Friday, May 13, 2016

Friday, May 13, 2016, David Phillips and David Steinberg

10:18

Holy cow. What a wonderful Friday themeless this one is. I was impressed by every aspect of the grid.

I broke into the puzzle with 1D: Jeremy of "Entourage" (PIVEN), a gimme for me, anyway. This led to the only answer I'm down on, EZINE. But then I broke the long acrosses. How great is it that all three of them end in -S, but are not actually plurals? They each require that S to work. 1A: Bedroom set piece? (PAJAMABOTTOMS) gets an A both for clue and answer.

I didn't know IMAGINEDRAGONS by their album name, but my daughter saw them last summer and has a T-shirt, so the answer came to me pretty quickly. VANESSAWILLIAMS is likewise great, with her full name represented.

I moved down the upper diagonal but couldn't break the SW corner yet. In the NE, SNAREDRUM (excellent) and STEVENS (also great) came fine, but I put in SMARTies (?!) at 15D: Little something for the road? I mean, yes, they are little, but why would they be specifically for the road? SMARTCAR came later, and I love love love that entry.

So I had to restart in the middle of the bottom section. From TRUSTS and TSHIRT, I got THONGS and TAMIL and STINK. This made TALKSNONSENSE apparent. Here's another amazing set of long answers. DATINGAGENCIES is a plural, but I have no issue with it at all. Even better is 53A: Extra sauce order? (MAKEMINEADOUBLE). Hah! I love it.

There are a slew of 3-letter answers necessary to make all of this work. But look at the clues and how they make it fun to get them. 6D: Puzzle hunt?: Abbr. (ANS). 12D: "J'accuse!" reply (MOI). 56D: Place of corruption (DEN).

Two big thumbs up.

- Colum

3 comments:

  1. ~31 minutes (timed off of Sue's car clock on the way to ME)
    That's an amazing time, Colum. I really had no problems with this grid. I didn't know IMAGINEDRAGONS from the clue, either, but from the date given and with a few of the downs accomplished, it came easily enough. Another "I agree" with the grade for 1A. Of course, I starred 20A One tailed in the sewers (RAT), even though it was a gimme for all, no doubt, because I'm in the business (see what I did there, pun-wise?). I also starred MAKEMINEADOUBLE, SNAREDRUM, SMARTCAR (I loved the clue but it's a terrible car; I have a much more comfortable Hyundai Accent that gets far better mileage), 23D Beach mold (PAIL) and 52D Takes in (CONS). I thought, in addition to the above-mentioned EZINE, that 33D Celebrity whose name sounds like a drink (ICET) is poor. However, two big thumbs up for the puzzle from this corner, too. Nice use of SPRUCE as an adjective.

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  2. 18:34

    Yeah, I thought I was breezing along in this one, too. Hah!

    I will second all the love. MAKEMINEADOUBLE is one of my favorite entries in a long while. PRIG (Unlikely swinger) is great, SICHUAN is a word I should learn to spell correctly. I thought "Distillery eponym Joseph" was a little too random a clue for SEAGRAM. And I was not familiar with SPRAT, but any reference to one of the top two characters on Downton Abbey is ok with me!

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    Replies
    1. Yeah, he's pretty great, isn't he? His agony aunt sideline was the highlight of the last season.

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