Full Circle - June 2014

Before we begin

one lil' thing just a sec: this site has many lurkers. You know who you are. Some of you lurk but a mere moment, here via Google image search (driven by our relentless alt-tagging on images).

Some of you though, yes we know SOME of you, are lovers of Tacky Harper's Cryptic Clues. That's the word you use: “love.” But you've never left a comment, you've never put a couple bucks in the PayPal tip jar, and you've never emailed to say “omg such funny awesum blog pls keep it up thank you erica.”

Consider switching that up this time. Not for us. For you. Do it for you. It'll feel good! We're asking you to participate in the things you enjoy. Participate in your own life. “The only thing I'd want to comment on is your flawed reasoning or grammar,” you say, and hey, that is a-ok brother-sister! This is a safe space for correcting broken logic. Promise.

Alright, to the puzzle. We much to did dislike. Buckle up.

First thing we disliked: appearance of usual puzzle suspects (t/ern, Oreo), and generally easy/particularly uninspiring cluing.

Second thing we disliked: the dum jerk of a theme that we stared at and stared at and could not parse. We had all the clued entries filled in and maybe 1/3 of the theme entries completed by inference, but with no discernable linkage. Thought perhaps the words were included in song lyrics, or a famous poem, or some cultural reference we were not up on (cf Ring in the New Year - January 2011).

Sleepy sweet V looked over at the clipboard, said, “gimme dat,” and instantly said, “it's the months.” And as we groaned with frustrated ego, he added, ”fulllllllllll circle.”

Ego.

• 1D) JANitor
• 34A) FEBrile
• 43A) MARine
• 44A) APRicot
• 29D) MAYhem
• 1A) JUNiper
• 30A) JULep
• 10D) AUGment
• 18D) SEPulchre
• 22A) OCTane
• 6A) NOVena
• 32D) DECent

Highlights!

• 15A) Getting to the point, record call (8)
  (record = TAPE) + (call = RING) = TAPERING

OHhhHHH very sweet playing with component syllables here. One plus one equals three. Excellent. Much love. Respect.

• 17A) Assert tailoring produces stunning creations (6)
  ASSERT * anagram = TASERS

Inventive. Nice. Related: something usually unmentioned w/r/t “Don't tase me bro!” is that it took place at a John Kerry event. Weird, right? Theoretically this guy was 2004's lefty alternative to the war machine. And yeah, the young heckler dude was rude, but under JK's watch the situation rapidly escalated from words to uncomfortable violence. Watch it here, and decide for yourselves.

Contrast with this account from Charles Monroe challenging then-President George HW Bush at the G7 summit:

Charles Monroe Now, this I remember. Because I just assumed I was going to be arrested. I knew I wasn't going to be shot. That hadn't happened yet, so that's cool. And I'm like, "This is it." And what happened next was amazing because nothing happened next.

I didn't get arrested. He had this thing where he had his hands on the podium, and he kind of moved his hands. I don't know what signals they have, or whatever, but they didn't arrest me. And then the worst possible thing in the world happened to me. He ain't going to arrest me, and he's about to engage me. And I was like, "Oh, my god. The President of the United States is speaking to me right now, and he basically started asking me questions. And I was like, "Holy mackerel." I really almost passed out.

• 26A) Singers backing up headliner (4)
  (Singers = RATS) * rev. = STAR

Rats like in ratting out yer fellow crooks. Clue is nice and neat (how we like).

• 31A) Done head to toe, but without depth (3-1)
  DONE * first letter to end = ONE-D

Delightful! Although letter translation instructions always annoy us. Just give us the anagram! Subtler indicators! We're big girls! We can handle!!

• 38A) Bay leaves left out of plant disease (5)
  (plant disease = BLIGHT) - (left = L) = BIGHT

Often we don't like the uncommons so much, but this was fun! Had the medial G already in the fill, so tried forcing ERGOT several rounds. Also thought it might use laurel, the other name for bay leaves. But bight! We've hearda the Bight of Benin.

• 6D) Be off guard? It's a fuzzy area (3)
  NAP (double syn.)

Very nice. Very much enjoy this use of “nap.” Sweet Vlad got this one. “Naps are my specialty,” he explained.

• 8D) Fresh and young, but right away, corrupt (6)
  (corrupt = VENAL) + (right = R) = VERNAL

Delightful! Corruption of the youfs!

• 9D) Hebrew characters—they have their lives in order (4)
  NUNS (double syn.)

Always appreciate the chance to exercise our limited knowledge of the Hebrew aleph beth.

• 21D) One crossing your palm with one third of litter of cats (8)
  (one third of litter = LI) + (of cats = FELINE) = LIFELINE

D'aw, this was a sweetie one! V took one look and blurted out “lifeline!” and we followed up with the reasoning.

• 25D) Small storage unit Michigan takes in is found in Washington (8)
  (Michigan = MI) + IN + IS + (Washington = DC) = MINIDISC

Yus. Fun! Anachronistic tech!

• 35D) Teacher finds the legal profession uplifting, swinging both ways (5)
  ((legal profession = BAR) * rev.) + (swinging both ways = BI) = RABBI

Nice. Woot bisexuals!
Is it just us, or does it seem like Kevin Spacey must put it in his contract rider that his character 1. sing and 2. be bisexual ?

• 39D) Gull in Swan Lake—it's a step up (3)
  (in Swan Lake it's a step = PAS) * rev. = SAP

Gull as in easy mark, as in the kinda sap that gets rolled. Little bitta ballet knowledge required. Or French knowledge (same thing). Just pleased this wasn't another T/ERN clue.

Lowlights!

• 11A) Schedule for members of Polizia, Gendarmerie (6)
  PoliziA GENDArmerie = AGENDA

A wh-hopping five of the letters in this wordspanner are right there in Gendarmerie no, this was just a no. We felt made fun of to our face by this one.

• 16A) I'm ten, holding reporters manuscript in back—that's one way of seeing things (13)
  IM + (ten = 10 = IO) + (reporters = PRESS) + (((manuscript = MS) + IN¹) * rev.) + (one = I) = IMPRESSIONISM

Torturous. Murderous. More of this quantity-treated-as-concatenated-string business that we hate so much. Buh.
¹With acknowledgements to listener Don.

• 28A) Spin doctor, if there's time at the end, winds up producing this! (9)
  SPIN + (doctor = DR) + IF + (time = T) = SPINDRIFT

That is no good tossing a syllable wholesale in there. Bluh. Gross.

• 36A) College race that never starts heading west (4)
  (race = RELAY) * never starts * reverse = YALE

Ugh. Cult of Yale, cult of Harvard. Why must for to have cultural fluency in these places for rich men, for to cultivate more rich men. Such why. Buh.

• 2D) Quaking aspen—they don't go very high on a beach (5)
  ASPEN * anagram = NEAPS

Murrrrrr too easy! Eight words for the definition half makes too easy too easy. Not in service of a tighter narrative congruence or waddy wah. Add NEAPS to the list of too much puzzle usual.

• 7D) Sweet choreographic element (4)
  chOREOgraphic = OREO

You'd think we might like for the nice and the neat but buh. Brands. Corporations. The cookie that's always in the puzzle. Muh.

• 14D) Crooks, so-called high-fliers in Atlantic City, perhaps (5)
  (Crooks = TURNS) * homophone = TERNS

Originally thought this might be a five-letter city that borders the Atlantic Ocean, which caused Sweet V to say, “Ugh! There's four continents that border that f*cking ocean!” This rapidly devolved into a discussion-argument (discurgument) about whether Antarctica “counts” as a continent.

Anyway. Our initial puzz-tuition was wrong on this one. No need for new geography learnings. It's dum regular usual forever puzzle bird, the TERN.

• 34D) Favorite interior becomes vacant lot (4)
  (Favorite = F) + (interior becomes vacant = ATE) = FATE
  FAvoriTE * interior becomes vacant = FATE

That cluing for “ATE” is rough. Maybe nicer neater:

• Bolted after failing a lot (4)

Yah so actually per Dear Reader Don it's a little less rough than we thought. Notice how Don spotted some faulty reasoning, and had the urge to say something, and did he tamp that urge down? No. He did not. He commented. That's right.

That's it. No tacky this month. Believe it: nothing particularly body-shaming, or slut-shaming, or hetero-normative, or racist, or racist-y, or rapey, or sex-negative, or what now. The whole puzzle was just kinda tacky in form, not in aspect.

Comment time. You know what to to do. It's so easy. It makes such a difference. Yesssss!