Suddenly I'm hungry for a bagel. With a fried goose egg in it! Surely that must be the recipe for a nothing burger?
What a great way to celebrate Women's History Month; a full week of female constructors. Kicking it off is our good friend Acme, delivering a theme that's certainly not ZIPPO. (Or maybe it is? Ha!) I couldn't remember who ZERO MOSTEL was, but at least his first name was easy to piece together.
In the spirit of the week, I enjoyed seeing some females sprinkled into the grid. SABRINA, LORI Loughlin (crossing TORI Spelling!), and of course, Queen ELSA, who my daughter emulates at every opportunity, with her not-at-all irritating nails-on-chalkboard drive-me-insane song that plays every time Tess presses the damn button on her dress WHY WOULD ANYONE MAKE SUCH A TORTURE DEVICE COSTUME THAT A 5-YEAR-OLD CAN ACTIVATE?
Ahem. Speaking of names, there are quite a few today, bordering on making the puzzle feel like a trivia contest. For example, I'm an NBA fan, but LAMAR / ODOM doesn't seem crossworthy. I wouldn't group him as part of the NOTHING theme, but he certainly isn't going to make the Hall of Fame.
Speaking of sports, Greg LEMOND gets so many kudos for being the first male Tour winner from the U.S., but I love the story of Marianne Martin. Pretty awesome.
The gridwork had a decent balance of color and cleanliness. I love SNAP OUT OF IT, I MANAGE, HIP HOP, GRANITE — almost enough to outweigh the ARAP, ELAL, JRR, TAS stuff, as well as the unpleasant connotations brought up by the word SYMPATHIZER. (The two dictionaries I checked listed "Nazi sympathizer" and "communist sympathizer" as examples.)
It's not as Monday smooth as it should be, but it's close.
Overall, a solid start to women constructors week … hardly all for naught!