Impressive! The last five Triple Crown winners, including the one who just won it two days ago running all the way through the center. Do you think this was started back on Derby Day? It really couldn't have been started any earlier, and there's no way it was just started on Sunday... is there? Mr. Leban must have been watching the Derby and thought - Hey, that's fifteen letters! And then to realize that the previous four winners had paired number of letters - it's really quite incredible. And then on top of that, to make the fill as clean as it is... well, I don't know what else to say.
And even the worst of the fill is symmetrical - UAR & RDS - which makes even the bad stuff kind of elegant. And not that I'm a big fan of TOMCLANCY (6D: "Patriot Games" novelist) or SHOOTINGS (33D: Events for the police blotter), but those are both decent long fill, if we overlook the pluralizing. The MIKADO (44D: Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, with "The") makes it in... we've got ACCEDE (47D: Consent, as to a request), SLENDER (26D: Thin), and WOMBAT (1A: Marsupial that looks like a small bear) - what's not to like?
I'll say it again, impressive!
- Horace
9:07
ReplyDeleteAgreed...excellent. APOLLO, KEROUAC, MIKADO, OMNI (at which we've not yet lodged). Horace's father is probably familiar with the OREGON Trail. Until I got to the famously misspelled AMERICANPHROAH, I had no idea to what the dates were referring. There has been a bit of an uproar over a twice-misused "pour" in a recent Worcester Telegram editorial where the "editor" meant, in one case "poring" and in the other "PORED." Shocking that such a mistake was made by a professional on such an often-misused homonym. I can forgive a letter-writer, but an editor? C'mon. That's a paddlin' if ever one was needed.
4:56. Yes, very nicely done. I got what the theme was when I was part way through SEATTLESLEW. However, I can never remember any of their names, so I had to pick them out by crosses. KEROUAC, MIKADO, AFFIRMED. Very nice SW. I also liked GNOMES above SANTAS, despite the forced plural on the latter.
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