- 20A "timiL" = BACKWARDSCAP
- 35A "Golfer's suppor-" = CUTOFFTEE
- 42A "Evade" = MINISKIRT
- 55A "P | u | n | c | h | e | s" = STRIPEDSOCKS
I like the clothing motif, and until I reached STRIPEDSOCKS, thought there was also a bit of a punky thing going on. These are all cute and fun, and I only wish the trailing dash had been left off the clue for CUTOFFTEE, to make it less explicit and leave the solver wondering if a typo could have crept its way into the puzzle!
Theme aside, the puzzle didn't put up much of a fight, although the top right corner was problematic with a term that was new to me (AO DAI - "Traditional Vietnamese garment"). Good thing the crossers were all knowable - at least once I realized that the "Pineapple Isle" is LANAI and not KAUAI, and the animal that spits when angry is a LLAMA and not a KOALA (really, Philbo??). Still in that corner, I don't love AIS for "ChatGPT, Claude, etc." Doesn't seem right. But I shrug and move on.
Down in the lower left, I thought "Increase, as interest" (PIQUE) was very clever, especally as I had the 'U' early and was sure it was going to end in 'UP'. And 3D "'Bingo!'" (EXACTAMUNDO) brought back vague memories - was that something the Fonz used to say? (resisting the urge to just Google it, here) Oh and I don't believe I've ever seen GOOIER in a crossword before..
All in all a pleasant, gentle Thursday solve. On to rougher waters tomorrow!
-philbo
No comments:
Post a Comment