But, I still had to go back to the beginning. On the second pass, I took a little more time with each clue and was able to make sense of the tricky and clever "Dis/cuss?" for TRASHTALK, "Precipitous?" for RAINY, and its neighbor "Source of some classic rock bands" (AGATE) - all of which required a little mind shift for this solver. I guessed that "Result of bad service, maybe" related to tennis, but without anything to go on, I had too many five-letter options to commit to one. I was hesitant to enter KAMASUTRA at 9D because it was just in yesterday's puzzle, but eventually that was the only possible option.
I had the most trouble in the north- and southeast. I didn't know the 'Island of a Thousand Temples' label for BALI. I was totally stumped by the clue "Bugling game." which turned out to be ELK - I have the Across answers to thank for that one. "Base unit" in the southeast was another such clue. I had to get all the Downs to fill in COT, which made sense only after I thought about base as in army.
Overall, it was a nice mix of tricky QMC and non-QMC clues and quite a dense grid with only 29 black squares, including two grid-spanning entries and lots of other big and unusual fill like DANGERZONE, ABRUPTNESS, PATCHWORK, and RIVERAS.
Saturday signals the end of the cycle. I know without ADOUT that you'll be in better hands next week with our friend and co-blogger, Colum. Until next time, dear Readers.
~Frannie.
