Tuesday, August 25, 2015

Tuesday, August 25, 2015, John E. Bennett

0:10:00

More circles, and guess what? I liked it! But let's not get too carried away, I thought the "balls" were all normal enough, but in almost every case, they forced less-than-desirable fill. Witness CHROMO, AFTA, RASE, and ENROOT. Not to mention the "second tier" weak fill like AMTS, RESEAT, ASOF, OHFOO, and ABED. Wait, maybe I put OHFOO in the wrong category.



So why do I like it, you ask? Well... I'm asking myself that very question right now, actually. Is it a FOOLSERRAND (20A: There's no reason to go on one) to try to turn this into a positive review after that opening? Will I be OBSESSIVEly EDITING (54A: Academy Award category) all night, trying to work in some entertaining results of PARONOMASIA (56A: Art of punning) (Who knew?) to entertain all o'y'all? Should I just give up and run a Sally FORTH (20D: "... and so ___") comic instead? ... wow... where did that come from? Sorry.

OK, so it wasn't perfect, but it's Tuesday. Don't we cut a lot of slack on Tuesdays? Or is that not quite SPOTON? Am I just overlooking all the DINGS (55D: Game show sound effects) (ok, I like this clue), or did I really DIG (43A: Archaeological site) it? Well... EELWORM, NEWSPAPER, GATOR, PESOS!

- Horace.

p.s. Do we also cut slack for reviewers on Tuesdays?


4 comments:

  1. 5:39
    Very mixed about this puzzle. I love PARONOMASIA! What a weird word. I needed every cross to get it. OHFOO crossing AFTA? Blah. I love the clue for NEWSPAPER (45A: Makeshift fly swatter). But then you get little corners of yuck like IDA/VOL/ESL/DOS.

    And the theme? It's cute, but I don't really like the revealer. The little circles of words that can precede the word "ball" are not JUSTHAVINGABALL. They come before the ball.

    Eh. It wasn't terrible.

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  2. Yes, you guys are right on the money: this is a very weird puzzle. PARONOMASIA is really cool--I wasn't aware of that word--and FOOLSERRAND is a superlative bit of long fill; but as you have both pointed out, there is an awful lot of crap here. I'll add a few to your lists: NTH, AKA, PRE, MED, VIP, IBM, SAN, SSTS, IPOS, and I'm getting a little tired of seeing OGRES too. Agree that the revealer wasn't great. Rex was all in a snit over the JUST part. I think Colum's criticism is more valid. I can live with the JUST. Interesting that we get HADAGO for "Tried" when just two days ago we saw HASAGO for "Tries." Strange, huh? Finally, I originally wrote in, and would have preferred, "hog" instead of PIG for "Not the sharing type." Don't you think of a hog as the selfish one and a PIG as just the prodigiously consuming one? I know I do.

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  3. 9:50
    On my puzzle, DIG is 43A Archaeological site. 39D is Kind of access (VIP). I liked the puzzle just fine, with my least favorite theme answer being POOL ball. Is that a thing? I never heard the word PARONOMASIA, and, like Colum, needed every cross for it. I also never heard of an EELWORM. On a positive note, I was able to enter RENEE (49A Soprano Fleming) with no crosses. And what about 50D Infant bottle topper (NIPPLE)? That could have been clued a bit better, no? No one likes an infant.

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