Thursday, March 31, 2022, Oliver Roeder

A real 'edgy' theme today featuring literal MARGINALIA. Six left side clues and six right side clues extend outside the grid by one letter, either at the start or end of the answer. The sets of "outside" letters are EGALE, and, read top to bottom, spell 'margin' on both sides. The icing on the cake is the lovely parallel Down answers of ANNOTATION and MARGINALIA, one in the east and west. That's a real ACEHORSE move. 

I caught on to the trick thanks to the pair of clues at 1A and 1D. The clue "Beat in chess" could have been 'mate' but when I saw that 1D: was "Now: Sp." I knew A had to be the first letter (AHORA) and "Leader of the house band on 'The Muppet Show'" was, of course, DRTEETH, so the jig was up pretty quickly. On the other hand, I didn't notice that the outside letters spelled 'margin' nor that the left and right letters were parallel until after I finished the puzzle.

I ran into a little trouble in the southeast. For some reason, I first had gOYOU where TOYOU belonged ("Two-word tribute") which made it difficult for me to see MELTAWAY for "Dissolve." Also, at first, I didn't remember who cometh at at 50Across (the [I]CEMAN), or "Award-winning Ward" (SELA). Our dear readers will not be surprised to hear, on the other hand, that I had no trouble with [N]ERDY ("Geekish"). Also, the very clever "Tried something?" for CASE had me stymied for a bit. I had the emphasis in the wrong place on that clue. Same with "Put on sale, say" for REPRICE in the southeast. Fill-wise, I liked TOUTS, AFOOT, and [G]OBLETS. 

My missteps aside, I found a lot to like in this puzzle. Many clues were cleverly worded to take full advantage of multiple possible meanings and semantic categories. Here are some of my favorite from today:

"Boot" (OUST)

"Skim" ( NOFAT)

"Get in trouble, in a way" (RATON)

"Fixes" (MENDS)

I remembered the bit about BRAHE from the updated "Cosmos" series ("Astronomer who lost part of his nose in a sword duel"). Amusing to have the clue for the answer below BRAHE be "Takes a bit off" - apt! And who knew ATARI meant the same as 'check' in Go? I didn't. 

~Frannie.