Tuesday, October 24, 2023, Daniel Grinberg

Today's theme answers reveal how various monsters might get themselves out of nightmare relationships - or maybe in their case, non-nightmare relationships? Not sure which way they'd go on that one. The theme is timely and the answers are amusing and monster-specifically apt - apt! For example, when the werewolf wants to switch things up, he says, TIMEFORACHANGE. Frankenstein's monster gives out that THESPARKISGONE. And the mummy, rather than ghosting his erstwhile partner, offers a direct, LETSWRAPTHISUP. My favorite one was the vampire's YOURENOTMYTYPE - you have to admit that doesn't suck! - however, I'm afraid to say that an error on my part of entering OATs at 2D ("Like a course for a horse?") haunted me to the end. The incorrect 's' from OATs combined with the pattern of letters from other Down answers gave me (as I thought) sOrRyNOTMYTYPE and doomed to me a long struggle until I cleared the cobwebs and re-read the clue more carefully. A faster solution to the above was cleverly disguised by nearby clue, "Specification on a park pass" (DAYUSE - is that opposed to a night use pass? Or something else? I've never heard the term). Also, insufficient attention paid to the format of the clue at 5D: "State capital north of Sacramento, CA" combined with a mere whisper of knowledge of state capitals, and only a stab at SAM Raimi as the director of "Spider-Man" contrived to make the northwest corner way more trick than treat for this solver. 

A couple of C/APs that I thought dressed up this puzzle were "One whose taste buds may not crave Buds" (BEERSNOB), "Turning point?" (KNOB), and "William Howard in the White House" (TAFT). I also enjoyed the nice pair of parallel answers (once I figured them out) OATY and OAKY in the top west and east, and the fun mini Hawaii theme with OAHU, TARO, and UKES.

Fill-wise, we got a lot of unusual letters coming out of the woodwork and combining to make NYMPH, CRAFTY, MYRRH, RIOJA, GIZMO, MYSTIC, PHEW, UKES, ZINC, and the craziest of them all, of course, TCHOTCHKES.

Although I didn't hit any other real problem areas, the grid gave me much more toil and trouble than a typical Tuesday. And, even though that one corner spelled trouble, instead of boiling over, I tried to STAYCLASSY. I think, thanks to the magic that is the NYTX, I gruesome today.  

~Frannie.