Perhaps it's the news coming out of North Carolina this week, but this grid looks like a stylized hurricane to me. The eye of the storm is smack dab in the middle. Of course, the downside of that is that the grid is remarkably segmented. Look at those very large right angles of black squares in the N and S which have created dead ends. I don't love that sort of thing, but I suspect that all that isolation made it easier to put in a lot of nice answers.
Answers like HATEMAIL crossing EMPTYWORDS (truer sentiments were never written - especially in our current day and age). I love the pile of answers in the SW corner: STUCCO over TATAMIMAT over ICEPALACE.
My favorite in the whole puzzle is 62A: Took courses under pressure (STRESSATE). First, there's the misdirect of food rather than college classes. Second there's the outstanding lack of a question mark (probably it is questionable not putting one in, but I love it). Third, because the verb in the answer is an irregular one, the past tense of the clue does not result in an -ED in the answer. And finally, it's just a great answer.
Too much analysis? I don't care. It's my turn to blog and I get to talk about what I want to! Hah!
Okay, sorry about that. But don't worry. You'll be RID of me soon, at least for a couple of weeks.
I got off to a slow start in the NW but confidently entering "losseS" at 4D: Entries in red (DEBITS). I was misled by wanting to put "scold" in at 1A: Dress down (CHIDE). I finally ended by entering COSSETS. An excellent answer and overall an excellent puzzle.
- Colum
12:21
ReplyDeleteAgreed on all counts. Even the hurricane thing, although I did not think of that before you mentioned it.
I liked "Core group? (yes, even with the question mark) for SEEDS, and how about that clue for ERIE? (Eastern city whose name sounds weird?)? The only problem with that is that I'm not sure I'd characterize it as "Eastern." I mean, I guess it is more east than west, but when you're in Boston... Also, I just looked at it on Google Maps, and I noticed that when you drag east and west, from a high vantage point, as it were, the map spins as if it were a globe, not a flat map. Disturbing.
Seeing OCONNOR and SOUTER in the grid together is almost too much to bear. Sigh.