Today's solvers are meant to figure out what's missing from the four block-letter-and-blanks clues that make up the theme, which are all, in some way, less than they should be. :) Looking at 27A: ___TER, for example, the answer tells us that it is a WINLESSSEASON, meaning that if we add the letters WIN in place of the blanks in the clue, we get WINTER, which is a winless season in more ways than one! Kidding! Who doesn't love winter? Even though the theme is less, it's all win-win because the answers are both apt and common phrases. I especially liked how a CARELESSMISTAKE could be a BAD CAREER MOVE. We've all been there.
Fortunately, the careless mistakes I made in the puzzle today were easily rectified. I first entered 'urn' for "Coffee container." Even as I did so, I thought, "there are other possibilities ...," and as soon as I read the clue at 7D "Country that boycotted the 1984 Olympics" (USSR), I downsized from 'urn' to MUG. The clue 26A: "Locale in the Christmas story" (INN) helped me correct my initial misspelling of Gary SINISE's name. I also went a little off piste with 54A" "___ bien" filling in 'très' before, frankly, seeing how it made the crosses incomprehensible. A change to Spanish and ESTA bien.
I enjoyed the C/APs "Does to perfection" (NAILS) and "Strike down" (LAYLOW). "Saucer contents, informally" for ETS is fun. I also very much enjoyed the Jeannette Rankin quote "You can no more win a WAR than you can win an earthquake." Talk about apt!
Call me out of touch, but I could have done without "Pedicure target" (TOE). I also don't really think of SLEDS as toys, so that slowed me down a bit. That being said, the puzzle's great cluing and fun fill like SNORKEL, SPRIG, SPEW, KNIT, SKUA, MUSCLECARS, and SORRYSIGHT serve as lessons in puzzle quality construction.
In keeping with the theme, it's a short review today: less is more! :)
~Frannie.
I, too, misspelled Mr. SINISE at first, and corrected it with INN! Also, I entered urn where MUG goes initially. That said, I loved this puzzle. It took me a little while to see what was going on, but once I did, I was off-and-running. My sister, JAMIE, would have enjoyed seeing 1A, though I could not fill that one in off of the clue. Nice touch having POET and ARLO abut, and I also liked the ADZE/TAZO cross, both of which I'm familiar with, the former because when I mentioned it while visiting Uncle Kerwin in Alabama, he was able to quickly produce one for my inspection! Despite the TOE, it was a fun Thursday solve.
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