Joseph Knecht

    Car Talk An NPR interview with Click and Clack , the Tappet Brothers   (and a CSO to Picard ) Today's constructor, Carly Schuna , is relatively new, with one puzzle in the NY Times and two in the LA Times.  I can give you no better introduction to this multi-talented person than Husker's review of her March 26, 2022 outing .  BTW it looks like Carly could give CrossEyedDave a run for the money in the cake department . Today Carly wants to talk cars , one of modern life's necessities.  She does this with 4 punny clues,  each containing the name of a car manufacturer , and then filling with 4 commonly used two word phrases, each beginning with one of the manufacturer's popular models : 17A. Place that showcases certain Fords?: ESCAPE ROOM .  An escape room , also known as an escape game , puzzle room , or exit game , is ...

  [NOT QUITE] TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS Today veteran constructor Michael Lieberman ( NYT & LAT ) presents us with a simple theme, consisting of the names of 4 major businesses, each truncated by one letter and enclosed in circles in the long fills.  And for those who didn't see it coming he then reveals his game with this pair of recursive clues:  57A. With 62-Across, matters left to settle, and what can be found in each set of circled letters?: UNFINISHED & 62. See 57-Across: BUSINESS .  (do I hear some yawns from AnonymousDNLC? ). Here are the themers, short and sweet: 16A. 100% guaranteed: IN TH E BA G .  EBAY . 19A. Trade an aisle seat for a window seat, say: SW AP PL ACES .  APPLE   31A. Many night owls, in the morning: LA TE SL EEPERS .  TESLA .   41. Doomsday prophecy: THE EN D IS NE AR .  DISNEY .   Here's...

  The Butterfly Effect The Butterfly Effect , illustrated in the preceding 3 minute video, is a metaphor for the key idea behind a science called CHAOS THEORY : a small  initial event in one location can be greatly amplified through a series of chain reactions that ultimately result in a very large event happening very far away .  The classic example is that of a butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon River basin , ultimately causing a storm in Siberia . Today veteran constructor ( NYT and LAT ) Amanda Rafkin riffs on Chaos Theory with a theme taken not from science, but from the dark arts .  Here's her reveal: 60A. Power that enables the Scarlet Witch to rewrite reality, and a hidden feature of the answers to the starred clues?: CHAOS MAGIC .  As I'm sure we're all aware, the Scarlet Witch is a denizen of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and not someone you'd want to mess with:   ...