What was I just saying about large areas of white in a Saturday puzzle? This grid features stacked thirteens and fourteens with a nice nine-letter entry dead center. Not the chunkiest, but not bad at all. For me, the top went a lot easier than the bottom, and I ended in the SE, where I knew neither DWADE (All-time scoring leader for the Miami Heat, familiarly) nor MARTIN (Mathematics writer Gardner), but was saved by three fine clues - "Cutting stuff" (SATIRE), "Cuts a line?" (EDITS), and "It takes two hands to show" (TEN). Hah!
The long entries were all solid. Interesting, but not surprising, to learn that the CALIFORNIAROLL is a "Dish purportedly invented in Los Angeles's Little Tokyo neighborhood." CROCODILETEARS (Make-believe sorrow) is as close to a gimme as you're going to get on a Saturday, but ROOKIEMISTAKE (Cause of amusement to a vet, maybe) took a few crosses, and got a smile when it finally came clear.
More evidence of the bar for acceptable words and phrases being lowered over the past decade in SAFEWORD (Term in the bedroom, maybe). When that topic comes up, ODDS are you can RESTEASY, and you know you're INFOR "a treat." Ahem.
My favorite clue today was "How people get into a swimming pool, typically." It made me think of things like "all at once," or "little by little," but no, it was BAREFOOT. Hah! "Silky-haired toy," tricked me too, although I don't know why, as "toy" is used so frequently to mean "dog." Anyway, that one is MALTESE, not Barbie, or anything like that. And finally into the "false start" category I put "Breakfast dish that might go over well?" I dropped in FlapjackS off the F in SPINOFF ("The Jeffersons" or "The Simpsons," notably) (OK, that was also a gimme...), but no, the answer was FRIEDEGGS.
Overall, a fun, challenging puzzle with very little slop (I'm looking at you, LIM and GEOS).
- Horace
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