Thursday, August 3, 2023, Simeon Seigel

Today's puzzle really got my number! The clue for the revealer zeros in on what the solver needs to do to make sense of each starred clue. To understand the theme answers, a person should TAKEFIVE letters from the Across answer just prior to the theme answer and add those letters to the beginning of the theme answer to make a word that matches the theme answer's clue. Barring that, you'll think you had one too many trying to make sense of the theme answers vis-à-vis their clues. For example, the clue for 15A is "*Complete fools" and the answer appears to be AMUSES. However, if you take the final five letters from the prior Across answer (13A) and tack them on the front of the word at 15A, you get IGNOR AMUSES, which matches the original clue perfectly. It's especially nice that the "partial" answers are also words that can stand on their own. Never mind take five, I give this theme a ten! :)

A boat race seen from the International Space Station, 2006

I am able to appreciate it all after the fact, but truth is, dear Readers, I FWOE'd. I was at sixes and sevens in the northwest because I hadn't sussed out the theme yet. I didn't know "Tennis star Gauff and I am sadly out of date on the legal ins and outs of receivers, so I had ASSIGNeR as the "Counterpart to a receiver, legally" and thus CeCO Gauff. Names can be anything if you don't know what they are, am I right? When I got the "keep trying" response from the app, it didn't take me long to pinpoint the problem area, as I wasn't super happy with CeCO, if I'm honest. COCO is much better. Another slow down for me in that section was GOOPY for "Cloyingly sentimental." I'm not saying 'goopy' isn't a thing, but 'sappy' would have been a more apt. Apt! The other weak C/AP  today - just my two cents - is "Closing parts" for TAILENDS. Not that it's not legit, just that it didn't sing to me.

And, while were in that corner, CUTNOICE ("Carry zero weight, idomatically") took me forever. I've heard the phrase, but it's not on my speed-dial of expressions. OTOH, when I did get this one, I thought, "oh, that's good." I also liked "Becoming" for SEEMLY, "Lift up a mountain" for TBAR, "Light of the day" for SUN, and the clue/answer pair "Mooch" and BUM. 

As a side note, this solver was on cloud nine when she read "Language in which 'crossword puzzle' is 'krucvortenigmo'" and was able to drop in ESPERANTO. Fun! Fill-wise, I liked TINPAN, DEMIN, and SORBET. Call me goopy, but I also enjoyed the fact that TAD appears next to ABE in the southeast. 

Well, tomorrow, it's back to square one. 

~Frannie.