The DNF streak is over, at least for the time being. Let's never speak of it again.
This puzzle kicks off with a nice TWISTS, which was, to me, a surprising alternative to olives. I had tried capers and onions there first. Not to be outdone, 1D. had a little twist of its own - a hidden capital. I thought of Mr. Swift fairly quickly, but I couldn't get to TRACTS until I had cleared away the capers and onions.
Other answers with nice twists were Went for a run (BATTED, 7A), Spanish spread (RANCHO, 13A), and Situation with no up side (TIE, 20A) - which I just got now when I re-read it - ha!
The grid featured some entertaining modern-day vocabulary and expressions. I liked GENDERFLUID (moving between male and female, 29A), LEGIT (Not bogus, 23A), and OVERIT (past the point of caring, 59A), to name three. BIGIF was also good. My favorite might be SECRETSAUCE.
In another twist, on the clue side of things, it was nifty to have Vulgarian at 49D just above Bulgarian, e.g. at 50D. (BOOR/SLAV).
I didn't find much to BOOAT, although I could have done without being reminded of John TESH. One of the two eleven-letter answers (HEATSENSORS for toaster components) was a little on the bland side. MANN and OPI (Popular nail polish brand) were on the obscure side -at least to me - but gettable with the downs - for once. :|
~Frannie.
16:45
ReplyDeleteVery fast solve for a Friday; I found this to be a little on the easy side. I filled in SASHIMI (37D Dish often garnished with white radish) off of the clue and the first S. It so happened that we enjoyed some shortly after I finished the puzzle. BOOTCAMP was nicely clued. I could have done without YASIR and TUPAC (as well as TESH), but I liked that SOCIALMEDIA crosses GENDERFLUID, both rather up-to-date. MADEOUT could have a bluer clue. WARTHOG is nice, as was ERMINE, but we can all do without CHINET and that pesky TEATAX. And FAXED? What is this, 1985?
13:24
ReplyDeleteI like the same clues as Frannie. FIRST was tough! And it went along with how hard BATTED was. Both baseball references...
15:29
ReplyDeleteFIRST was excellent. I didn't get that it was referencing Abbott & Costello until after I had filled it all in. Hah! And speaking of difficult baseball references, who the hell remembers MRRED? Wow.
Nice to see BAUHAUS. Never heard of SOREL. Used to love DRPEPPER.
Overall, quite a nice Friday.