Extra big Tuesday today, at 15x16 (I think that's correct - across before down). The theme is very cute, with the revealer coming at 39D: Beverage mixed with tapioca pearls ... or a description of this puzzle's circled letters? (BUBBLETEA). I love making the circles part of the theme answer! Each entry has a hidden kind of tea, nicely split across multiple words of the phrase.
I figured out the tea aspect with TOOLONGDIDNTREAD, often abbreviated as TL;DR. Hidding "assam" across three words in PASSAMILESTONE is very nice. And I never realized "herbal" was in WEATHERBALLOON until this puzzle. "chai" in SPEECHAID is the weakest of the answers.
I'm not sure why the constructors decided to have the theme answers going down instead of across as is typical. As our readers are fully aware, I'm sure, any puzzle can be essentially flipped to switch across and down clues. I wonder if it has to do with space in the paper? Probably not. There's nothing about the theme that requires the teas to go down.
The fill in the puzzle is pretty straightforward. OHSURE and CMON add a nice touch of colloquialism to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative (sorry, Pooh-Bah took over the blog for a second there).
It's odd to imagine MATZO and a STEIN so close to each other. Was that a CHEAPSHOT?
In any case, the puzzle played slightly long for a Tuesday, which I blame on the extra 15 squares. 3:58.
- Colum
Typical Tuesday for me at 8:29. I didn't know of this COHN fellow, but as usual, crosses are fair. I'm not a fan of the larger grids. The regular grid along with the clue that shows up above the grid fit nicely into my laptop screen dimensions. The bottom row of the larger grid gets cut off. Irritating. I suppose I'm picking nits, though. EQUUS is nice. Have we seen that in a grid before?
ReplyDeletePer xwordinfo (see below), EQUUS has been used before during the Shortz era, last in 2018.
DeleteFrom the constructor's notes in xwordinfo: "he [Jeff Chen] suggested a vertical orientation for the puzzle to make it seem like the bubbles were being sucked up through straws.".
ReplyDeleteI should always check xwordinfo to get these answers! Thanks
DeleteWas in the zone on this one - 3:00. Perhaps it helped that the theme clues were DOWN (clever choice, per Anonymous!), in that they didn't slow me down going through the Across clues, which by and large were straightforward. AQI was a new one to me!
ReplyDeleteDang, Philbo. Showing me up this week.
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