Monday, May 27, 2013

Monday, May 27, 2013, Doug Peterson

0:10:17

A pretty clean Monday with a solid theme. What more can one ask?

PERFUNCTORY (65A: Just going through the motions) is lovely 11-letter fill, and WELLGROOMED (18A: Neat in appearance) isn't bad either. The five theme answers plus the revealer drop symmetrically like raindrops through the middle of everything.

If I were pressed to call out drawbacks, I might mention OFA (36A: "The Tears ____ Clown"), RECUE (69A: Signal again, as an actor), and TSKED (72A: Expressed one's disapproval). And in the downs, ANDS, ATRUE, and TAPA (35D: Finger food at a fiesta). Does one ever hear that in America without the final "s"?

But I am not pressed to call out the bad, and I don't really want to focus on it today. This puzzle has enough decent material for a Monday. It's funny to see ELM TREE again so soon, and it's kind of funny to see ULE so close to YUL, although the former is quite weak.

Meh, ITLLDO.

- Horace

5 comments:

  1. 10:34
    Originally I'd guessed TACO instead of TAPA, but that didn't work. It seems odd without the "s." Pretty easy, as is typical with Monday puzzles.

    As a side note, I printed out an extra copy of the blank puzzle. SJY said she'd try the Monday puzzles for a while and comment about her experiences with them on this blog, so we'll see what happens.

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  2. Well, we certainly look forward to any and all comments from SJY. Good luck to her with the solving!

    Also, we had TACO for TAPA, too.

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  3. 7:24, but sloppy with five letters written over. I agree it's decent for a Monday. Too many three-letter words and not a gem among them. In fact, outside of the theme and, as Tom mentions, PERFUNCTORY, this puzzle has very little. But the theme is nice, especially GOODYGOODY. Sue will never comment.

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  4. Hey, I didn't have to type in the two hard-to-decipher words!!

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  5. Yes, I noticed that I could eliminate that when I was looking for a way to retrieve a comment of yours that I accidentally deleted a few days ago. Sorry. And, you're welcome.

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