Friday, May 31, 2013

Friday, May 31, 2013, Josh Knapp

0:21:22

A shockingly quick finish for a Friday. It's our fastest Friday since the "iPad Mini era" began (last Christmas), and less than half of our average time for a Friday. Combine that with the fact that this is a pangram puzzle (uses all letters), and you might think that a bad review is on its way. Well, think again. We loved it!

Just yesterday, englishteacher59 commented on the syndicated puzzle, agreeing with me that every grid had its share of lousy fill. Well, today that gets challenged. I suppose we could complain about the partial SONIN (15D: ____-law) or ONIT (45A: Kool & the Gang's "Get Down ____"), and some (not us) might be annoyed by newer terms like NETIZEN (7D: YouTuber, e.g.) or MANI (36D: ____-pedi), but that's pretty much it. Everything else is solid, and not only that, it's interesting, real, and/or fresh, and most of it is clued excellently. Consider words like MARIACHI, ENIGMAS, UNABASHED, GAMEOVER, AQUALUNG, ONTHEQT, and DIVINGBELL. All fantastic. And there are so many clever clues I don't know where to begin. How about SONATA (15A: Series of movements), THINE (30A: What was once yours?), or MERRYMEN (53A: Hood's support). Or Frannie's favorite AGENDA (1D: Big to-do, maybe?). Or ROB (5D: Take the money and run?). Or EXISTENCE (29D: It's a living thing). We could go on and on.

The one clue we either didn't know or couldn't parse was 55A: Stir (THECAN). Any help?

A fantastic puzzle.

- Horace

p.s. It has been brought to our attention that "stir" is one of the many synonyms for "jail."

2 comments:

  1. Many days untimed.
    I, working in a prison setting for lo these 24 years, have never heard the term "stir." The whole SE corner with AQUALUNG and MERRYMEN was the last to fall for me, but it was great. I'm with you on this one: not much, if any, junk here. EXHIBITA was excellent, ONTHEQT, even THONGS and AMIWRONG. It took a while, but I'm glad I didn't TITT.

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  2. Excellent. I'm glad you stuck with this one. I thought this and the Saturday were both very good puzzles.

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