Sridhar Bhagavathula author page
1 puzzle by Sridhar Bhagavathula
with Jeff Chen comments
| O | F | F | K | E | Y | S | T | E | N | C | I | L | ||
| P | L | A | N | A | R | S | P | A | C | E | A | G | E | |
| T | A | K | E | R | S | C | O | L | O | S | S | U | S | |
| G | E | L | S | B | U | R | E | N | H | A | T | |||
| D | E | B | T | C | A | M | E | O | V | I | N | E | ||
| J | L | O | P | A | T | S | E | M | I | N | A | R | ||
| S | L | O | V | E | N | I | A | R | I | D | ||||
| A | K | I | R | A | K | U | R | O | S | A | W | A | ||
| P | S | A | S | E | T | T | L | I | N | G | ||||
| S | C | R | E | E | N | S | L | I | S | P | T | A | ||
| T | H | A | R | P | E | R | I | C | V | E | I | L | ||
| E | A | T | H | A | V | O | C | L | I | S | P | |||
| E | P | I | S | O | D | E | S | C | O | C | O | O | N | |
| R | E | F | I | N | E | R | Y | P | S | E | U | D | O | |
| S | L | Y | N | E | S | S | R | E | S | T | E | D |
Jim Horne and I had a fun time discussing this one. Both of us are jazz musicians (he a real one, me a fake one hearkening back to my playing days two decades ago), so we both dropped in FAKE BOOK without having to improvise. It might take more time to understand than LOOKBOOK, but it'll probably resonate when I tell you that a FAKEBOOK lists out melody and chord progressions so you can sort of "fake it." Neat to get this debut entry from a musician!
Jim argued that AKIRA KUROSAWA might qualify as one of the most influential movie directors of all time. I didn't have the heart to tell him that I tried to watch "The Seven Samurai" but made it seven minutes before putting on "The Magnificent Seven" yet again. It's impressive that KUROSAWA was named Asian of the Century, although I contend that if Bruce Lee had been one of the seven samurai I'd have watched a lot longer.
Editors tend to prize multi-word entries, since they tend to run more colorful than one-worders. FLAGELLA is a fascinating word, though, and when you give ECONOMISTS a clue that tells it like it is, that's fantastic. I keep in touch with one of my econ profs from business school, who freely admits that those who can't do, go into econ.
Quite a bit of impressive cluing. Riffing on "trace element" for STENCIL is so clever! And the standout: [Plant that may yield oil]. Talk about spicing up a one-word entry; such a clever misdirect away from an oil REFINERY!
Fine debut grid, the smattering of AUS LIS NES PSA YRS easily pushed to the side by the sheer quantity of brilliant clues. I generally like more multi-word entries than this one has, but the devilishly clever wordplay helped make up for it.