Last night's blog entry may have been written after a number of alcoholic beverages were imbibed. I'm not saying for sure. It could have been one way or the other. Whistlepig rye may have been involved. Yeah.
Anyway, another strong themeless for Saturday. I was very concerned when I made it through the entire first half of the puzzle without any entries at all. My first came at 35D: Target of a trap-neuter-return program (FERALCAT), where I put in stRAyCAT. Despite the first part of the answer being incorrect, it gave me enough foothold to get going. I love 36D: Vial that a villain might withhold (ANTIDOTE). That's fun cluing. Once I changed my original answer to the correct one, I figured out PENCILPUSHER. I had briefly had stenographER there, although it is perhaps unfair to call that job a drudge.
Very quickly off of that entry I filled in the SE, which was definitely the easiest section for me. 33D: Not having many different parts? (TYPECAST) is cute. I recall ASHER from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphthali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Benjamin, and Joseph). My one error however came here, and probably slowed me down quite a bit. I put in tESH at 51A: Grateful Dead bassist Phil (LESH). TYROL would have been much easier to see.
I did figure out IKEA at 22A (fun clue!) which reminded me of Mickey ROURKE (I was stuck on Marisa Tomei there), and when I got BBQPIT, I was able to figure out the acrosses. 1A: Spreads (BROADENS) is one of the least interesting clues and answers in the whole grid, unfortunately. It's fine, just not exciting, so I give it a C+.
I don't recall hearing the term BOXSOCIAL before, although I've seen Oklahoma! plenty of times. QUESTLOVE needed most of the crosses to figure out. Nice scrabble values in the NW. I finished the puzzle in the NE, which was fairly straightforward once I had entry. OLDNORSE was what opened it up.
REOIL, DYS, partial NYES. Otherwise no complaints here. 20A: Something a mother wears (HABIT), as in Mother Superior. Does that need to be capitalized in the clue? It's a title, and so I think it ought to be.
- Colum
29:31
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty out of touch with all things modern, but I do watch enough Fallon, I guess, (which is really very little) to have known QUESTLOVE. But after that I got precious little until I started on the Downs.
Loved 33D: Not having many parts (TYPECAST).
NE is where I ended, and where Frannie ended, I happen to know. Definitely the trickiest spot today. Another good weekend challenge.