0:07:48
Nice crossing pairs of 15s and 13s, and a two in black squares right in the middle of the grid. Plus, the corners are full of theme material, too - three are 2-related words, and the last has a 2-related clue and references JANUS, the two-faced god who looks backward and forward. Plus, is it just me, or are there a lot of double letters? SOO, SWOONED, TUSSLE, ERR, STEEL, SNOOZE, LAPP, MEESE, and the theme homonym TOO. A very nice accomplishment, in my opinion. All that and the fill is quite good to boot! And is it a pangram?! No, not quite. No F, K or X, but there are plenty of high-point letters all the same.
I was not familiar with ANOUK (2D: Actress Aimée), and I needed the cross to change "alef" to ALIF (58D: First Arabic letter) (Arabic, not Hebrew!), but really, those aren't complaints.
This might be my favorite Monday puzzle ever.
- Horace
7:09
ReplyDeleteI thought that the first letter was aleph, being a math geek and thinking in Hebrew, as Horace. I wasn't aware of the word DYAD for 66A Couple, but the crosses were all just fine and the fill, as was mentioned, was very nice, as was the theme.