By Brian’s standards, Tuesday (July 1) is the new Wednesday.
I just got home from a long day of hospitals, rehearsing, performing, and two unsatisfying sandwiches only to find that the New York Times has published a rather Wednesday-esque puzzle on Tuesday. My time on the applet is deceiving — I needed help to find my errors, since all one of them occurred in a place I’d have never been able to discern on my own.
This Ken Bessette puzzle features a Take-A-Letter-Away theme, and in this case it reduces a double letter appearance (in an “in-the-language” phrase) to a single letter, thus changing its meaning:
- 17A. Retired general? : A
RRESTING OFFICER - 37A. Late nobleman? : A
CCOUNT PAST DUE - 59A. Carillon call? : A
PPEAL TO THE CROWD – I have no idea what a “carillon” is. Merriam Webster does not like the word either, since 1.5 of its two definitions are self-referential
:
1. a set of fixed chromatically tuned bells sounded by hammers controlled from a keyboard; an electronic instrument imitating a carillon
2. a composition for the carillon
Thank you, Merriam-Webster.
On the map of Greenwich Cove, a small neighborhood in Rhode Island, my problems happened at about the intersection of Division St. and Marlborough St., with the crossing of 1A. Kansas City University formerly known as College of Saint Teresa (AVILA) and 2D. Objets d’art (VIRTU). That V could have been just about any consonant, and it would have made as much sense. Apparently, VIRTU is Italian. To that, I say — really? On a Tuesday, you just opened up your Italian dictionary to a random page and then crossed it not only with a theme answer but with some college in Kansas that has a student body of fewer than 2,000 people? Wow. Wait — you’re going to tell me that if I knew where St. Teresa was born, I’d get this answer. Ah, but then you’re assuming that I know anything. Who do I look like, the Great Howard Barkin? Not so much…
Complicating things further, a few houses eastward on Division St. features the L in AVILA, an L which began 4D. Cobblers’ forms. A cobbler is a shoe-maker, right? A form is… a document? A model for something? A shape? Apparently, it’s like a mannequin foot on which shoes are repaired. In the Will Shortz era, LAST was used twice (one Wednesday and one Sunday).
All in all, a clever theme, but I was disappointed in my inability to even find my mistake, let alone correct it. Oh well. Better luck Wednesday.
