This is a great puzzle that probably ought to have been a Tuesday, but that doesn't really bother me. Really. The fact that I finished it in over 5 minutes is a tribute to the creating skills of the authors, not a reflection of my solving skills at all.
The theme is fun: the answers all have time periods in them, arranged in order from longest to shortest as you move through the puzzle. The phrases are all positive in connotation, thus the revealer is PRIMETIME. I'm not sure that the clue for REDLETTERDAY is exactly right. The definition from Wikipedia is a day of special significance or opportunity, so I suppose the date might be circled on a calendar, but it seemed just a bit off for me.
The puzzle really shines in the fill, though. Despite the abundance of 3-letter answers in the middle, there are few answers that felt questionable. HED is a bizarre partial from an uncommon phrase, and GOA is clued with a reference to Psycho instead of the classic crosswordese Indian state.
Leaving aside 1A (CBS - C-), those first three down answers showed me the quality of today's fill. 1D: More evasive with the truth (CAGIER) is great. 2D: Marilyn Monroe, notably (BLONDE) is also excellent, even though she, like many, was a bottle blonde. 3D: Something you reach out and take? (SELFIE) is brilliant.
Other nice fill include SCYTHE, RUBNOSES, MAILITIN. 41D: "You agree with me?", informally (AMIRITE) is cute.
My fave today is 61A: Substituted "math" for "mass," say (LISPED). My least fave is 48A: Concepts not meant to be questioned (DOGMAS). I don't like the plural on that. To me, it seems that "dogma" on its own encompasses multiple concepts typically.
- Colum
P.S. Aha! It's a 16 x 15 grid. No wonder it took longer to complete.
7:30
ReplyDeleteThis took me longer than a normal Monday due entirely to the SW, where I was bogged down for a little while. I agree that HED isn't great, and instead of REESES being clued with Pieces, maybe it should have been "Ms. Witherspoon and others," especially as it crosses BLONDE. Shout out to MAUI and the UMBRA, which is the portion of the Moon's shadow that I'll be experiencing in August. I never heard of KIR, but I'd be willing to give it a try. SCYTHE is a nice word, but I'd have liked to see INTHEWAY clued with "Old and _____."
5:15
ReplyDeleteI have only ever drunk KIRs in Europe (in fact, I had a Kir Royale just this past February!), but maybe I should make some during a Sea Mist cocktail hour this year. And speaking of Sea Mist, I just used a modified SCYTHE to trim the grass up there this past weekend. True story.
A fine Monday.
What happened to the mower up there? I used it once or twice last year with great success.
DeleteIt's still there. I used it too, but needed the scythe to finish up some of the longer stuff near the house and near the street that the mower didn't get. It's also sometimes easier using the scythe to hack down taller stuff in the back yard.
DeleteWell, sure. Once the grass gets too tall, that type of mower just caresses it gently, which is one of the drawbacks of them.
Delete