Like thin clouds / TUES 4-25-23 / Half of a 1960s folk quartet / Aardvark's prey / Eat like Pac-Man

Theme answers:

• QUARTER LIES // QUARTERLIES(17A: "It's worth only 20 cents,""It has Abe Lincoln on it" and others?) 
• PAN TRIES // PANTRIES(26A: Flute-playing Greek god makes an effort?) 
• CAD DIES // CADDIES(40A: Terse summary of Alec d'Urberville's fate? (spoiler alert!)) 
• PREP PIES // PREPPIES(53A: Peel the apples, roll out the dough, turn the oven on, etc.?) 
• SPECIAL TIES // SPECIALTIES (65A: Neckwear reserved for fancy occasions?)

Word of the Day: Oxlip (7D: Yellow primrose) —

Primula elatior, the oxlip is a species of flowering plant in the family Primulaceae, native to nutrient-poor and calcium-rich damp woods and meadows throughout Europe, with northern borders in Denmark and southern parts of Sweden, eastwards to the Altai Mountains and on the Kola Peninsula in Russia, and westwards in the British Isles. (Wiki)

This is a theme that made a lot more sense in hindsight and that I somehow enjoyed more after finishing it. I can’t even tell you how long it took me to figure out how to describe the theme for this write-up. But looking back, having the two words made into one was executed well. And while it’s not exactly the most inventive of themes, it made for a solid Tuesday puzzle. 

While solving, though, I was confused by the theme and didn’t put two and two together (or in this case, one and one). It didn’t help that I think the worst clue for the theme answers was the first one, at 17A, with QUARTER LIES, which kind of put me off from the start of the puzzle. The idea of a quarter being worth 20 cents or Abe Lincoln being the face on it didn't make me think of lies; those notions are so wacky I wasn't quite sure what they were supposed to be. If we’d started with SPECIAL TIES (65A), I think I would’ve enjoyed the solve a lot more. It also didn’t help that I’ve never seen “preppy” used as a noun, so I couldn’t wrap my head around PREPPIES (53A). I tried “prep work” at first, even though that didn’t make a ton of sense. 

This was a quite clean puzzle, without a ton of crosswordese, which I appreciated. I also liked a lot of the words the constructor chose to incorporate into the puzzle. My favorite for whatever reason was CHOMP (32D: Eat like Pac-Man). That’s such a random and fun word to say, and you can totally picture Pac-Man moving around the game just chomping up those little pellets and the ghosts. Some of my other favorite words were SOAPY (28D), WISPY (47A), HEIST (57D), and PATSY (73A). I liked the clue and answer for 42D: Word with song or dive— so, SWAN song or SWAN dive. ONE HOP (56A: Like some grounders in baseball) was also fun. And there was some nice symmetry in the puzzle with NOKIA (6A) being on top of EXECS (15A) and TAMPA (1A) directly above OCEAN (14A). 

The long downs were nice, with MOUSE TRAP (12D), REPORTERS (33D), and ENTREATED (34D). I didn’t really like CAMPINESS(11D), mostly because I think the adjective is used way more than the noun. Something can be “campy,” for sure. Talking about CAMPINESS? Not so much. 

Now for some dislikes… I find most repeated clues in puzzles to be annoying. They can work if the clue is clever and the answers are next to or near each other. But in this puzzle, the clue was a rather odd “mined find,” and one answer was in the middle of the puzzle while the other was in the SW. That just felt weird. I didn’t like IS ON TO (31A: Sees through). While it may be crosswordese, I’ve never used (or seen) the plural of serum as SERA (38A: Some skin-care products) in the real world — and I use five-plus serums (or, I guess, SERA) on my face nightly. 

There were some places for some potential confusion, especially because there seemed to be a few more proper nouns in this puzzle than usual. OXLIP (7D: Yellow primrose) is a quite uncommon type of flower (even my gardening aficionado mother had never heard of it). I hope everyone knows KEIRA Knightly (8D), especially from her turn in the amazing 2005 version of “Pride and Prejudice,” although the spelling with the “e” before the “i” might’ve tripped some up. I’ve seen Parker POSEY (59D) in a couple things, but I didn’t recognize her name right off the bat.

Misc.:

• In my humble opinion, a window seat is much better than an AISLE (70A: Preferred seat assignment, to many) on a plane! It’s especially helpful on a long flight when you want to lean up against the window to sleep. 
• I’ve done many a LAP (67D) around a track. I used to do a lot of 5K races, which is 12.5 laps; a 10K is 25 laps. Once in high school, we did some fundraising thing where we did our long run for the week around the track. I ran something like 12 miles that day, which was a scary (and boring) 48 laps. 
• I’ve been to the Louvre and was lucky enough to see Nike of Samothrace (aka Winged Victory). I used to only ever wear NIKE (27D) shoes when running, but I recently switched over to HOKAs, which offer a lot of lovely support. 
• On Wednesday, my sister and I are going to see a BTS member in concert in NYC! It’s the opening day of his tour, and as you might imagine, we’re rather excited. His name is Suga (aka Agust D aka Yoongi), and what kind of fan would I be if I didn’t share his newest song, which is amazing:)

Signed, Clare Carroll, more a fan of hard cider than of beer in the heavens (or BREW SKIES // BREWSKIES)

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