Paper (Puzzle No. 3,330)

It was clean-up time at the office this week: we have to make room for a few more people moving over to our location, so cubicles that had been used for storage are being cleared out and the supply closet got gone through.

Being the frugal sort I am, I gladly took a bunch of colored file folders, saving them from being tossed out and having folders for another three or four years worth of projects.  But the treasure I was particularly happy at capturing was about half a ream of letterhead paper, left over from when one of the other departments was located in a different building.

“Covenant” by Alexander Lieberman, 1974

Say what you will about the basketball team or some of the sculptures on campus, but the University of Pennsylvania has good taste in paper.  Nice and thick (which helps with erasures), with a laid finish that slows down your pencil a little and makes the lines a little more bold.  Better yet, it’s white rather than the beige color they used while I was in grad school (a change to our mail code system left me with a ream of that paper a long time ago).  Ideal for printing out puzzles on.

Find some of your favorite paper and print out the latest puzzle from The Nation.

Link to puzzle: http://www.thenation.com/article/180482/puzzle-no-3330

Degree of difficulty (by standard of this weekly puzzle): hard.  I got off to a quick start but then ran into some less obvious clues.

Hozom’s comment: “States of Play,” in which Hot and Trazom appreciate the 50 states and how they find their way into cryptic clues.  One bit they didn’t mention is that some of those abbreviations are sources for convenient consonants like NY or MS or SD.

Weekly cluing challenge (at Word Salad): WYOMING

Back soon with a early long weekend edition of Sunday brunch.