Kind of a funny theme today of adding "ster" to one word in a common two-word expression, as in DRAGSTERQUEEN (44A: Female street-racing champion?), and FLASHMOBSTER (52A: Ostentatious member of the Mafia?). That last one would be better as "Flashy mobster," but there's no such phrase as "Flashy mob." And that's the drawback here - the answers ought to be funny, but the wacky cluing just doesn't quite work.
Aside from the theme, though, we have two nice long verticals - PARATROOPER (11D: High military figure?) (again, the clue just seems a little off) and RECORDLABEL (24D: RCA, for one). FOSCLE (6D: Ship part spelled with two apostrophes) is short for "forecastle," and Wikipedia actually has it abbreviated with three apostrophes, thus: fo'c's'le. SQUEEZE (43D: Tight hug) is good, as are CHASESCENE (17A: Standard feature of an action film) and OPENSEASON (58A: Prime hunting time) (isn't it not prime, but legal hunting time?), but having such long Across answers adjacent to theme answers seems a little odd.
1A: Fast-food chain known for its root beer (AANDW) gets a C. It was also my first confident answer.
I guess I didn't love this one. There's a lot of ELOI, ABEL, NYE, OPEC, IBET, TAU, AAH kind of stuff, as well as proper nouns like ESTES, ROCHE, STYNE, and EISNER. And can we count DOPEY (35D: One of a Disney septet) in there too? I really disliked 41A: ____ cent (PER), but I smiled at 53D: "Choosy ____ choose Jif" (ad slogan) (MOMS).
Not all bad, but not all good.
- Horace
4:05
ReplyDeleteWay too easy for a Wednesday, IMO. I was confused that CHASESCENE was not a theme entry for a short period, but got over it. FOCSLE reminds my of HMS Pinafore: "Well, your honor, love burns as brightly in the fo'c'sle as it does on the foredeck..." I agree there's a bit much in the way of crosswordese (ELOI and AGLET? in the same puzzle?). But it didn't really hold me up much. Clearly.
P.S. Is that Benedict Arnold? He was a traitor, not a spy. Nathan Hale was the SPY.
DeleteIt came up when I googled Nathan Hale. Are you telling me you can identify them both visually?
DeleteAnyway, yes, it does come up quite a bit more when I google Benedict Arnold, so I'll change to something that is definitely Nathan Hale. Nice catch!
No... I reverse googled the image.
Delete11:56
ReplyDeleteWow...tough crowd. But I agree that it was just an amusing theme, not a laugh-out-loud one. the AANDW fast-food chain is not known to me. And yes, PER cent was terrible...terrible. HIPSTERFLASK was the funniest theme answer.