How do they keep coming up with these things? This theme both made me guffaw and wowed me with its simple elegance. The revealer, INITIALHERE, serves double duty by holding all the missing initials from four famous names. We need each letter of the word "here," in order, to complete:
EDWARDMURROW
and the amusing
Really, that's such a nice idea, and somehow it's symmetrical. Hat's off, Mr. Stillman.
OK, review's over. Nothing more to talk about. ...
Well, ok, let's say a little about the fill. AHME. Although I did chuckle at the portmanteau BACNE (Breakout caused by a sweaty uniform, perhaps), I'd prefer to never hear it or see it again. There are a couple gratuitous plurals (CAMRYS & ALIASES), some so-so fours (INLA, ALII, YOHO) and a few strange threes (DAW, NRC, AHS), but really, the more I look around, the more I think it's not bad at all.
When I saw the double As in 52A I started to worry, but LAALAA (Yellow Teletubby with a curly antenna) is timely. Didn't I just hear they were going to reboot that show? And COMMONSENSE (Not standing in an open field during a lightning storm, say) and CIVILLAWYER are two solid long answers. And we've got fun cluing, too, like "Place to get a date, maybe" (OASIS) (date, the middle-eastern dried fruit), "No ____" (what Mary Tyler Moore is to Dudley Moore), and the classic "Psalm beginning?" (SILENTP).
We've been doing this for nearly ten years now, and I'm still impressed and amused. Amazing.
- Horace
Beautiful puzzle, and I'm super-impressed with both the theme and the grid work which had to be a challenge, to say the least.
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