Did anyone else notice that the New York Times website (and with it the crossword) was down this morning at around 6:00am? I did. CNN was down, too, and a couple other sites I tried. It came back by 7:00am or so, but by that time, the window I normally use to do the puzzle and get the review up had passed. But I'm here now, so let's do this.
The theme today made me chuckle. An H is inserted in the middle of a two-word phrase, and the result is clued wackily. The Paris Metro is transformed to a PARISHMETRO, or, an "Urban area around a church district?" And the old "Tennis anyone?" becomes TENNISHANYONE (Suggestion to friends on when to meet for brunch?). And speaking of "Tennis anyone?" there's an interesting write-up of the phrase here.
The puzzle played on the hard side for me for a Tuesday. I don't know NIECY NASH or NASH NIECY from Adam's off ox, and INTERIM came verrrrry slowly. I was thinking pseudonym instead of PERSONA with "Slim Shady, for Eminem," and not being real math-y, DERIVATIVE (Cosine vis-à-vis sine) took several crosses. Also ZOYSIA. Even STEVEYOUNG took me far too long. I think maybe I was rattled by the outage. Did I mention the outage?
Overall I enjoyed the challenge, I was entertained by the theme, and I thought there were plenty of interesting non-theme entries. Thumbs up!
- Horace
Wow, your write-up eliminated the only minor beef I had with the puzzle. On the version we printed fairly early this morning, the clue for TENNISHANYONE was "Suggestion . . . on when to meet for lunch?" That seemed like a pretty early lunch, but I was willing to let it slide since the rest of the puzzle was so fine. Loved all the themers, loved the throwback Cher reference, loved the Homer alterego. As soon as I deduced that the first name was Steve, I knew the Super Bowl QB answer. Is "Greek H's" a sort-of revealer? Like the H in all the theme answers isn't supposed to be construed as an H? I can't quite work out how the eta fits, but it's something. I too took awhile with "Slim Shady." The first thing I thought of was alterego, so I was happy to see that used with El Barto. Really solid, fun Tuesday!
ReplyDeleteAnother fun one! I smiled at SHANANA as Grease is one of my guilty pleasures. Never heard of ZOYSIA! The trig clue was very clever, I thought. A less-than-spectacular 5:34 for me today.
ReplyDeletePhil, you got me by 3 seconds today. Tough puzzle, especially ZOYSIA.
ReplyDeleteMy problem with ZOYSIA isn't that the grass is unfamiliar (I had it in my yard once), but that I was afraid it would turn brown for part of the year and thus be unsuitable for a golf course. A classic case of a little knowledge being a dangerous thing, as apparently the golf courses have some way of managing it which works for them.
ReplyDeleteThe Across Lite version had the clue that ET59 mentions for TENNISHANYONE, and I had the same problem with it seeming a little early for lunch. Fun puzzle. I needed all crosses for ZOYSIA, but none were difficult. 9:03 for me.
ReplyDelete