0:08:04
It's a decent enough, cute little theme, isn't it? But it's starts on a slightly edgy note with KEEPITDOWN (17A: "That's enough!," to a hot dog-eating contestant?). Didn't a recent winner get disqualified for disgorging within seconds of the buzzer? No? Well… I'm not looking it up for you. You can do that on your own. (And keep in mind that I don't think videos are allowed in the comments.) And I briefly could thing only of collagen when reading CUTITOUT (51A: "That's enough!," to a collagist?), but surely Mr. Livengood means collage, in which various things are cut out and re-assembled. Much better.
I like the silly APESUIT (2D: Jungle film attire) and WHATNOT (25D: Miscellaneous things), and CREWTEAM (3D: Unit involved in a shell game?) had me fooled for quite a while. And speaking of that, there's a strong sports theme running throughout this puzzle: MATE, YARDS, SETS, EXACTA, and ORR.
There was plenty of good fill, really, and I like the unusual and fun clues for MIX (40A: Action verb that's also a Roman numeral) and CHA (25A: "____ -ching!" (cash register sound)). Overall, it's a very good Tuesday puzzle. The week is off to a great start!
- Horace
9:10
ReplyDeleteKEEPITDOWN (17A “That’s enough!,” to a hot dog-eating contestant?) was both funny and somewhat gross. 21A Doofus (ASS) had me fooled for a bit. I’d originally entered “oaf,” but of course no crosses worked with that. I would have tried very hard to come up with a better clue for that, such as “21A ___MAN, NY license plate mistakenly assigned to Kramer” or even “21A Piece of ___,” but perhaps the latter is too crASS. Everyone loves a 27A Certain graph shape (PIE), and 40A Action verb that’s also a Roman numeral (MIX) was a vast improvement over the usual type of clue for that kind of answer. It was nice to see GOUDA (48A Dutch cheese) in there instead of the ever-present Edam. 25D Miscellaneous things (WHATNOT) gave me fond remembrances of the late Tim Yacino, who has yet to be replaced around here, and it’s always nice to think of Marisa TOMEI (33D - is that possibly an allusion to more than the placement in the puzzle?). There was some junk in here, but in all, a great deal of good, including the theme. (Note: This was written at work prior to reading the Horace and Frances review, so I apologize if I’ve covered any of the same ground.)
I did think to myself at one point "Did he even read the review?," but now I think it is kind of interesting to see what you chose to highlight on your own, and how it overlaps with the review. Also, nice about Tomei, although it doesn't seem quite right.
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