Today's theme provided another reminder of Airplane! the movie - as if I needed another reminder; I probably quote from that movie at least once a day. The revealer ALTOGETHER figures in a bit when Striker says, "it's an entirely different kind of flying altogether," and then the doctor and flight attendant, to whom he is speaking, say in unison, "it's an entirely different kind of flying." That never gets old. :)
But, I digress. In each of the five theme answers the letters AL appear twice in a row. HALALFOOD and IAMMALALA are two examples. I was more surprised by the number of U's in KUALALUMPUR than in double ALs, if I'm honest. Happily, the crosses corrected my misspellings before I FWOED. My favorite of the theme entries, for both clue and answer was Spaced out (INLALALAND). In league with La La Land we also have Otherworldly glow (AURA) 😇, Rainbows (ARC) 🌈, and a UNICORN 🦄.
The clue at 64A. Part of the body that's spanked (REAR) raised an eyebrow, but maybe that's just my native prudishness. It seemed a bit harsh, so to speak, when there are plenty of other ways (64 in the Shortz era alone, according to XWord Info) to clue it, only two of which reference spanking. I guess AMA person who would rather AIR on the side of things that AMUSE.
~Frannie.
I especially liked the variety of the way the theme answers had their ALAL. There was one ...LALAL... one ...ALALA... and three with just the ...ALAL... (not preceded by L nor followed by A).
ReplyDeleteI had a somewhat similar reaction to REAR which certainly isn't about what I generally am exposed to so it must be about what I am accustomed to seeing in the NY Times.
My time: 14:06, slow for Tuesday.
Oh, and totally agreed about all those Us in KUALALUMPUR. I was unsure of some of the vowels, but turns out, "if in doubt, it is a U" would have worked. Fortunately, the crosses were not especially bad so it worked out.
Jim! Great catch on the order of the A L A L letters! Frannie, I'm still cracking up at your "Airplane!" memory :-)
ReplyDelete9:47
ReplyDeleteAlthough I knew KUALALUMPUR, I, too, did not know of all the "U"s, and was happy for the crosses. We haven't seen POLECAT in a while. I was slowed by the NW with BBC/BRIEF/FRAIDSO/ASIANA/CENTRALALPS, where I needed to make a few guesses. Other than that, the theme was fine and the fill typical for a Tuesday.