0:16:11
I gotta admit, I forgot about the circles until just now. Last night I even said to Frannie, "Gee, there's only two theme answers..." but today as I sit down to discuss it, I noticed all the snakes! That makes it much better. In fact, I kind of love it. Circled letters like this sometimes seem kind of cheap, because how hard is it to find words like that?, but today, it totally works.
ROUÉ (14A: Lascivious sort) is new to me, which is somewhat surprising, both because I know French adequately well, and, well, you know... The word comes from the idea that that type of person should be "broken on the wheel." Nice.
Nice tribute to Jean Stapelton today with EDITH (15A: Archie's sitcom wife). My Random House entry for ENURES (36A: Accustoms) tells me to see "Inure," which is what I wrote in initially, and would rather see in that space. Also, weak clue for ICON (23D: A browser has one). Just seems too vague.
The puzzle seemed filled with ODDBALLS (6D: Strange birds). Lots of crosswordsy stuff like AMAH, DRNO, THO, SCHED, & ARBS, but then there's some nice stuff, too, like RESENTFUL (4D: Like Cain, toward Abel) (see also, "Dangerously resentful"), and UNDERWEAR (37D: Drawers in drawers) (probably the best clue today, although ARMCANDY (40D: Companion who's a knockout) was also good). I also like seeing mention of IMELDA (42A: Marcos of the Philippines). We just read a "Talk of the Town" piece about her in the New Yorker, and she seems like quite the hot ticket!
So, on balance, I'm giving this one a thumbs up. Now I've gotta get back out on that SCAFFOLD (32A: Painter's support) and do some more work!
- Horace
12:24
ReplyDeleteNice with the snakes. I'll start commenting going backwards. I've yet to finish last Thursday, Friday or Saturday, but I'm still catching up from our weekend away and haven't given up yet.
I didn't know much about the IRONDUKE, but liked the reference to a BIDET, with which I may or may not have become "familiar" while overseas. I also thought it was clever to have SNAKECHARMER run across both the PYTHON and the ANACONDA. Nice touch.