I enjoyed the theme today, which pits familiar expressions against each other. As in, 24A: "He who hesitates is lost, but ..." (LOOKBEFOREYOULEAP), and the better 38D: "Knowledge is power, but ..." (IGNORANCEISBLISS). Some across, some down... good theme.
I didn't love the start (which was nearly the end of our solve today), as GOO seems a somewhat arbitrary answer for "1A: Fake blood, e.g." I guess maybe I'm not familiar enough with fake blood, but I'd sooner clue "GOO" with "Slime," or "Viscous mass," or even "Gunk." If you're going to clue it with "Fake blood," you might as well clue it with "Honey, e.g." or "Toothpaste." And then there's CELLOS clued with "4D: Solo features of six Bach suites." Does that wording seem strange to anyone else? Anyway, I didn't like it. In other areas, I didn't like the cross of AARE and ARO (48D: Michael Sheen's character in "Twilight.") I only knew it because AARE is crosswordese. And I'm pretty sure I've never heard the term DIPSO before.
And there are other little things, like there almost always are, but I don't want to end on a negative note, because overall, for a Sunday, I thought this was decent enough. As I said, I enjoyed the theme, and I also enjoyed such entries as LUFF (84A: Steer closer to the wind), STILETTO (106A: Part of a dominatrix's outfit), FACADE (66D: Pretense), and HOMEFRONT (45D: Sphere of civilian activity during war). And I loved the clue for WEB (32D: It's a trap). So simple and direct. And TBONES (95D: Broadsides, informally) was funny and unexpected.
Still, there's NOVAE, AURORAE, ALEE, APORT, AMAH, ARA, DAR ... I have low expectations for Sunday, and I guess this met them. I didn't SAVOR it, but I didn't hate it.
- Horace
Yuck.
ReplyDeleteYuck, yuck, yuck.
It's a bad sign when a Sunday takes less time than a good Thursday. I liked the theme idea well enough, but really, kind of meh, to be honest. And there's a ton of crosswordese. I agree about CELLOS. Why would you clue it like that? The whole point of the solo suites is that there is one cello.
Eh. Maybe it's a little better than I'm giving it credit for.
52:25
ReplyDeleteI liked it just fine. FATFARM is great and the ICELAND/VOLCANO pairing is also nice, not to mention the theme. Sure, there was some junk, but there always is with such a large puzzle. Plus, this took just about the right time for me to finish. And who can complain when LEONARDO is clued using Fibonacci? I never heard of ARO or LUFF. I'm also unfamiliar with the term DIPSO, but maybe I'll use it this coming weekend.