charlie

it is almost unbelievable as a current early-twenty-something that american presidents used to give oratory like the kennedy inaugural address—in terms of their political and philosophical content certainly, but also just the quality and gravitas of the oratory itself. obama had his moments, but they were too young to really feel like *my* contemporaneous political context. so depressing that most all political speech these days is stupid, inelegant drivel (to say nothing of its moral content). anyways—tricky wednesday for me! i think largely because my appalling inability to remember dates w.r.t. historical detail (even the broad decadal strokes, often) left me reliant on the crosses to get close enough on the theme answers.

delightful clues except the trivia, which felt fairly arcane to me unfortunately. NW particularly was chock full of bull—but cest la vie. DEBATE CONTEST was fantastic. excited to one day attain the vaunted age of “esoteric old xword trivia contemporaneous to my youth” (“notable parrot in HBO’s euphoria” anyone?).

easily some of the cleverest early week cluing in recent weeks.

most of the puzzle not too bad, though also not especially clever—except for the NW corner, which took a solid third of my entire solve time. NEW CAR, though, was lovely. and fwiw, i have in fact heard a real person call a studio a STU (but i suspect age plays a significant factor lol). excited to soon head to the pacific northwest :)

lit city. i loved!

streak broken :( just couldn’t hang

affray and nowise are totally new ones for me

wicked easy and wicked fun

breezy, more clever than the average tuesday i feel. MAD RESPECT good to see

a clever theme that didn’t become clear to me until i’d gotten all the clues lol. this one felt awkward—POISON PEN and OH NO REASON in particular seemed a bit clunky. (i agree with other commenters that i don’t quite see how “written with…” and a noun match as parts of speech). new words learned, however—lothario! great off the tounge.

hard—needed a lookup for NW and two for the middle block. no BS but also no real winner “wow” clues for me

splendid theme

lot of odd ones in this one i felt like i didn’t know or had never heard. SNA? BAGSIT? oh well. not too bad!