Constructor: Stella Zawistowski
Relative difficulty: Easy
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THEME: none
Word of the Day: MONOPLANE (58A: Aircraft with low drag) —
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This is fine, though only BOX BRAIDS (17A: Black hairstyle with square-shaped sections) and GET SOME (41D: Find satisfaction, slangily) seem really original and snappy. Something about the boxy build of this grid makes it feel restricted somehow. The 9 stacks ... I'm just not sure how interesting those can be. I'd rather have longer answers lacing through the grid all over the place than these just-OK short stacks in the corners, with little else of interest in the grid. In fact, the bulk of the rest of the grid is 4s and 5s. All four other sections are just 5x5 or 4x5, and they're adequate, but there's no real interest there. "IMAGINE THAT" livens things up a bit, but overall this felt a little listless to me. But it was super duper easy. I had a lot of little missteps, but nothing that held me up for any real length of time. Not terribly happy to start with the awful and corrupt Israeli prime minister nickname, but thankfully, the overall vibe of the puzzle improved considerably from there. Björk > BIBI. BÊTE NOIRE> BIBI. BOX BRAIDS> BIBI (actually, BOX BRAIDS *is* (aurally) BIBI, in that it is a "B. + B." answer ... yes, my brain is indeed a HOTBED of bad puns and other dumb thoughts, you are correct).
Relative difficulty: Easy
Word of the Day: MONOPLANE (58A: Aircraft with low drag) —
A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft configuration with a single main wing plane, in contrast to a biplane or other multiplane, which have multiple wings.
A monoplane has inherently the highest efficiency and lowest drag of any wing configuration and is the simplest to build. However, during the early years of flight, these advantages were offset by its greater weight and lower manoeuvrability, making it relatively rare until the 1930s. Since then, the monoplane has been the most common form for a fixed-wing aircraft. (wikipedia)
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Had trouble with BÊTE NOIRE because of the "?" clue (a pretty decent "?" clue, I think) (1A: What's not to like?). Also had trouble with ORDER—something about the clue phrasing made it hard to get my head around (13D: Get to eat). I managed to tell my EPSON from my EPSOM today, so that was nice (10A: Big ink purveyor). Wrote DIVIDE before ENCODE before realizing that was dumb (10D: What genes do, biologically). Wrote SWAY before SELL and felt less bad about that one (23D: Successfully convince). No idea what a MONOPLANE was. Turns out it's just ... a plane. Literally every plane I've ever flown on in my entire life. You wouldn't bother to use the term today because it's not usefully distinctive. Had a weird lot of trouble with both PLAN and SEED, needing the first three letters of each one before I knew what the hell they were. With PLAN, I just wasn't sure of the context the clue was going for (53D: Not just live in the present), whereas with SEED, I think I just had an entirely different idea of "pip" in mind (two ideas, actually: a. a oner, a lulu, a scream, really something, "she's a real pip," that kind of pip; and b. a dot on a domino or die). Happy to learn that Sarah Vaughan was known as SASSY. I thought maybe SUNNY, but SASSY is hands-down the better nickname. I keep looking at LEMONDE and wondering why "lemonade" has been misspelled, which probably means I'm tired (blogging at night like some kind of overcaffeinated beatnik!). See you Saturday (he said, sibilantly).