Saturday, December 10, 2022, Sid Sivakumar

Apparently, I was on the constructor's wavelength today. I completed the puzzle in 15:44, shorter than both my Thursday and Friday times. Some clues seemed easy for a Saturday, most notably  "'____ dead, Jim" (HES), "Necklace closure" (CLASP), "Preakness or Belmont" (STAKES), "Geographical heptad" (SEAS), and "____-faire" (SAVOIR). OTH, there was plenty of stuff I didn't know like "Flour ground in a chakki" (ATTA), Leo Baekeland, the father of PLASTICS, mathematician Terence TAO, and Stephen REA of the Field Day Theatre Company, to name a few. 

That's not to say that there weren't some Saturday-level twists in here. Two that caused me the most trouble were "Pull-off" at 2D and "Evidence of one's hang-ups?" at 49A. In the former case, I was stuck on thinking of the clue as a verb while also mis-parsing the letters I did have as RE-STAR__. Fortunately, after a rest and a look at a different area, the correct answer RESTAREA came into view. In the latter case, I thought I was being clever by thinking of hang-ups as something on a hanger or clothesline - so I was looking for something like 'creases.' Nope. The answer to that call lay in old telephone behavior (DIALTONES). 

Other C/APs of note include "Where making a hasty exit is encouraged" (ESCAPEROOM), "Pays someone back" (GETSEVEN), "Spreads out in a bed?" (SOWS), "G, in C" (SOL), "Passage in a cemetery" (EPITAPH), and "Mug shot subject?" (LATTEART). 

Fill-wise, I enjoyed SEATBELT, SHRED, and the fun HEAVEHOS.

We now return to our regularly scheduled program.

~Frannie.