Bunker, I got a grin from the U-shaped TACOS. Had thought we might get some HANDELBARS from today, but was betting it wouldn't be anything from McC, your 'snickering dust' really intrigues, and like Mr. That's traditionally made with OHARE, I think. Was also reminded of the Laverne & Shirley ditty that started with 'HASSLEpfeffer.'. I liked Christine LAHTI in Chicago Hope, so it was nice to see her joined in TINSELtown by INA Balin, VANNA White, LAVA Turner and AMANA Plummer. Entered OCHRES before OCHERS, then, thinking I'd learned my lesson, went with NITER before NITRE. PLOT POINTS was newish to me, and neither SMUSH nor SMOOSH seemed the proper spelling. (Apologies to Madagascar here.) This despite it being rather interesting to work out the themers, and the two paired entries were cute.so it likely was the EOALD syndrome. It may have been the old 'end of a long day' syndrome, but it seemed pretty vanilla to me, esp the North end. I can trend old also.įirst thought in hitting the NW was wondering whether SLOTH was a 2-toed or a 3-toed sin, and things rather went downhill from there. Had a few hours'blogjam this morning, didn't 'From Natchez to Mobile, from Memphis to STJOE, Wherever the four winds blow.'.

14A: Doctor Zhivago's love (LARA) - feels like a long time since I've seen this piece of classic crosswordese, but I realize now that it's just been a while since I've seen this *clue*: Zhivago's love has been largely replaced by and.

JOE as a 'shadowy' Idaho river that runs through my mom's home town (where my grandma still lives).

34D: How the Titanic was going before it struck an iceberg ( AMAIN) - this is bad enough fill without your having to remind me of that even worse movie.

I didn't even know she was still on the show.

35D: Woman who has a way with words? ( VANNA) - I like this clue, but this is the kind of clue that makes a puzzle feel old-not the inclusion of VANNA, who is certainly worthy, but the casual ease-of-reference, as if it were 1986, i.e.

Nice little dashes of color in the otherwise inevitably drab little corners of the puzzle. Weird puzzle feature: symmetrical 2-part stacks in the NE and SW- GIVE / AWAY and DOWN / EAST. Theme cute, long Downs interesting, satisfaction reasonable. I gotta believe that northern section could be done up a little better than HEHE EVA SERRA ATA … and that ADOPE is entirely unnecessary down below … but for some reason (perhaps because it's so early) I'm not terribly annoyed by the fill. So often the theme isn't smooth enough for a Monday and isn't clever enough for a Wednesday and so … Tuesday! So I think a simple and unassuming puzzle like this on a Tuesday is just fine, or at least not objectionable. Tuesdays are the hardest days to pull off, which I never would've thought before I began writing this blog a billion years ago. TREETOP, SUBTEXT, and (especially) HIT THE ROOF are quite nice. As I say, the fill is a bit crusty, but at least the longer Downs are sturdy.

My suggestions don't really work with the whole clue angle, anyway. I'm sure I could do better given world enough and time. I suppose this theme has many possible permutations, but I can't think of any good ones off the top of my head. At first, the fill had me thinking I was solving a 25+-year old puzzle, but when I hit the themers … well, I still felt that way, but not in a bad way.

City of secrets author crossword