I like the look of this grid. It's dense, and the diagonal line is pleasing, but after that, and GOATRODEO (17A: Situation that's gone absurdly out of control), there's not really that much to latch onto. Sure, ANGLERS (1D: Casting directors) is kind of funny, BOJANGLES (60A: Musical "Mr.") (wouldn't it have been great if the answer were "Mister?") was ok, and CRAYOLA (12D: Company that makes Silly Putty) was somewhat interesting, but a lot of the rest was just kind of blah.
Lots of names I do not know - ALROSEN, NEAME (??), STASSEN, EARLE - a Pfizer product, DIMETAPP, some obscure(ish) acronyms - NROTC, ATCO, a cigar… the ASTROS… meh.
On the brighter side, I kind of enjoyed all the three-word fill - ISDUETO (44D: Results from), INALINE (39D: Queued), ILLTRADEYOU (20A: Exchange words), NOTSOFAST (15A: "Hold on one cotton-pickin' minute!"), ATANYRATE (63A: Either way), and, perhaps best of all, ONAJAG (48D: Continuing obsessively). Kind of like people who blog the crosswords, I guess…
They're pounding the MOHS (35A: ____ scale) this week, eh?
I don't know. It looks good, and it's fairly clean, but it's just a little on the dull side. It's like a milky quartz crystal instead of a shining sapphire. (See what I did there?) I guess after yesterday this would have to have been a genuine diamond to avoid being a bit of a letdown, at least for us, but perhaps you liked it better?
- Horace
31:45. Much that was unpleasant here. DCCAB? A Mr. T movie? STASSEN, a gimme if you voted in the 40s and 50s. You liked GOATRODEO. I appreciate the colorfulness of the term, especially after looking it up, but it was a complete unknown to me before this puzzle.
ReplyDeleteOtherwise I liked the clue for ARSONIST, and Cece got SPACEBAR. Definitely not one of my favorite themeless puzzles.
51:38 DNF
ReplyDeleteWhat's wrong with Mr. T? I had a few trouble squares in this one because of unknown people crossing each other (for example, 38D "Chinatown" co-star and 59A Dianne of "Parenthood," 1989). I sadly didn't know the 51D Bret Harte/Mark Twain collaboration, either (Bret Harte???). Anyway...I liked 14D Puzzled (BEMUSED).