Today's theme grew on me as I went along, and once I understood it, they got easier and easier to guess. They're all somewhat interesting, but they maybe seemed a little bland. WINGEDANDSTINGINGPEST (WASP) might be favorite.
1A: Ascribes, with "up" (CHALKS): B - It's an interesting enough word and an interesting cluing.
Favorite Answer: AMY
Favorite Clue: 31A: Wet blanket? (DEW)
Lots of stuff I wasn't familiar with in this one. 5D: Capital of Uganda (KAMPALA), 7A: Title film character played by Tyler Perry (MADEA), 95D: Willa Cather's "My ____" (ANTONIA), and others. And then there was the usual boring stuff and partials like ELHI, RAPA, ERST, MRI, EEN, IOC, etc.
On the other side of the coin, we find such fancy fill as WHIMSY (32D: Flight of fancy), MALIGNS (96D: Bad-mouths), SCHLEPS (12D: Lugs), and MIASMA (51A: Foreboding atmosphere). Oh, and I was caught yet again by a classic trick - 60D: City, but not county, leader? (SOFTC). I had SOF_C and thought for a while that I must have some mistake... HAH!
I'm not a huge fan of Sunday puzzles, as a rule, and this one didn't win me over. It's fine, and the theme is okay. How did you like it?
- Horace
31:41
ReplyDeleteI actually like Sunday puzzles because I grew up on the Fred Piscop and Merl Reagle Sunday Wash Post crosswords, which is all I did for years. But they sure have a lot of little places to get hung up.
For this one, I figured out the theme quickly and was hoping for one of my better Sunday times, but alas I got tripped up by having EDS (33A: They contain libidos) instead of IDS (both of which I think work pretty well), and it took me forever to correct it. The whole STEER / EGON / RENE section also had me stymied for a while. Than a wild guess on the MSS / SANAA crossing and that was the end.
I too got stuck in that little SW corner. I tried "venk" for EGON. But, you see, I was thinking of Spengler's partner, Peter Venkman. Nice addition of ACRONYM in that corner. I'm going on record to say that I actively disliked this theme. Bland is a nice word for the answers. The best was OTHERWISEKNOWNASYES for it's complete pointlessness.
ReplyDeleteI apologize for that "it's" up there. Typing too fast...
Delete55:03 (DNF)
ReplyDeleteMADEA/DOTARDS/ALAN/ABOLLA were all unknown to me in the north, and 120A Opening letters? (ACRONYM) fooled me with the crosses EGON and DYS, so...too many errors for my liking. I figured out the theme almost right away, and agree with Colum on OTHERWISEKNOWNASYES as the best of the theme answers, even though MOSTLYARIDREDSPHERE is good, too.