Thursday, December 26, 2013

Thursday, December 26, 2013, Tim Croce

0:45:23

A nice, tough, Thursday. It was slow going, and since we worked top to bottom, the revealer didn't help much, except to explain how all of those things related to "chaos." GENERALDISARRAY (58A: Chaos ... or a hint to the contents of 17-, 28-, 34-, and 43-Across) explains that the word "general" appears, broken up, in each of the theme answers. I don't mind this type of theme, and general is a pretty long word, so it seems worthy.

Except for one square - the "A" in the BARA (49A: Silents sex symbol)/RACEME (43D: Flower cluster on a single stem, as in the honey locust) crossing that we guessed correctly at the very end - we "50A: Bogged down" (INARUT) (Frannie didn't think this exactly parallel) in the SE, where such lovely clues as 61D: Ship's departure (YAW), 47A: Continental pass name (EURAIL), and 51D: Like chestnuts (TIRED) ("old chestnut" is one of Frannie's favorite phrases - and thing to spout) eluded us for quite some time. (How's that for a sentence?)

The long stuff was all strong, and there wasn't much to grouse about. A fine Thursday.

- Horace

8 comments:

  1. I guess this did skew tough for a Thursday. I finished it in two separate sessions on the can, one before bed last night and one before my shower this morning. Seemed quite a bit easier this morning. Wasn't it nice to see local-guy-made-good Len Berman in the grid? Had RunRAGGED for most of the puzzle. I guess the answer has to be understood in the active rather than the passive for the RAN variation to work. That A in RACEME/BARA was a correct guess for me too. Another correct guess was the I in LIN/VARIG. That strikes me as even more of a Natick than the previous. Borders on unfair really, I think. ARRANT is very high quality fill. "Brobdingnagian" is high quality cluing. Loved seeing Bird and the Good Doctor in this thing. Good theme, good execution. Liked this one a lot. That Tim Croce really had some nice hits back in the day, didn't he?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Being somewhat attuned to the world of "high architecture," Maya LIN was a pretty confident guess, and Frannie somehow knew about the airline when we saw it a short while ago, so it rang a bell again today. ARRANT was nice. I meant to mention that one.

    Good ol' Jim Croce... What ever happened to him? Is he dead?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Jeez... Another plane crash victim! How is it that I didn't know that? (Or, perhaps, remember it)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Untimed, but about 20 minutes, with my brother and I doing it together, which helped a lot as he knew both VARIG and EMIRATES off only a few crossers. Some seriously risque fill here, such as ANAL and AREOLA, the last clued even more risque-ly. I like the theme idea, and it's carried out well. Some cluing I didn't like, such as 11D: completely tuckered out (RANRAGGED) doesn't quite fit - you run somebody ragged, it seems to me. Also 55A: Oscillates (VARIES) seems off. Definitely liked EURAIL and SEAFARERS. Overall I enjoyed it.

    ReplyDelete
  5. 65 mins.
    RANRAGGED is just fine. The clue needs to be read as if one "completely tuckered out" someone else, i.e. the person ran the other ragged. I had ARRANT starred as a nice word and had never heard of a RACEME. Until Horace explained it, I didn't understand the TIRED, but it was all that fit with the crosses. I'd never heard the term IKES for 31A Pre-Susan B. Anthony dollar coins, informally and I thought that 19A Search for, in a way (GOOGLE) was clever. 52A Animated greetings (ECARDS) had me on totally the wrong track of thinking for awhile and I liked 53D Alternative to hell? (DRAT). Like Colum, I enjoyed both ANAL and AREOLA, the latter finally having a reasonably, though not perfectly, blue clue. This was the most difficult Thursday in a little while, but it was doable.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I still disagree about RANRAGGED. I don't think tuckered should be used in an active sense rather than an adjectival sense.

    ReplyDelete