The puzzle's theme answers offer a parade of animal-inspired (?) locomotions from FROGMARCH to GOOSESTEP. I guess my favorite is TURKEYTROT, although, we are getting a lot of turkeys 'round these parts lately and trot is an overstatement when you are waiting for them to get out of the way. Turkey amble is more like it. Of course, the answer was referring to an old ragtime dance, not the pace of an actual turkey, but it made me think of it. For some reason, I tried to come up with other entries. Would pussy foot work?
There were a number of additional theme work horses, so to speak, including Hogwash (LIES), Swine (BOARS), and Young raptor (EAGLET), not to mention Operating smoothly, as an engine (PURRING).
Frannie's Grid Goodies (TM) [sorry!] for today are TOUSLE, LOGE, ALFALFA, BARRIOS, and LEISURE. I enjoyed the clue at 51D. "Coverage of senators in ancient Rome?" (TOGAS) and "Bad thing to have on one's face" (EGG). I thought 31D, "One of two in 'Waiting for Godot'" was especially nice because the play has two characters (Vladimir and Estragon) in addition to two ACTs.
Less ADMIRED by me were ABACI, SOUTHER, and SRA. I thought "Trickled" as a clue for OOZED was less than perfectly apt. ASP! I also think constructors should say goodbye to ELLO.
~Frannie.
17:42
ReplyDeleteI finished all but the NW in about 9:30, but trying ghettOS at 2D, aGe at 4D and perpMARCH (before figuring out the theme) at 16A led to a terrible slowdown. I ADMIRED LEISURE, BOSONS and ATTACHE, but never heard of 52D's ROONE Arledge. I always enjoy Christina RICCI (who was recently great in "Z"), but have never been to a RODEO.
"Pussy foot" is close to fitting the theme but I don't think "foot" quite matches the pattern in "march", "run", "trot", "crawl", and "step", where they are all ways of moving.
ReplyDeleteI was dimly aware of ROONE Arledge as a media executive, but had to look it up to see what he had done. Which I suppose technically makes my result a DNF instead of a 10:36, but I was more interested in some (apparently) crossword-worthy knowledge than in purity (or even just getting the answer, which I suppose I eventually would have from crosses).
Agreed on the clue for EGG, that was nice.
5:47
ReplyDeleteCute theme - would have been improved if the answers had been placed in order of increasing speed of movement. Would "march" be faster than "step"? I was slowed by guessing Obama instead of OPRAH, when I had O____.
9:41
ReplyDeleteI, too, got mired in the NW for a while. I've never heard of FROGMARCH or BEARCRAWL, I don't think. And CHICKENRUN is not really something I ever think of... and so while I like the idea of the theme, it didn't really do much for me.
And to pussyfoot is to move stealthily - like a cat. It's also come to be used more generally to mean being non-committal, but it certainly could have worked here.