I like the way Mr. Agard laud it all out today by putting forward theme answers that are positive phrases (WERENUMBERONE, SHESALLTHAT, YOURETHETOP, THEYREGRRREAT) - a commodity that's been in short supply in recent days. I'm going to FLOAT the idea that APEX and NTH are bonus theme material. Can I get some AMENS?
I like to try to keep my Monday solves under six minutes (due, in part, to the pressure of blogging alongside solving speedsters Horace and Colum!), but I ended up a bit OVER today for reasons I'll explain below. However, most of the puzzle was smooth as silk. I thought the clue-answer precision - the ne plus ultra of crossword puzzles for this solver - was top drawer. Por ejemplo:
"Place under one's seat, say" (STOW)
"Release, as a new album" (DROP)
"Go in" (ENTER)
"Equestrian's 'Stop!'" (WHOA)
Lovely.
There were just three places where "she reads it, she TYPES it" didn't work today. The first was "Big jerk" - I was thinking verb (e.g., tug) instead of the more entertaining answer from the noun category, ASS. Ha. Also, I didn't quite remember how 'great' was spelled in the Frosted Flakes slogan, so I had to get the four Downs to complete that answer. And last, but not least, I wasn't familiar with either the "1999 rom-com with Freddie Prinze, Jr. and Rachael Leigh Cook" (I'm more familiar with the oeuvre of Mr. Prinze, Sr.) or the "Award-winning sports journalist who went from ESPN to The Atlantic" (I'm more familiar with things that aren't sports), so I hesitated briefly - let's say 4-5 seconds, shall we? - before entering the final, congratulations-engendering H.
Other things I liked in this puzzle include RYES - the cat's meow of the whiskey family, IMHO - ABBA, OSLO, and a reminder of the joke, "when is a door not a door?" "When it's AJAR." LOL. Fun fill included LAVA, WAXES, HELIX, and SHOUTITOUT.
On a side note, money must be growing on trees somewhere. This is the third appearance of GELT in four days!
The fact that a little bit of alphabet soup (SCI, LAT, NCIS, TGI, AAA) spilled into the puzzle, is small potatoes in an otherwise A-1 puzzle.
~Frannie.
I'm partial to INADAY, mostly because the part of my brain which was saying "tomorrow" was fighting with the part of my brain which was saying "that's not even close to the right number of letters".
ReplyDeleteAs for the Frosted Flakes slogan, before I even read the clue I had three Rs in a row from crosses. So I was assuming one or more was probably wrong. Until I found the rare (only?) clue which could fit that situation.
4:34
ReplyDeleteNice review, Frannie! I love "alphabet soup." We should trademark that. :)
3:09 (FWOE)
ReplyDelete71A: Not-safe-for-work transmission. I entered SEXy. Hmm.
5:37
ReplyDeleteI'm with Mr. Kingdon, in that I already had the three Rs in place before reading the across clue, so I was able to fill it right in. Had I read the across clues straight through from the outset, the spelling of THEYREGRRREAT would've needed to wait on crosses for me, also. RYES definitely are tasty (the above should be their slogan, not that of a breakfast cereal). Also, as JEMELEHILL filled out for me with crosses, I had a feeling I'd made a mistake somewhere, but the congratulatory pencil arrived apace. We don't see enough FRUITHATs nowadays, do we? That's kind of an understated one in the photo up there.