1:27:39
Whew! What a relief after yesterday's debacle to get a nice, big, fun, Sunday puzzle.
I love this theme. Sure, some of them are ridiculous, but hey, that's ok with me. After the absurdity of this past week, a little more fits right in. The first one to break for us was PEEKUNDERWRAPS (34A: Try to see what you're getting for Christmas?). How the heck do people come up with these things? DOOMSWINGS (81A: Playground apparatus of the apocalypse)? Genius. The only one that didn't sit all that well with me was DIALDOWNTHELAW (91A: Be a lenient judge?). I don't love it because the original phrase "Laid down the law" is in a different tense, but really, that's probably over-thinking things. Really, "Dial down the law" is pretty funny. Frannie's favorite was PERPSCHOOL (45A: Academy for criminals?).
It's not all roses and peppermint, though (Is that a thing? Do people say that?). We've got the occasional EMIR (99A: Top Qatari)(although, admittedly, that's a pretty nice clue for it), and NORW (80D: Land on the Arctic Cir.). I suppose they mean Norway, but that's more often abbreviated with Nor., isn't it? I'm inclined to let it go, but I worry that it's a slippery slope from accepting things like ATV, WII, ESL (all side-by-side!), to accepting things like yesterday's puzzle, but honestly, I still think there's a huge chasm to cross before we end up over there. On the dark side.
The hardest cross today, for us, was 111A: Actor Hirsch of "Speed Racer" and 107D: Kipling's "Follow Me ____." The M of EMILE and OME was kind of a guess, but really, it was inferrable.
One last thing, Frannie, in a fit of pique, angrily put in SHHH for 1D: Librarian's urging, and was quite relieved when it turned out to be READ.
In all, there was plenty of fun stuff in here to make it an enjoyable Sunday puzzle.
- Horace
I enjoyed this one also. ATRIP was nice, reminding me of The Mikado. And while there were a few of the not-so-good 3-letter answers, the entire middle of the puzzle was meaty with 6-letter answers abounding, centering around POTSECRET, the first theme clue to break for me. I had some difficulty in the middle of the bottom, where I aggressively entered RALLIES for 97A: Some tennis play, and ROAST for 97D: Annual dinner. Matzoh on my face when I figured out it was supposed to be SEDER... Also enjoyed CAESURA and GUINEVERE.
ReplyDeleteYes, we were reminded of G&S too! Yo-ho, Heave-ho, Hurrah for the Homeward Bound!
ReplyDeleteI first had Guinevere spelled Gwenevere, which caused a slight delay.
DNF but worked on it for 1:29:10.
ReplyDeleteI missed two boxes in this one, but I'm happy with the result. It was, indeed, a fun theme. I liked PERPSCHOOL and RATSTREK as well as REVILEDTHEGOODS. I had a bit of trouble with "41D No. between 0 and 4" at first, but eventually got GPA. I thought that was a nice clue for that one.
Very pleasant "walk-through" puzzle. The theme was OK, I guess, although EVILFROMNEWYORK was a very weak answer for "Tammany Hall corruption, e.g.?" I put little marks next to the clues I especially liked. These included "Something a model should be in" STYLE, "Way to go" GAIT, "Be a lenient judge" DIALDOWNTHELAW (theme answer), "Cartoon boy with an antenna on his cap" ELROY--ya gotta love those Jetsons allusions!, "Rex of the jungle" LEO (nice double use of Latin), and "Librarian's urging" READ--mostly liked that one because it wasn't SHHH, or some similar thing, also it reminded me of my Elvis poster. Fun, easy Sunday. I wish you could see my grid; it's a thing of beauty!
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