DOWNGOESFRAZIER (17A: Repeated cry in a 1973 fight) is an awesome fifteen, and it made me blind to this puzzles faults, if, indeed, it has any. Honestly, I'm not even going to look for them.
Let's talk, then, about the other good things. CHINCHILLA (15A: Fur source) - awesome. ASHTREES (44A: They might become bats), easy, but also great. BOLEYN (28A: Tudor who lost her head) - great. EROICA (42D: Work first publicly performed at the Theater an der Wien in 1805.) - great. DISSENT (35A: Minority report?) - great. TOLEDOOHIO (29A: The Glass Capital of the World) - huh. Who knew? Also in that category GOURDE (18D: Currency of 46-Down (HAITI)). Really? I don't suppose it's honest-to-god gourds, unfortunately, but maybe it comes from that? No… Wikipedia mentions nothing of the sort, so it's probably not true.
SHAGGY (9D: Like yaks) - well-clued. ELIZA (11D: The "you" in "On the Street Where You Live") - very nice, and it makes me think of recent guest blogger and recent visitor of Italy, Colum, who once sang this publicly to his wife (not named Eliza, and not at the Theater an der Wien). Isn't that the case?
Even the two "God" answers don't upset me today. That's how much this puzzle put me ONCLOUDNINE (24D: Elated).
Excellent. Loved it.
- Horace
DNF. First one in quite a long while.
ReplyDelete34:17
ReplyDeleteYes, I liked this too. Lots of good clues. ARTICHOKES (57A: Heads with hearts), TEA (48A: People often strain to make it), MAYO (1A: Part of a club - I boast the sandwich angle was my first thought although I waited to enter it), and even SENIORS (19A: High class) and SWEPT (9A: Like some floors and series). And the trivia was good, as noted with EROCIA, GOURDE, SERRA, and, of course, DOWNGOESFRAZIER! And how did it take me so long to get STARR? And OK, it wasn't *all* good. CUEIN was poor, but a minor flaw in an otherwise fun puzzle.
<30 mins.
ReplyDeleteIt took me a few minutes to get going on this puzzle (with OLDGOATS), but once I started I filled it in like an early week puzzle. Maybe the Friday ones are getting easier to solve, but they are much more interesting than the early-weekers. Horace nailed the description. The only one that I needed all crosses to answer was STARR. Well, I suppose that's not true. I filled in HAITI with only a couple of crosses, but GOURDE required all crosses, too. Oh, and RAITA, I guess, but that's it.