We love wacky, and today's theme takes normal phrases like BLASTINGCAP, and gives them wacky clothing-related clues, like "Article of headwear for an explosives engineer?" Heh. My favorite is BORSCHTBELT (60A: Waist accessory for a Russian cook?), and my least favorite is THREEWAYTIE (35A: Article of neckwear for the Stooges?). It's sad, because I grew up loving the Three Stooges, but it's just not a thing I can imagine, a THREEWAYTIE. And besides, it's not a very common thing - how often does a three-way tie actually happen?
Anywho... I appreciated the backward-crosswordese clue for NYMPH (31D: Naiad or dryad). I didn't have to remember which is forest and which is mountain! And the long vertical pins of INCINERATE and CRAZYHORSE were very nice. Aside from that, I guess I like any mention of EDITH Piaf, and ABIDE, CLASH, and NOTCH are good five-letter entries. But there was a little too much LYFT, MBAS, CDS, IRAS, and ANTES for the puzzle to really SOAR. Still, I can't dislike anything that starts with a PBJ (Hands up if you had "blt"), and really, I enjoyed the theme enough. Decent Tuesday.
- Horace
p.s. I was just looking up recipes for borsch last week, and found that it does not need the final T. My go-to cooking resource "Joy of Cooking" does not use it, so now I won't either.
Hands up for blt in place of PBJ.
ReplyDeleteAs for the fill, we always love some good long downs but this time I'll speak up for 3 and 4 letter answers SOAR (somehow my spirits do that when I fill in that answer), a nice clue for DEAR, and a good clue for EAR. Oh, and TOAD but that's just because my brother had that book as a kid, so I don't expect that sentimental value to work on everyone.
4:00
ReplyDeleteBLT was my immediate entry, and my spirits lifted. Then I had to take it out and put the clearly inferior PBJ. Sadness ensued.