There was a point in this solve where I had to pause for a minute and go check my email (nothing) before coming back and looking at it anew. The NW and the center were just not coming clear. Even when I put in the final R in ERA (33D: Silent ____), it took me a minute to parse FSERIES (39A: Pickup line) correctly. That FSE_I_S really scared me for a while, but now that I can finally see it as the pickup truck line that it is, I think it's really quite good.
In fact, the more I think about it, the more I like the theme. From the first time I saw "Pickup line," I was looking for "Come here often," but Mr. Schouwerwou refused to go the obvious route, opting instead for five clever alternatives: NEEDALIFT, CLEANYOURROOM (my favorite), FSERIES, SOWHEREWEREWE (looks excellently odd), and ITSFORYOU. Very nice.
The rest of the fill had it's fair share of crosswordese: OTERI, ENYA, ROO, OREO, NEON... but it also had some fun stuff, like LAVERNE (10D: Shirley's TV roommate), TORCH (58A: Set ablaze), REVENGE (50A: Payback), and BEEFCAKES (3D: Hunky guys). And I liked both GONG and its clue - 36D: Mallet target.
Let's call it a good Wednesday.
- Horace
12:05
ReplyDeleteI thought this an excellent Wednesday and agree that CLEANYOURROOM was the best of the great theme answers. I, too, expected the obvious pickup line to show up at some point but was happy that it didn't, ironically. And even though there was a good deal of crosswordese, the clues were generally better than normal. I liked the pair of monster clues, especially 1D Skull Island beast, for short (KONG). 60D Unable to decide, in court (HUNG) could have gone a different way, as could have 27D Street ___ (souped-up cars) (RODS), but I'm glad they didn't.
11:22
ReplyDeleteI too had a very hard time in the middle. FSERIES looked so wrong for so long. Otherwise, a fine Wednesday puzzle.