Slow for a Monday! But definitely worth it.
Let's just start off with 18A: Feet in the city? (3 wds.). Answer? URBANLEGENDS, as in "urban leg-ends." Hah! That has me still chuckling. It's so stupid! I love it. The other three aren't quite as funny to me. I do like QUICKTHINKING, just imagining a "slim monarch who gets around fast."
I hardly thought a revealer was necessary, but THEGAP (39A: Something to mind ... in 18-, 24-, 47- and 58-Across) is pretty good. In fact, all of those 6-letter across answers leading from RHESUS up through YOUBET are strong.
But what's really impressive about this Monday offering are the pair of 10-letter answers in the NE and SW corners. The SW pair are stronger, with BASERUNNER and ELIWHITNEY. I love seeing the full name of crossword friendly cotton gin inventor Eli. SECURELINK is not quite as strong, but AMPLITUDES is nice.
With PLANKTON and BELGRADE, this puzzle was full of fun stuff. I'm overlooking PSST, SSS, and SISI (it just will not die!) because I liked it overall.
1A: Won every game (SWEPT) gets a B-. It's pretty good.
Fave: IDIOTS (16A: Dolts). It's just so baldly out there. What all of us have thought at one time or another.
Least fave: LUV (36A: Adore, cutesily). It's just so baldly out there. What all of us would like never to have to read ever again.
- Colum
9:20 (slow for a Monday)
ReplyDeleteMy favorite themer by far was QUICKTHINKING. Somehow the others didn't quite grab me as much as this sort of thing usually does. I liked PLANKTON - the little ones don't get as much crossword exposure as I'd like, for reasons completely outside their control such as having 7 letters and a surfeit of consonants.
But my favorite answer would have to be TUN. Probably just because of the illustration which wikipedia has on the subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tun_(unit)#/media/File:English_wine_cask_units.jpg . Now, I wouldn't want to have to order wine (or beer, and I'm glad I don't trade in crude oil) by the tun, butt, puncheon, hogshead, tierce, barrel, or rundlet. But in a crossword, I don't have to do calculations on them, I just need to revel in the intrusion of an out of the ordinary word or a few.
4:37
ReplyDeleteSo much good stuff they had to make it a 15x16.
I, too, enjoyed the ridiculousness of the themers, and it took me longer than I thought it should have to parse out URBANLEGENDS.
The TUN illustration is very nice. Is the common beer keg the rundlet? Or is it smaller still?