Friday means it's almost the weekend, and we get our first themeless. I love these puzzles for the WIT of the clues and the sparkle of the answers. And today's puzzle certainly does not land with a THUD!
The triple stacks in the NW and SE are all strong answers. What a great 1A today! There was a year or so where we gave grades to the 1A answers, and this one would get an A from me. TRAGICFLAW is excellent in and of itself, but the clue elevates it: "Protagonist's pride, often." It took me way too long to see that we weren't looking for a positive quality such as "courage" or "quick thinking." Nice!
HOLYTOLEDO is great, and UPANDLEAVE is a nice phrase. In the other corner, I love MELLOYELLO and SPAWEEKEND, while LEGOPERSON is solid,
The hardest area to fill was right in the middle. I had ADVISORY and CRAP, SCANTY and PREGNANCYPILLOW, but I couldn't see LORD and ORAL. Finally, I got 21D: They're easy to read, typically (BADLIARS), and finished the puzzle in 7:30.
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| OLGA Kurylenko with some guy |
Nice clue for JEEP! There's a ROI (in Frannie's terminology). Other clues I liked:
12D: Things on spines (BOOKTITLES)
36D: Service call? (AMEN)
26D: Like singer Michelle Williams and actress Michelle Williams (NORELATION). We just watched The Fabelmans last night. It was a good watch, if a bit scattershot in places. But the actress in question did a fine job. Nothing on Michelle Yeoh, however. Now that was a great movie!
- Colum
I loved TRAGICFLAW as well! I got LORD right away, which was a nice misleading clue and definitely helped me out in the middle. I had this whole thing done in well under 6 min but then took precious time hunting for the typo I'd made in the LR corner. (I don't count typos as FWOEs, ha ha) So it was 6:23 all told.
ReplyDeleteOh .. looking at that photo, Colum .. my wife and I are going on vacation next week, to the same Caribbean island we visited just before Covid. That 'some guy' had his yacht moored offshore the whole time we were there! Didn't catch sight of the man himself, though.... Maybe this time!
ReplyDeleteGood luck this time! And enjoy your vacation.
DeleteWhee, super puzzle for the reasons Colum gave and more. The entries are terrific and the clues? Superb! I had a terrific time.
ReplyDeleteSCANTY took me fooooooooorever.
ReplyDelete