Today's grid presented four shaded rows replete with words that refer to the human nether region, or in other words, a BOTTOMROW. I was thinking of trying to insert some theme-related words of my own into the review - as is my wont - but Mr. Trudeau managed to wedge in so many that all that remained was junk in the trunk. Of the ten theme answers in the grid, my favorite is CABOOSE, but I can be also be entertained by many of the others including RUMP, FANNY, and BEHIND. BUTT is good, but it's too bad a full 'buttock' couldn't be squeezed in.
I did get stuck in a couple of places. At 5A: "Not keep a secret," I entered 'tell' instead of BLAB. Also, I looked at 13D: "Shaggy beasts of 53-Across" before having gotten to 53-Across. I had the Y in BOOTY, which made me think I had discovered 'Yeti.' That turned out to be an abominable mistake that cost me some time.
There was a pile of fun fill including ABSCOND, FOB, and ZESTY. One clue that cleft me smiling was "Horse's disapproving vote?" (NEIGH). That cracked me up!
Just to clear the poop deck, I thought UNIDEAL was just that. There were also runs of partials and acronyms throughout the grid like OLA, SEZ, XES, PSS, ALII, and WEA that felt a little uncomfortable, but overall, it was fundamentally a fine puzzle. :)
~Frannie.
4:06
ReplyDeleteExcellent review! Just the sort of thing we've come to expect from Annie. Whenever I try to do something similar, I just make an ass of myself.
And who is Annie, I hear you ask? I have no idea. Frannie, of course. Frannie.
DeleteI don't know who Annie is either but with 5 letters and three vowels I would expect to meet her more often. Maybe clued as "___ get your gun" or "___ Hall" or "little orphan" or something.
ReplyDeleteWith a puzzle this theme dense, I would expect UNIDEAL fill, and there is. But on the plus side, I liked HANDDYE and ISAIDNO and well even OMNIA. Although on that last one I was sort of asking myself how "omnixxxx" goes into the dative case or whatever other case it is because you see I haven't really studied Latin just picked it up here and there which means I'm pretty fuzzy on fine points like this.
6:14
ReplyDeleteThis puzzle was right up my alley, so to speak, except it's odd that "ass" wasn't included, as it's seen so very often in NYT puzzles. You're definitely going to get some partials and less-great fill on a Monday, so it doesn't bother me too much. Of the theme answers, I like CHEEKS, BUNS, RUMP and CABOOSE the best. Of the longer answers, I didn't love GINNING, but I did enjoy the kind-of pair of SOREARM and TURNTWO. I look forward to heading into Worcester for the occasional WooSox game in a year or so.