Cassowary Crossing

Who knew? Crosswords and fashion can appear in the same sentence. Thanks to a post by flipsockgrrl, we can see how the kingdom of Across and Down combines with the closet. 

Nobody said anything about stylish, but Yves Saint Laurent was always firm believer in the timeless qualities of black on white, ne pas

After her devoted catwalk vigil, flipsock has outed Erin McKean, a puzzle fan to attend the recent American Crossword Tournament in New York City. You can see her ensemble here, and her costume here for the year before.

(Not to be comfused with non-flannel range of crossword jimjams I fell upon while surfing Amazon. Poor old YSL will be spinning in le terre.)

Then there’s the Zazzle company, masters of the novelty T-shirt which has a few tepid takes on cruciverbalism, though you’d have to wonder how dyed in the wool a solver needs to be to buy these little chequered cardigans for the Chihuahua. Ay carumba.

Sorry for the multiple links but thought you should start saving your pennies now for that puzzle nut in your life who wants for nothing, modesty included. Any other black-and-white apparel in the bottom drawer you’ve seen? Could we be cresting the wave of a couture subcult? Let’s hope not.

Puns this week, where the vavavoom lurks in all the variants on the verb to ’say’.  Like these for example:

‘These papers need to fresh assessment,’ she remarks.

‘Gluttony is wrong,’ the priest insinuated.

‘I’ve lost a little weight,’ I announce.

‘Your turn to bat,’ Ponting declares.

Be inventive. Be sly. But most of all, be remark-able. Three prizes to be articulated come the end of the working week, with The Honourable Mention, The Major Announce and The Utter Brilliant to be distributed among the most gifted gabbers.

Should one Stormer’s post inspire a follow-up gag, or a variation, then obey the Muse, since no one owns a mortgage on any one verb or pun tangent. Ours is an open discourse. Let’s just see if we concoct an oral thesaurus of killer comments. You have my say-so.

Stacked as a square, GROW, NAVE, AGES, TENT spell GNAT, RAGE, OVEN, WEST reading down each column. Supplied seven words from four more squares – can you retrieve the body part missing from each set?

acne, echo, hops, rash, rest, snip, tens

aria, eras, evil, rove, seal, sell, yore

acid, edge, fine, icon, long, walk, wife

agog, ague, eggs, keys, nark, pony, rung

SOLUTION NEXT WEEK

BB245 SOLUTION: Invoice. As with the other five (light lunch, squeeze out, black glove, poor suggestion, letter X), two boxes have been boxed together.

Not a challenge for the coward last week – or the yellow fellow. We had to dream up paired rhymes that satisfied a single-word definition.

The fact that Rudd’s rival is liking biking, makes the sport an Abbott habit. And once we warmed up, much like the peloton, the best impressed.  CRD in fact got so enthused he’s tempted to launch a Frogger blogger to lament our lost arcadia. 

Four medals were up for graps, the ZECO of excellence: namely Zeitgeist, Elegant, Comic and Original. And here they are:

Zeitgeist: Simon L for GFC: banking tanking.  (This is doubly contemporary, mentioning the market straits plus the AFL hobby of playing for priority draft picks.)

Elegant: Mr X for cavalry: horse force. (Old word gains new meaning, bathing gee-gees in a sci-fi glow with a clean/lean rhyme.)

Comic: JD for schoolies: alcoholic frolic. (Perfect. The grin factor, plus the choice of a tougher rhyme ending that also intoxicates.)

Original: CRD for FuelWatch: bowser browser. (Given their time over, Labor’s spin department would have coined this watchdog newly. CRD, get thee a copy gig with Saatchi & Saatchi, if you don’t already.)

Well done to all comers. Welcome back DK, and greetings to Foxie. Next week, no rhymes, promise.

Paul Kelly sang a song.

Judith Lucy dealt with a gabbling mother – though not her own, she discovered.

Chloe Hooper took Aesop to task.

All twelve writers had their virtues at last week’s Melbourne launch of the Wheeler Centre (the new hub for Books, Writing & Ideas). I went with some mates, along with 2000 other bodies, and my posse spent the aftermath arguing over dumplings as to the evening’s pick. Which writer cast the strongest spell?

Consensus was fraught, though we did seem to give universal endorsement to Shane Maloney for his shambolic stagger down memory lane, using his father’s unpublished memoir as street directory. His schtick is dry, wise, surprising – and here for you to enjoy on the Wheeler’s site. (Keep skulking the site, in fact, and you may encounter another familiar name in the next week or so.)

Available on the same platform is the other coterie fave of the night: Cate Kennedy. This classy writer scorned any notes to depict her wild bugger of a grandad. The yarns are as good as the Kennedyesque finish to the tribute: a grace note about who we are, and how we’ll be remembered.

Treat yourself. Both renditions are beautiful for different reasons. And look out for the other left-field bolter of the evening, John Safran, in his own ancestral roasting. For that matter, click any of the twelve literati – you won’t be short-changed.

You can see how long and steely I stared at this bunch of Huh clues, to no avail. This lot embraces two authors – or maybe three – a citrus fruit, a dead Egyptian and an eagle. As far as I can figure, anyway. Would appreciate your counsel of the cryptic kind to see how these seven clues make ultimate sense.

[NB - compiler follows each clue. And the last example, seemed a cross reference to 25-DN in Paul's puzzle, which was LASSO.]

1)  Eagle perhaps has to crack rock = RAPTOR  [Paul]

2)  Property association = BALANCING  [Phssthpok]

3)  Way to act or ring bells = METHOD  [Araucaria]

4)  Poet to cut children’s writer short = MILTON  [Shed]

5)  Reserve antipodean informer The Trial could be here = BOOKSHELF  [Jason]

6)  Egyptian soul having to rest, as dead = KAPUT  [Paul]

7)  Fruit – 25 [lasso] up? = LIMES  [Paul]

If epee = duel tool, does Brainstorm = tough stuff?

That’s your challenge this week. Conjure a single word or name that can be defined by a pair of rhyming words. Exploitation, for example, can be defined as tacker yakka. While filthy could be bloody muddy.

Don’t be a silly billy and use established rhyming couples already. Who wants to see a dream team or zoot suit when yellow fellow (coward) is so much more refreshing?

That’s your incentive – so be inventive. Be succinct. Only one word or name can act as the ‘clue’, with the paired rhymes the definition.

Probably best to post your suggestions this way:

Bimbo = thick chick

Succulence = tender splendour

Grrr = aggression expression

Four prize categories this week: Comic, Elegant, Zeitgeist & Original. En garde. (And I promise to leave rhymes alone for next week’s Storm!)

What word (invoice, overland, subway, backhand or tiptop) belongs with light lunch, squeeze out, black glove, poor suggestion and letter X?

SOLUTION NEXT WEEK

BB244 SOLUTION: Biggins/Higgins/Piggins, Mills/Hills/Stills, Ward/Lord/Ford, Dyson/Tyson/Bryson, Kahlo/Harlow/Marlowe, Stokes/Oakes/Folkes, Cox/Knox/Fox, Horne/Warne/Bourne, Goss/Moss/Ross

Two-horse race this week, the battle of the rhyming slangers. (We may need to do some Storm recruiting, a little like the NRL version.) But the modesty of the field didn’t dent the quality of the results.

A bottle of Peter Landy (brandy) to Mr X for his précis of the MP3 climate:

Record companies would Josh (Pyke/like) a Neil (Finn/win) regarding their Shannon (Noll/goal) of Bernard (Fanning/banning) Ben (Lee/free) music downloads.

 A bottle of Keith Urban (bourbon) to marmaloid for converting an Ocker classic:

 Aussie blokes love a bit o’ Paul (Keating/eating), rooting, and Huge (Weaving/leaving).

And a bottle of eight-year-old Christopher Koch to X again, this time for his all-Labor wisdom about the savagery of politics, as Mr Garrett in his electrified namesake can attest: 

One day you’re a political Bob (Carr/star but one Kevin (Rudd/dud) election and you’re Wayne (Swan/gone), a has-Simon (Crean/been).

Fine Fred (Nerk). Look forward to the next Somerset Maugham.

Next week sometime, you can meet the Dalai Lama, take a trip to the Arctic and hear about the charisma of men in lab coats. You can also do a peculiar crossword.

Sophie Cunningham, the editor of Meanjin, inspired the idea. To help celebrate the 70th birthday of this literary quarterly, she wanted a puzzle, and no ordinary puzzle. Together we conjured up the crossword you’ll see the March issue, due out soon, where two separate stories hold two separate sets of clues for two separate grids.

Confused? You won’t be, once you dive into the challenge, though you may be pushed to solve every corner of the Cryptic Story or the Straight Story, depending which yarn you choose. But there’s a reward at the end, with the winner being the clever sausage to best sprinkle the 22 answers into their own literary composition.

If your eyebrow is slowly rising, or your pencil finger itching, I suggest you pester your beloved bookseller for Meanjin Volume 69, Number 1 – the March edition. You’ll even hear how Maurilia Meehan dropped out of flying school, which should be worth the cover price alone.

Good luck. Don’t forget the parachute.