Fifteen-year-old Caleb Madison is back and his Thursday, September 11 puzzle (answers) has a bit of everything. There are circles, rebus squares, an odd-looking grid, a long answer split across two clues, and a connect-the-dots game to play when you're done. Only KITCHEN SINK seems to be missing.
Poor ELAINE MAY gets tagged as the director of Ishtar again. That colossal box office failure in 1987 ended her directing career. Perhaps future constructors could take pity on a remarkably talented woman and find some kinder clue in the future.
The rebus answers seem to be particularly well executed today, especially the middle and bottom ones. You have to look at them twice to convince your brain that they make sense. Bravo.
We had VLAD the Impaler yesterday and VAMPIRE BAT today. Dracula has certainly been a successful meme. The Bram Stoker novel is great fun to read, especially if you remember it was the progenitor of everything from Anne Rice to Buffy. In case you missed it, I have to mention KarmaSartre's wonderful comment on yesterday's post: "I always thought VLAD would make a good personalized license plate on a Chevy Impala."
It's nice to see IRENE Adler get a mention. Here are my other favorites: "They might be chocolate" for LABS, "Like some six-packs" for ABDOMINAL, and "Yellow squirt" for MUSTARD.
As I mentioned, I'm working on a couple of interviews so I'm not sure if there's going to be a post tomorrow. The next interview will run Friday evening for the Saturday puzzle, and the other will follow soon after.
