A tasty little gem of a themeless puzzle today from first-timer Mr. Kaufman, with just the right amount of gristle for a Friday. I feel it is a sign of quality when one first scans the clues, that not many jump out as obvious but they're not completely opaque either. "It could be this, or it could be that", sort of thing. Case in point - the very first clue - "Praises loudly" - could plausibly have been LAUDS. And the next - "Drops" - FALLS maybe? (No - HAILS and OMITS, respectively). Moving on - "Becomes uncomfortable, in a way, as underwear": BUNCHES? (RIDESUP) I wasn't sure about anything until the two paired short answers ORA and ERA, and then the dominos began to fall, leading into a chunky double/intersecting pair of stacks-of-three (impressive construction!). "They're full of pop" (SODAFOUNTAINS) was cleverly misleading. I also liked "'Surely that can't be possible?!'" (WHATINTHEHECK) because at that point, I had already encountered "'Well, I'll be darned!'" (GOSH) and smiled at the G-rated similarity.
I didn't really have a systematic progression through this one, as I quite often do. It was more a hunt-and-peck exercise and the whole grid just sort of came into focus. I also view this as a sign of quality! Along the way, "What might make one less likely to flip one's lid"' revealed itself to be STYE and I only just now twigged as to why. (I was STYMIED, as it were.) I'd never heard of the poet ESSEX Hemphill, possibly because I'm not American but more likely because I am quite troglodytic in many ways. I was sure "Breeze (through)" was SKATE, with the T already in place, and had to backtrack to get the correct WALTZ in there instead. XACTO ("Brand of cutting-edge equipment") was my LOI, somewhat embarrassingly - it seems so obvious now!
Oh and geez - I almost forgot to mention the very last Across clue - "Winners of 13 Stanley Cups, familiarly" - the LEAFS, as any Torontonian (in fact, any Canadian) knows; a just-as-well-known fact is that their last Cup win was in 1967, when I was a three-year-old.
Had the whole thing done in about 6:30 and spent 40 more seconds hunting down my one typo (EEA, not TEA, for "Green _____"). I don't count mistakes like these as FWOI's as I wouldn't make them with pen and paper. But they sure do play havoc with my solve times!
That's all for now!
-philbo
My last entry was the ESSEX/XACTO cross, made harder because I had a typo in DONTBETHATWAY (DONeBETHATWAY). It's hard to know how that kind of thing happens, but as you say, it can sure make things trickier.
ReplyDeleteI thought "Defense mechanisms?" (ORALS) was cute. I don't think I knew the term SCOUTTEAM, nor was I positive about the LEAFS - I only knew that HABS didn't fit. How many have they won?
24! I have been a Habs fan since the cradle, and I was very spoiled growing up in the late 70's when they were winning Cup after Cup...
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