Another lovely grid from Mr. Berry. I think of that central, staggered stack as something of a trademark of his. Three perfectly normal two-word entries, crossed with nothing but solid fill and good clueing.
Interesting trivia in 52A: 1963 song investigated by the F.B.I. for supposedly obscene lyrics (LOUIELOUIE). Really? REALLY?? … our tax dollars hard at work. In other news, I didn't realize that PABST was the "1D: Brewer of Schlitz, nowadays," but that's kind of like hearing that all of the burgers at Jack In The Box are made by Denny's. It's something that will never affect me in any way and makes no difference to anything, anywhere.
Enjoyed GEOLOGIST (32D: Fault finder?), MORASS (24D: Hard-to-escape situation), BACKTALKS (30D: Answers wrongly?), and the clue for UMPING (27D: Working while others play?). There's some sub-par stuff, like OMAN, OAKEN, SKAT, and DOIN, INGE, AGRA but they're really not that terrible. Just a little dull, maybe.
I enjoyed it well enough.
- Horace
15:29
ReplyDeleteThere was nary a slowdown save for the SW, and when I got BACKTALKS and COALMINE, that was it for this puzzle. I thought that 18D Post office workers? (NEWSMEN) was a great hidden capital, and I enjoyed the three long answers in the middle, too, with BUMMINGAROUND (30A Spending time unprofitably) as my favorite of the three. Nice to see GIBSON in there, and SPIRITING is a good word. ARGONAUTS was an excellent answer (although I filled it right in), and I'll make sure not to bring any AIRHORNS to Wimbledon. BTW, is Friday the new Wednesday?
15:57. And more than half of that time was spent on the middle N section, where I could see nothing. I had BINGO_____ and SLEEP_____ and no entry into that middle section. Everything else slipped into place quickly and easily. I put ROBOTIC in with no crosses, and ROCKINGHORSES off that R. We saw HONES just recently, didn't we? And GEOLOGIST brings the "talcum" fiasco of yesterday to mind. Like you said, Horace, good enough.
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ReplyDeleteYes, Horace, but don't tell me that you never sampled a Blue Ribbon in your time.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=snhiofL2Rh4
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