Here at the xwordblog, one can always find hope. When I looked at the clue, “Hope can always be found here” I was determined not to get fooled by the old capitalized-first-word trick. Hope had to be Bob Hope who was found at, say, USO SHOWS I suppose, an answer that quickly proved to be hopeless. When I finally remembered that “The man from Hope” hailed from Arkansas I had to admit that Byron Walden had got me to fool myself. Saturday’s are made for such shenanigans and the August 16 puzzle (answers) is a fine example.
So, the hoisted of “hoisted quaffs” is an adjective, not a verb, and the answer is, I can hardly believe this, TALL ONES. “Columbus’s flagship” didn’t have the right letter count for any of those famous vessels but Columbus is a municipality making the answer OHIO STATE. (There you go, John Ludwig!) Similarly evil, “company retirement asset” had to do with visitors going to bed on a SLEEP SOFA. I’ll never understand how people can come up with these diabolical clues.
“Violinists’ productions” turns out to be HARMONIC TONES. Other stringed instruments, guitars for example, can do this same trick. Lightly press your finger down on the string just where the node of the harmonic you want is at a minimum and you get an eerie, high-pitched sound. Wind players can produce harmonics by blowing harder.
Do you need “protection from someone on the run?” No, you need a SKI PARKA to protect you while you’re on the ski run.
The first answer I wrote in was Greta SCACCHI. I’m fond of Altman films in general and The Player in particular. It appeals to my cynical side.
