I was happy to get get one more of these celebrity puzzles before my month was up, and what a fun one it was! Isaac Mizrahi is a fashion designer, and he and Mr. Kahn have worked several common phrases into the puzzle and re-clued them so that they become design-related. The first one I came to was "3D: Preferred means of arriving at a fashion show?" and even though the word "fashion" was in the clue, I still put in "fashionably late," which fit (!) but which was also wrong. I thought my guess was good (the doubling of fashion aside), but the real answer, TAXITOTHERUNWAY, is much better.
They're all quite good, but I especially like CUTANDDRIED (77A: Like a model's hairstyle), because it's so apt, and WORKTHENIGHTSHIFT (24A: Flaunt a loose dress at a soiree?) and TAKEUPACOLLECTION (109A: Shorten some couture dresses?), because they're so amusing.
If you know me, you know that I don't often like a Sunday puzzle. They're often just "too too" if you know what I mean. But when the theme makes me laugh, as it did today, I am willing to grant quite a bit of leeway to the rest of the fill. Things like OID (114D: Suffix with fact), INE (115A: Bach's Partita No. 6 ____ Minor) ("Aaah... Bach..."), FRA, and EOE might rankle on another day, but today, I HONESTLY don't mind.
1A: Little bit (JOT) - B.
Favorite: 40A: Support under a tank? (BRA) - I liked how many of the non-theme clues seemed to be tailored (*wink) to the overall idea.
Least: 104A: More limited (LESS) With so many clever clues, this stands out as a clunker. But then again, maybe I'm missing something...
All in all, I very much enjoyed this one. I hope you did too!
- Horace
Well, I didn't like it that much. I did like the theme answers, but the grid was so segmented! It was like ten mini-puzzles. No flow. Oh, well. Maybe I'm being intolerant.
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ReplyDeleteI thought it was fine. Typical Sunday. Only issue was the section with DTS (80D: Drunk's problem) crossing LAPORTE (83A: Northern Indians county or its seat) and TES (88A: Fremch possessive). I had a hard time coming off of DUI, and the crosses did not help. I think of DTS more as maybe "recovering drunk's problem".
33:35
ReplyDeleteI also thought it was fine, if a bit easy. The theme answers were all amusing. Is NETZERO still around?
Cool to do a design themed crossword.
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