This theme amused me. I smiled at CLOSEENOUGH (Not perfect, but acceptable) before I had any idea what was going on, and I laughed again at the revealer – “Like children, ideally, in an old adage … or a hint …” (SEENANDNOTHEARD). Hah! And upon further inspection, the word “seen” can be seen in the three long theme answers. What will they think of next?
In the fill we have some nice entries in STRINGENT (Rigorous), GRAMMAR (Linguist’s concern), and PAPAYAS (Ingredients in some tropical smoothies). And a quality clue for the quaint word CANST (“____ thou not minister to a mind diseased?”: Macbeth). I recently saw a fantastic production of Macbeth at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. They really played up the dark side of the Scottish play.
It feels odd to see ARREAR (Overdue debt) in the singular, but there’s nothing wrong with it, I suppose. Everybody seems to like ARREAR. And speaking of - BRAS was a surprising answer to the innocent-sounding “Some supports.”
Speaking of clues, “Sink-or-swim competition?” was cute for WATERPOLO, if a little too much.
Had a couple little missteps, guessing TApaS instead of TACOS for “Some cantina fare,” and seeIN in place of ASKIN for “Welcome at the door, say,” but nothing that wasn’t fixed up in a jiffy.
The amusing theme was good enough for me today. Nice Tuesday. What'd you think?
- Horace
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