Saturday, December 22, 2018

Saturday, December 22, 2018, Joon Pahk

0:21:22 (F.W.O.E.)

I'm torn about this puzzle. I loved the start, with the cleverly-clued MARTINI (13A: Bond order), the contemporary ADULTING (16A: Taking care of responsibilities like an actual grown-up), and the very strong, crossing, stair-stepped triple-elevens.

ENIAC
Try slipping that into your pocket!
The cluing all around was clever and fun. Witness: 35A: Slip covers? (CORRECTIONS), 31A: Drinking glasses? (BEERGOGGLES), 3D: Not the classy sort? (TRUANT), 23A: Traveler's boarding areas? (INNS). Sure, those all have question marks, but how about 36A: Swift quality (IRONY), 55A: You can't beat them (NEMESES), 47A: Gets one under (BIRDIES), or 30D: It's what everyone's doing (AGING)? Beautiful.

Then there's quality fill like TACONIC (20A: New York's ____ State Parkway), YOSEMITE (52A: Half Dome's home), SPLASHY (26D: Ostentatious) and TRASHY (56A: Lowbrow). We should come up with a word for those kind of entries in a puzzle. "Fill" seems too limited to describe such good, fun stuff. Anybody got any ideas?

So there's lots to like - why am I torn? Well, maybe it's just because I don't know every word there is to know. I got stuck in the southwest-al area, where I was not familiar with a handful of entries. ZOROASTRIAN (not exactly SW) is only on the fringes of my sphere of knowledge, and I misspelled it ZaROASTRIAN, leading to my third consecutive FWOE! I should maybe have known better because of SUBORNS (24D: Induces to commit a crime), but I guess I'm just too much of a goody-two shoes to be familiar with that one. :)

So that's two things, and then there's INCEPT (36D: Receive as a member) crossing ESPIAL (50A: Act of noticing). Yecch. ESPIAL is, I guess, inferable, but INCEPT is pretty far out there. ...

Still, I've said before in this blog that anything is fair game on Saturday, and I stand by that. So with that attitude, I will be happy for all the good I got today, and although I had some personal difficulties, it doesn't mean the whole thing was bad. Does it?

- Horace

1 comment:

  1. 8:58
    That SW corner almost scuttles the entire puzzle in my book. Not only INCEPT and ESPIAL, but also PEIRCE. ZOOTOPIA is good though.

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