New month brings LR back into rotation (Whatever happened to EM?) and he was very kind to us giving us a fair and easy offering. That said I got a bit stuck on 15D which messed up13A for me. What I like about LR puzzles is there's usually some modern entries into the grid. I'd like to see compilers move away from the classic elements and take on more modern ones like instead of using Capone or Gangster to clue AL. Use Yankovic. (I am heavily biased in this regard, being a life-long diehard Weird Al fan.) How will cryptics appeal to younger audiences if they don't speak at the level of that audience? They won't bother to try if compilers don't try first. That said I don't think getting rid of classics completely is the right way either. We all need to know our roots.
The 15D clue I has AT ANY RATE put in first which was hard to erase as it fit most of the cross letters. I just couldn't make 13A fit. I settled on RAPACITY to be with "greed" as the definition where "a mean" = PAR "revolted" is a reversal signpost to make RAP, "metropolis" = A CITY. What gave me pause was the A in A CITY. Do I use the A, do I not? It's not actually clued to be an A hem haw hem some more. Couldn't just use some arty punctuation to get it to be "a metropolis of greed" maybe? I know, my confidence isn't tops and things like this throw me. Once I rethought 15D to IN ANY CASE I knew RAPACITY had to be 13A.
19D was a gift clue as I'd seen LR use it on Twitter many weeks ago. It pays to stalk compilers.
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