Greetings, Gentle Reader. I mean, S'UP DOG?
Here's the best part of this puzzle. Next time I lose my glasses, I can refer to 137 Across which tells me exactly where to find them. What a useful crossword!
When you bring together two A-List constructors like Mike Nothnagel and David Quarfoot for a Sunday puzzle, you expect something special is going to happen. Sure enough. The July 27 puzzle Going Every Which Way (answers) is a doozy. I found it considerably trickier than a typical Sunday but eventually possible and very satisfying. It introduces 28 new answer words to my database!
This is their third collaboration. You can see the set in miniature here. I don't want to say too much about today's gimmick because if you came here looking for help I want to encourage you to go back and try again on your own. I'll tell you what. I'll give you a few pointers and then you keep plugging away. If you really get stuck, the answers link above reveals all. As usual on Sundays, the title contains a key clue. (How often do you forget to check that before getting most of the way through a NYT Large?)
Some of my problems came because I wasn't paying close attention. In Wagner, Tristan loved Isolde but depending on your source sometimes it's sometimes Tristram and, as in today's puzzle, ISEULT. Bug is a not a verb but a noun, a VW BEETLE.
The Orcmeister's full name is John Ronald REUEL Tolkien. Who knew? The Unesco World Heritage Site in Jordan is PETRA. The choice word isn't ELSE but rather EENY.
My favorite clue is "result of pulling the plug." It's a great definition for EDDY. Does it really spin the other way if you pull that plug from the southern hemisphere? Why, yes it does.
I've been intrigued with the collection of answers which only appear in a single puzzle. Many of these unique words are wacky theme entries but some of them are surprising. I've added two new pages to my stats site: Random Unique Words picks 30 from a hat and shows their definitions. For a look at all the ones that have cropped up in the past month, there is another page called Recent Unique Words.