Fortunately, all the other crossings are much stronger. CORNI[SHH]EN crossing CRA[SHH]ELMET is a good one. I always knew the fowl as a "game hen," but I see the answer as posted Googles well. FRE[SHH]ERBS and HU[SHH]USH is very good, and BRITI[SHH]UMOR and SMA[SHH]IT work well, especially when you get the bonus 51A: ____ the Enchanter (TIM).
The revealer for all of these rebuses comes at 38A: New parent's whispered admonishment ... or a hint to four squares in this puzzle (THEBABYISASLEEP). I've been there.
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| I'm glad ABRAM wasn't clued with President Garfield for once |
This must have been a tough grid to construct (Mr. Chen often arrives on the scene to help out a grid that has a great premise but needs help). There are a ton of answers which trigger my "raise an eyebrow" alert. 19A: Approved by one's insurance company, say (INAREA) is arcane business lingo - and on a separate unrelated note, was the last answer I filled in because I couldn't see what it was going to be. I did like the crossing clue though, 3D: Catch some waves? (HEAR).
Other stuff: BANC (esoteric). CIAOS (not a term that should be pluralized), ACME (not used outside of Roadrunner cartoons), AURAE (Latin plurals now?), and 29D: Some grid lines: Abbr. (STS) - I guess they mean streets here, and the grid is like a city grid. But still. It's a bit much for the level of crosswords that are being produced nowadays.
On the other hand, there's the excellent meta clue at 22A: Co. that, in 1925, said of crosswords "The craze evidently is dying out fast" (NYT). Hah! Guess they were off by at least a century.
Congratulations to Mr. Baker for his debut in the above named newspaper's crossword. I still enjoyed the puzzle, even if I had a number of complaints!
- Colum
I enjoyed it, probably because it was so easy -- ROSH HASHANA gave it away with the clue. I dropped in INAREA last, too, because I didn't -- and still don't -- know what it means.
ReplyDeleteI think it wasn't until BRITI[SHH]UMOR that I figured out what was going on, but once I got that, the others fell pretty quickly.
ReplyDeleteHASDIBS was fun, and SALIVA was unexpected! And I liked INAREA better than RENU. But the one that made me smile the most was Cleese's finest role. "You're a busy man, O TIM."