Scot

There have only been four Damon J. Gulczynski puzzles at the Times but each has some kind of clever twist. Today's Thursday, August 14 puzzle (answers) has ten clues with two different answers each. You can include all the letters or not, he doesn't care. Either works.

The notepad reads: "When this puzzle is done, unscramble the five circled letters to find out how the circles could have been left with the puzzle's solution still being correct." When you anagramize the circled letters, you get the helpful word YTPME. I'm kidding.

The notepad was overly specific, I think. As soon as I read it, I thought empty must be correct and the theme was obvious. I really should learn to attempt the puzzle first and read the notepad later. Still, it's a clever theme and a remarkable accomplishment.

Calling Mary's husband JOEY amused me. "Hey, Joey, that kid in the manger. He don't look much like you, Joey. Know what I'm sayin'?"

There were some tough spots in this one, mostly in the middle right part of the grid. I have no idea who MIKE is. "One of a candy box duo," apparently. Is this an M of M & M? "Making necessary" is an absolutely accurate clue for ENTAILING but it didn't come easily to me. LLANOS appeared a couple of months ago but hadn't stuck in my brain.

Then there's "faithful, to a Scot" which turns out to be LEAL. I wonder sometimes if Robbie Burns was authentically trying to capture the lilting highland sounds of his native land, or if he just couldn't spell to save his life and now everyone in a kilt emulates his errors. I realize this is blasphemy.

64 Down is "Reconstruction, e.g." and the answer is ERA. This continues to be the single most common answer word, appearing 321 times in the Shortz, uh, era. It's only the second time Reconstruction is in the clue, though. The first was the very first appearance of that answer back in January 1994, so they make nice bookends now. Reconstruction refers to cleaning up the mess after the American Civil War.

On the other end of the scale, OCREA makes its debut today, clued as "papery sheath on a plant stem." I'm never going to remember that. Maybe the image here will help.

Comments

[PhillySolver]

Very impressive and I loved the results. Damon is an excellent Scrabble player it seems and must have more of these up his sleeve. I hope he tells which ones didn't make the cut. As to solving, it wasn't so much fun for me. The Southwest was a major struggle and I had a typo which made it worse. I resorted to typing in wild guesses to get anywhere. At ten minutes I was 2/3 done and then took another 18 to finish. GIT OCREA LLANOS - must learn these in context.

[joon]

jim, here is an explanation of MIKE (and for that matter, IKE).

this theme was insanely clever. i didn't read the notepad, and i solved the puzzle while noticing that the there didn't seem to be much of a theme. then i noticed the circled squares (occasionally--usually on sundays--my blindness to circles in the grid costs me) and that they were basically EMPTY. i read the notepad and was pretty wowed.

ironically i did think to myself while solving, "is this AMEND or EMEND?" MEND did not cross my mind, because crossword solving trains you so rigorously to think only of words of the correct length. (actually, before i started the puzzle i warned myself to be on the lookout for a rebus, because we hadn't seen one in a while (and still haven't) and thursday is the natural habitat of the rebus beast.)

[karmaSartre]

I never saw the Notepad; I filled in the circles. Pretty clever in retrospect, especially when you consider four words are involved with each circle. Had no idea what Joey referred to, or Mike, but the crosses were pretty straightforward. Was/is EBONICS prominent? My papery sheath knowledge is very limited, much better at leathery ones. Never heard of JACKAL used that way. Lots of educational opportunities today.

[Orange]

In the applet, seeing the Notepad explanation/hint wasn't an option—not even an abbreviated version of it appeared there.

[ArtLvr]

I guess it took me about as long as PhillySolver to finish -- and I still didn't know what the circled squares meant, with no Notepad hint. Did I even see the anagram? No, and I enjoy Scrabble too. Brilliant gimmick for the theme...

My most distracting error was wanting "requiring" for ENTAILING, which "was making necessary" much erasure as LEAL and TSO and the rest of the crosses appeared as I worked upward. Now I realy know TSO, having tasted some two days ago for the first time -- it was only so-so. TSK.

I'm glad I've been doing these puzzles online for several months now -- ARLO and EULER, etc. have become first choices, even with odd clues i.e. too vague for the former and too specific for the latter.

However, I had to think a few seconds to grasp ETS = [Uranians, e.g. in brief]. Something about switching wavelengths from classics like Thor and "Goddess in the hand of Athena's statue" to SciFi slowed me down.

Thanks to Jim and joon for all the help! I don't think I've ever run across Mike and Ike candies.... Sounds as if I'd like them!

[ArtLvr]

p.s. @ karmasartre -- Very funny, "My papery sheath knowledge is very limited..." My sentiments exactly. Will we recall this OCREA in a future puz?

∑;)

[mr.weever]

you may have discovered this by now, but it is mike as in "mike & ike" candy.

[mr.weever]

sorry, should have finished reading your blog.

[Lee]

you cats need to try some mike & ikes...tasty candy