I've had the pleasure of working with John and getting to know his stylistic preferences helped me today during my solve. He's a big ...
read moreI've had the pleasure of working with John and getting to know his stylistic preferences helped me today during my solve. He's a big fan of colloquial phrases, and NOT IF BUT WHEN and I MEAN, COME ON! both popped.
I appreciate his efforts to broaden the spectrum in his work, providing something for everyone. Some won't know the allegory of PLATO'S CAVE, but what a great clue! I've read about Plato's cave and seen "The Matrix" dozens of times, but I've never connected the two.
Great to get some clever wordplay in clues, too, something John and I spend a lot of time on when we're co-cluing. [High on the job?] describes a quarter of Seattle; what a fun way to describe one's CAREER BEST. And an OVEN TIMER being "dingy" … think "ding-y." Ha!
I spent one career in BioMed, but I'd never heard the term BIOTEXTILE. It does appear to be in (heavy) use these days, so perhaps it came into more frequent use after my time.
John once told me a story about seeding a themeless with VBS. That was a total head-scratcher to me — it stands for "Vacation Bible School" — and provided John a hard lesson about Will Shortz's dislike of initialisms that aren't uber-prevalent (because there's no way to infer the correct letters). I did notice quite a bit of religious entries and clues today, in APSE, EDEN, Holy SEE, EVENTIDE, even the "heavenward" clue for LOFTS. It wasn't enough to turn off this agnostic, but I could see how it might be too much for some.
There's a lot to love here, the great SALT MINE metaphor, ANGORA CATS with differently colored eyes, the ROMAN EMPIRE with an evocative quote about going from gold to rust and iron. The constructor in me had a hard time overlooking all the AFBS AMOR BCE EPS MTN in a 70 word themeless (max allowable is 72), but I still had a ton of fun, especially since I like John a lot, and his personality shined through.