I really enjoyed the solve within the solve today! I skipped right over the dashed clues at first, because what else was I going to do? I needed to ELICIT a few answers from my brain and read the revealer at 66A. (REDACTED) before I could make any headway. The first one I caught on to was DOLPHI[nsa]FETUNA. Which led me to make the [cia] connection between ASSO and TEDPRESS down at 52A. LOOSELEA[fbi]NDER took me forever, even though I knew the missing letters had to be FBI based on the other two theme answers. I was not helped having confidently dropped in suckedUP in 4D, instead of the more delicate, and, as it turned out, more correct, KISSEDUP. I might have liked suckedUP slightly better, but I'm not going to make a federal case out of it.
In addition to the excellent theme material, there was quite a bit to enjoy in the grid, starting right off with HOOKAH. I didn't get that one immediately thanks to the obscure (to me) clue, and the overly forceful lip action I had erroneously entered, mentioned above. THRICE and SILTY are two other words that I thought UPLIT the grid today.
Two fun clue/answer pairs were 6D. Prom wear, for some (HEELS) and 61D. Back at sea (AFT). I liked the near duplication of the adjoining answers 53 and 54D. (SOLE and SOLD), although I was completely convinced I had the correct answer when I entered the incorrect "sure".
Plenty of Huygens material today including SHAFT, the aforementioned KISSEDUP and AFT, SENSATION, possibly SPRAYER, and, of course, ASSO. ALLINFUN. :)
In addition to the ACMES, there were a few DADAS to CONTEND with - but just a few - the worst of which, for me, was probably STRIAE (Narrow grooves). I really much prefer wide grooves. :) I also got stuck on 30D. (GLUEY). I had the G and the Y but wasn't sure what Mr. Fagliano had chosen to fill that void.
~Frannie
13:31
ReplyDeleteOMG. Nice review! I hope Mr. Fagliano reads our blog. I suppose I'll be able to ask him about it next weekend!
Anyway... wow. Where to begin? I guess I won't even try, except to say that I, too, enjoyed this one. How am I going to follow this month?...
23:14
ReplyDeleteThat's some list of Huygens Material. I was thinking the same with SHAFT, but wasn't going to mention it, as I'm probably more delicate than Frannie, but I didn't consider the others that she listed. This was a great puzzle for the most part. I figured out the theme with ASSO[CIA]TEDPRESS, briefly considered that all of the theme answers would contain [CIA], but changed that thinking with DOLPHI[NSA]FETUNA, which was my favorite of the three. I didn't love DJED, ITI, III and some of the other threes and fours, but acknowledge that they were probably necessary. I'm surprised that HTML wasn't called out by Frannie. And had it been graded, HOOKAH certainly deserves a straight A.
7:24
ReplyDeleteExcellent theme, excellent review. Horace, I'm glad you're up next. Frannie has really injected some long-needed energy into the blog. I thought the theme was simply going to be hiding one letter in the black squares, as I had assumed LOOSELEA[F] was all the answer was going to be. I very much enjoyed as I worked around the NE to find the ...NDER and realized the hidden FBI. Great revealer, and overall very much fun.