THYME OUT
This one needed to go back to the drawing board. Not to discredit the co-authors, but the puzzle, at best, is clunky, with a mediocre theme, too many names, and egregious fill - and that's on the editor. YMMV, but fills like 5 and 53D., with names not only at 1D. - Chairman Moe mentioned certain editors will not allow abbrs to start, and I agree - but also as theme answers ( even if I know two-thirds of them ) makes this grid lose lustre . . . Congratulations to Sheri, as this looks to be her debut, and Katie has constructed and co-authored several crosswords for the LA Times, "et al."; I do hope to see more collaborations. Standard grid, only 13 3LWs - all the "worst" ones - and an oversampling of 'generic' crossword fill - but hey, no circles~! The themers and the reveal;
20. Winner of the first Olympic gold medal in men's snowboard slopestyle: SAGE KOTSENBURG - name #1 - really vague - more here
34. "White Christmas" co-star: ROSEMARY CLOONEY - name #2
43. "Peanuts" character with a tendency to sleep through class: PEPPERMINT PATTY - name #3
58. Shampoo brand that claims to be "plant obsessed," and what 20-, 34-, and 43-Across all have: HERBAL ESSENCES
* - I see that there's a new analytic on the XWord Info page that tracks "Grid Flow", created at a site called Crosserville. There is a mathematical algorithm involved, and so far, the highest flow recorded has been 219.2, and the median 31.8 - turns out that Friday and Saturday crosswords show higher flow #s; I'm gonna keep an eye on this moving forward. Today's grid~? 20.0
And Away We Go~!
ACROSS:
1. Dreary: DRAB - this definitely describes my feelings about this puzzle
5. Shock: JOLT - when I filled in 53D., I certainly got a shock - I mean, really~?
9. Improvises vocally: SCATS
14. Currency in 20 countries: EURO
15. Desire: URGE
16. Like days long ago: OLDEN
17. Has-__: BEEN - hmmm . . . filled via perps
18. Cornhusker st.: NEBRaska - HuskerG nailed this one; abbr, geo name #1 - and meh.
19. McDonald of "The Gilded Age": AUDRA - name #4 in the Hahtoolah Convention -her IMDb
23. Not even: ODD
24. Pilot's approx.: ETD - Estimated Time of Departure, crossword "alt" staple to ETA
25. Dads: PAs - yes, but semi-meh.
26. __-la-la: TRA - crossword staple . . . . sheesh
29. Problem in one's pants or pantry: ANTS - "ants in your pants" = nervous, twitchy, "antsy"
32. Burro: ASS
40. Where to see the big picture?: IMAX
41. "Rudy" coach Parseghian: ARA - I screwed up and went with ARI - name #5
42. Erté's style: DECO - I like Art Deco; since the skyscraper was born in that ERA, we still see it's influnce 100 years later - I would get me this book
48. Soccer fan's "Bravo!": OLÉ - oh yay, more generic answers~!
49. Tennis great Arthur: ASHE - name #6, even if it's a crossword staple
50. Michigan's __ Locks: SOO - Joins the Great Lakes Superior and Huron - geo name #2
And there's another crossword staple in there - Sault STE Marie
51. Wee: SMA - meh.
54. Rocket ending: EER - RocketEER - semi-meh, in terms of fill
56. Speed Wagon automaker: REO - this one is getting as boring as ERA and ATM
64. Like sun bears and pandas: ASIAN - Naomi showed us a sun bear in this BUNS puzzle
65. __-Seltzer: ALKA
66. California roll ingredient: CRAB - I am east coast; this was a WAG from perps
And I don't care for sushi, either, but crab is good
68. Italian soccer great Maldini: PAOLO - name #7 - if you want to know more
69. __-back: LAID
70. Like a fairy tale duckling: UGLY
71. Fragrant compound: ESTER
72. Postseason honorees, briefly: MVPs - at the time of this write-up, the World Series was 1 - 1; I'm rooting for Toronto, because their NHL Maple Leafs are playoff confounders
73. Memorization technique: ROTE
DOWN:
1. Food blogger Perelman: DEB - name #8
2. Feels bad about: RUES - I feel bad about my review, but I'm being honest
3. Geometric calculation: AREA
4. Salsa hand drum: BONGO - or CONGA~?
5. Outdated term for noncoding genetic material: JUNK DNA - Maybe it's a great fill, but as a theme crossing, as part of a name, on a Wednesday, it's meh. Everything you ever wanted to know
6. Cookie with many specialty flavors: OREO - yet another crossword trope
7. Pride Month letters: LGBT
8. Not wordy: TERSE - I thought this read "worLdly" - so I was thinking CLERGY - Bzzzt~!
9. Scoundrel: SO AND SO - I do not see these as the same; "so-and-so" to me is someone anonymous, or that person whose name you cannot remember - at least that's how my mother used it
10. Country __: CLUB
11. Tally: ADD UP
12. __ firma: TERRA
13. Glitches: SNAGS - Tragedy~! A travesty~! For shame~!
Chairman paid a fine for breech of contract last Friday
21. Red-coated cheese: EDAM
22. List ender: ET AL. - abbr, Latin for "and others"
26. Klutz's move, perhaps: TRIP
27. "Ben-Hur" setting: ROME - even if I know this, it's geo name #3
28. "Hurry!" letters: A.S.A.P. - As Soon As Possible - and it's not the same as "hurry~!"
30. Peak transport: TRAM - I had T-bar, as in a ski lift to the peak
31. Lebanon neighbor: SYRIA - geo name #4
33. Bubbly beverage: SODA - good WAG; could have been COLA
35. Convention center event: EXPO - I have attended the Toy Fair in NYC twice
The Javits Center in Lego, from 2017
36. Tuna holders: CANS - NETS is next; my ARI at 41A. left the "I" in, so I did not get my ta-DA~!
37. Brooklyn B-ballers: NETS - B-ballers are basketball players, even tho Baseball could work as well; and they're name(ish)
38. Start for -derm or -plasm: ECTO - These guys knew all about Ectoplasm
"That's great Ray - save some for me~!" Ghostbusters
39. Toy on a string: YO-YO
44. "__ Rigby": ELEANOR - name #9 - and I spelled it wrong, too
45. Rod's partner: REEL - CONE worked, if we were talking eyes, as in Sunday's puzzle
46. Duds: THREADS - CLOTHES fit too, but Bzzzt
47. Hammer head: PEEN
51. Rhombus, e.g.: SHAPE - ah. Here's the actual 'classification' of four-sided polygons:
We had "kite" on Monday
52. Southwestern flattops: MESAS
53. Eliciting many laughs: A RIOT - Cringe. Even if you claimed to parse this as "the place was ariot with laughter" it still doesn't work, and sounds "meh" at best
55. Domain: REALM
57. Happen: OCCUR
59. Packed hay: BALE
60. Many an Eastern European: SLAV
61. YouTube ad option: SKIP - And I do this ASAP - now that's how to clue it~!
62. Therefore: ERGO
63. Shaker filling: SALT - Who's looking for their lost shaker of salt~?
I thought the third verse line was "and soon a Veranda" - hey, it makes sense . . .
67. "Toodles!": BYE
adieu to you, and you, "meh."
Splynter
3 comments:
Well, I certainly didn’t
know the Olympian, but the perps were kind so I got her (or perhaps him). The rest also fell into place eventually, as the other grid spanners were known to me.
Anyway, FIR, so I’m happy.
Good morning!
D-o wasn't blown away with today's offering, but it didn't engender feelings of hate. Knew two of the three themers, and recognized the shampoo, even though I failed to recognize it as a reveal. The Williams Tower is a DECO tower on Houston's West Loop, completed in '83. Thanx, Sheri, Katie, and Splynter. (Methinks you're over-reacting.)
Back to the dentist this morning. Fun, fun, fun.
FIR. getting my WAG @ SAGE KNOTSENBURG x JUNK DNA as well as the double WAGs @ ARIOT x SMA and PAOLO. (To me, SMA means "System Malfunction Analysis" spewed from a telco switching system I used to engineer.) Erased eta for ETD. (Don't know that the ETD comes from the pilot. I think it's more from ground operations if you're flying commercial, or from the VIP if you're flying private.)
Never met ROSEMARY CLOONEY, but I have met her brother Nick. He was an on-air personality on Lexington's WLAP radio station back then. Oh, and Nick had a son named George, who I've also never met. The radio station was said to have been established by a Quaker, and the call sign meant "We Love All People."
The NCAA's best b-ballers are called MOPs, for Most Outstanding Player.
Mexican restaurants could save time by serving me salsa by the drum, though one basket of chips is plenty.
OREO - what a fresh and original fill!
SKIP would have been better clued "How to get to My Lou."
At Jimmy Buffett concerts, the audience would shout "SALT - SALT- SALT - SALT" when Jimmy sang Margaritaville's "lost shaker of SALT" lyric. By that point in the concert, many fans would have been unable to shout anything polysyllable. Good times.
Thanks to Splynter for another fine review, and for the imperfect picture of perfect legs.
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