0:23:50
Yesterday, I loved the theme, and because of that, I could overlook whatever garbage fill there happened to be. Today, I hated the theme, and because of that, it's difficult to find anything good at all to say. And they were both, strangely, homophone-based. I guess. Wouldn't you say that of today's? RTJOHNSON (17A: "Laugh-In" comic) for "Arte Johnson?" Gosh, that's awfully clever. ... Maybe it's just me, but just the look of ENFLEMMING (21A: "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" author) makes me unhappy. It is, of course, an interesting factoid, but somehow that's just not enough today.
Favorite clue: 72A: Life partner? (DEATH). Runner up: 51A: Rightmost column (ONES).
Least favorite: 5D: "Sounds dandy!" (FUN).
Favorite clue that I didn't see until just now: 53D: Highest and lowest black key on a piano (BFLAT).
There you have it.
- Horace
DNF, but I was down to the last two letters in about 13 minutes. Actually, since tandem solves seem to be kosher on this blog, I guess I did finish, with Cindi's help. I had carelessly put in kATE for Blanchett, and I just couldn't come up the Harry Potter currency or Ben's brother. Cindi couldn't remember the Potter thing, but she did say, "I just read something about him; I thought his name was Casey." That's when the mistake on the actress came to me and I was able to finish. I too loved DEATH and ONES. I share your overall distaste for this effort, I guess. OK, maybe "distaste" is a bit too strong. Did I miss it, or is there no revealer? Since many celebrities do go by two initials, isn't that a problem? And couldn't Joel come up with anybody better than Dee Dee Ramone and the lesser Affleck? Last, just like Bachmann a few days ago, I hate to see the name of Erin Burnett, a god-awful CNN anchor.
ReplyDelete28:19
ReplyDeleteI didn't mind the theme too much, although I thought that the weakest was reducing "Ari" to "RE...." Even though it works, it just seems odd somehow. I didn't know that NEWMOON was the "Twilight" sequel. I'd also never heard of the Egyptian deity AMON. Finally, I thought that I'd read quite a bit of TWAIN, but I needed a couple of crosses to get 19A "Is Shakespeare Dead?" writer.