My string of FWOEs continues. Today my error was in the word NOXZEMA (3D: Product once known as "The Miracle Cream of Baltimore"). I knew it had some kind of spelling oddity, but I chose to add a C instead of a Z. When I finally changed it, the answer AZT (19A: Drug sought by Roy Cohn in "Angels in America") made perfect sense, but somehow I had finished solving without noticing that error. And speaking of that quadrant, I didn't love IHEARIT for "Shh, something's coming!" It just doesn't seem like anything anyone would say. They'd more likely say "What's that noise?" or "Who's there!" IHEARIT. Hmpf.
But really, I kind of liked this puzzle as a whole. It was a perfect Saturday, which is to say I entered almost nothing confidently on my first pass through all the clues, and then things started trickling in, and I pieced it together. Luckily, CHANCETHERAPPER (34A: Hip-hop performer who was 2016's Best New Artist Grammy winner) was somewhere rattling around in my head, even though I don't know anything he or she has ever done. Another feature of a perfect Saturday puzzle is that it contains at least one word I don't know. Today, we got two - SATRAPS (8A: Provincial despots) was one, and when I finished and didn't get the "Congratulations!" screen, I spent quite a bit of time wondering if "10D: Hightail it" could be anything but TEAR, or if there were another Russian name like PAVLOVA (13D: Meringue-based dessert named for a ballerina). AINU (47D: Japanese native) was the other.
Another thing I liked about this puzzle: 29D: Discuss thickness with a doctor? (LISP). Ha! Also, "Import" was a great clue for ACCOUNT. And it was a nice surprise to see TOM in the grid. We don't get that entry very much. :)
Overall, thumbs up. Despite a few quibbles, and a little glue, I enjoyed it. Hope you did too!
- Horace
12:09
ReplyDeleteI also wrote in CHANCETHERAPPER straight away, and ITALIANAMERICAN soon after (with a small tweak upon realizing that Mr. Giuliani and La Guardia are not in fact Iranian). So initial signs were encouraging.
This is normally the point that I get excited about finishing in record time, but then the Saturday puzzle has me spend 20 minutes on an obscure corner. But somehow this time I escaped relatively unscathed.
I also had PULLTAB in there for a long time for 1A. RINGTAB is not a thing that I am familiar with.
My unhappy clue for today was ATEST (44D). I never seem to know if it is HTEST, TTEST, ATEST, and so on. Fortunately, "stupefied" was good enough to figure out AWED (44A).
11:05
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed this puzzle because I was able to work through it even in sections (like the SW) where I couldn't enter anything.
25:28
ReplyDeleteGreat Saturday offering. I know of CHANCETHERAPPER from a television commercial for some Halloween candy that he recently did. Other than that, I'm completely unfamiliar with him. ITALIANAMERICAN went in off of the _________CAN. The other long answers, SEXIESTMANALIVE and STUDIOEXECUTIVES took a bit longer; nice that they each have an X. Mmmmm...TREESAP and BUTTERNUT. EXLOVER (38D Dear departed?) isn't great, and I'm not sure why MTEVEREST contains an abbreviation since the clue certainly doesn't. I tried Mountetna at first, but corrected it relatively quickly. I agree about IHEARIT and the RINGTAB.