black cat vibes

by anableps

• Play it ↗
• Difficulty: easy

Today's zany themeless brings us on a journey through anecdotes and quirky characters with a grid in the shape of a donut. The real puzzle is figuring out what information is actually useful in the various walls of text that this crossword calls clues.

For real, some of the clues are paragraphs. That Björk quote in particular was a real test of my reading comprehension. For all of the other clues, the rule is to disregard the parenthetical (unless you care about the constructor's favorite students and feelings towards printers). I don't get much out of these kinds of personal interjections, they rarely help with the clue and more often distract or mislead.

Despite my qualms with the cluing style this themeless has some good fill. ATEIT is a personal favorite, with SNOOPING and STARSIGN a close tie for second. The gradual reveal of ENTHRONE (I was a little surprised that this was an actual word) is very satisfying while circling the donut with new answers. The difficulty curve feels just right.

Skipping past the quirky clues, I do have a few highlights. I liked the grossness factor of "Verb associated with volcanos and zits". It works well since my mind applied the word to volcanos first and then compared it to zit afterwards: "I guess volcanos ERUPT... oh, eww." The clue for STARSIGN is genius and reminds me of living in San Diego, "Oh, mine? I'm such a Libra!" Grammar nerds rejoice at FRAGMENT, "This verbless sentence, for one." Clever.

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