Word of the Day: SCAR (22A: Bare place on the side of a mountain) —
Definition of scar
1: an isolated or protruding rock
2: a steep rocky eminence : a bare place on the side of a mountain (M-W)
• • •
Didn't feel that great about my opening—felt like I was cheating my way into the grid with crosswordese (TAFT to TATAR to ALIA). But once I got going, things started feeling a little better. Answers got more interesting, clues provided a little more resistance. Then I dropped the double-Q QUEEQUEG (off the initial "Q," of course), and realized "oh, it's gonna be one of *those* puzzle (meaning "those puzzles that throw All The Scrabble Tiles at you). And then immediately came the confirmation, with BUZZFEED QUIZZES and MIKE PIAZZA. Often *those* puzzles go south, buckling under the weight of their own misguided ambition, but today's actually ended up kinda nice. Lots of unusual fill—modern phrases and items, slang and colloquialisms. Things stayed varied and interesting throughout, and the gruesome fill was pretty minimal (though I'm never gonna forget FIDOS, which becomes the new paradigmatic example of Absurd Plural Names).
"Wheelchair-bound" is a pretty shitty way to refer to someone in a wheelchair (33A: Wheelchair-bopund "Glee" character), mostly because it reinforces a lot of stupid, negative stereotypes. People in wheelchairs aren't tragic figures. The chair is enabling, not stigmatizing. Just google "wheelchair bound" and you'll see—It's a term that's been flagged as ableist for many years now. So stop it. Once again, maybe a *teeny* bit of diversity in the editing corps would help prevent tin-eared stuff like this from slipping through. I'm not *terribly* offended (I mean ... like ... I'm not FIDOS-offended), but some will be, and I don't blame them.
Bullets:
3D: Trading hub (PORT) — I had MART. Only other misstep was SQFT for SQIN (19A: Abbr. in many an area measure)
22A: Bare place on the side of a mountain (SCAR) — wow, I just do not know this word. Kind of embarrassing, but ... nope, it just missed me, somehow.
5D: Hit sci-fi video game set around the 26th century (STARCRAFT) — also don't know this, but don't feel that bad about it. You can't know everything.
49A: "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" detective Diaz (ROSA) — Like this. Don't know this. Shrug. You work in out from crosses, move along.
61A: "D'oh!" ("I'M AMORON") — this borders on contrived, but ... I'll accept it, I guess.
25A: Live, in a way (UNTAPED) — this seems even more contrived ... :(
54D: Not a candidate for the invoking of the 25th Amendment, say (SANE) — too soon, NYT! Or maybe not soon enough, I'm not sure.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. probably not the greatest idea to have "buzzkill" in a clue (41A) and BUZZFEED in the grid
THEME: ABC (1D: Kind of order ... or a hint to this puzzle's unusual construction) — all the Across answers are in alphabetical (aka "ABC"@!?) order:
Word of the Day: CITO Gaston (19D: ___ Gaston, first African-American manager to win a World Series) —
Clarence Edwin "Cito" Gaston (/ˈsiːtoʊˈɡæstən/; born March 17, 1944) is a former Major League Baseballoutfielder and manager. His major league career as a player lasted from 1967 to 1978, most notably for the San Diego Padres and the Atlanta Braves. He spent his entire managerial career with the Toronto Blue Jays, becoming the first African-American manager in Major League history to win a World Series title. // Cito Gaston managed the Toronto Blue Jays from 1989 to 1997, and again from 2008 to 2010. During this time, he managed the Blue Jays to four American League East division titles (1989, 1991, 1992 and 1993), two American League pennants (1992 and 1993) and two World Series titles (1992 and 1993). (wikipedia)
• • •
This was so unpleasant that I'm not gonna spend much time dwelling on it. Truly painful, in *exactly* the way you would expect a stunt-puzzle like this to be painful—the quality of the fill. The actual words in the grid. That you are filling. Ostensibly, for pleasure. Enjoyment. There are maybe a handful of answers that get anywhere near enjoyable. For the most part, it's a garbage heap of crosswordese and subsubcrosswordese, and for what. Alphabeticality!? Let's start with the fact that "ABC order" is not a thing (1D: Kind of order... => ABC). Not not. Not. "Can you put these in ABC order?" asked no one ever except maybe a kindergarten teacher (?). So the revealer is nonsensical. Can we just start (and, in an ideal world, stop) there?? Do you want an sizable but incomplete list of the gunky fill in this thing? No? Too bad:
House of Pain:
SOARTO
CITO
ABLUSH
INUP (!?)
EYDIE
ESS
TIEA (!?)
VSO
REA
IROCS
BBL
COL
HOI
CRTS
HEE
ROLEO
IFI (....*$&^)
NEU
LETTERA
MEDO (me don't!)
ROWR
All so we can get Acrosses in ABC (so-called) order. I don't understand how anyone could think this puzzle (with this fill) could be fun to solve. LUCAS ARTS, I liked (42A: Maker of Star Wars and Indiana Jones video games). That was nice. And I enjoy TINA FEY, sure (65A: Former "Weekend Update" co-anchor). But once you grok the theme, there's just nothing to find or discover, and not much to enjoy. At one point early on, I thought I might get through the grid without encountering too much gruesome fill, but then:
When INUP crosses TIEA, then, well, I'LL SEE YOU (in hell)! Nothing here was too difficult, though how the hell am I supposed to know Lady Bird Johnson's name was CLAUDIA?? (17A: Lady Bird Johnson's real given name). I guess there are no famous CLAUDIAs?? That and my TITO-for-CITO mistake mad the NE a little challenging. And my inability to see TINA FEY (I was looking for a single last name) in the SE also resulted in some struggle. Her first and last letters were very late in coming, as the "adjunct" in 60D: Barnyard adjunct made me "??" and the clue on GYM was just hard (63D: It might precede a shower).
I despise all bridge-related clues, but that's just a matter of (good) taste. I won't hold it against the puzzle. But the rest of it, I do hold. Against. Very much. And honestly, that fake lion sound should be RAWR, imo. Just changing the "A" in ROAR to a "W" seems hardly worth it. (Oh look, I'm right, it's RAWR, the end)
This started very, very badly. So badly, I stopped to take a picture (usually on a Wednesday, I don't have the time / inclination to do this, but that opening corner was horrific):
Trouble begins with the "J" in the terminal position, and then cascades from there. I have to endure HADJ and then get the worst kind of dated crosswordese (EZIO) in the bargain, and *then* run into the why why why!? III (23A: Senior's grandson). If you're dropping EZIO, you better be getting a Lot in return. Here, you're not. Also, DIF 🙁 Also the clue on RETRIAL there is wrong, or at least misleading / incomplete (4D: Result of a deadlocked jury).
So I'm pretty much done with this thing before I've even properly started. Fill does *not* improve much. It's not that URB and SMS etc are So terrible on their own, it's just ... we shouldn't be seeing this much fill that's this weak. URB and SMS are answers I'm using only out of desperation. They're OK, but I don't want them. I can probably make any corner they're in (in this non-demanding grid) better. The bottom of the grid is a perfect example of the problem of relying on merely adequate, I've-seen-it-before-so-it-must-be-OK fill. RIVE, LO-RES*, AGAR, DOGIT—all of those are answers I would try to keep out if I could. Yet they are *all* here. In a tiny 4x5 section. Please try (a lot) harder. AGAR and DOGIT are a notch better than RIVE and LO-RES*, which are not really in use and really stupid-looking, respectively. Again, the problem here is a cumulative one. One of these answers in a corner—I don't blink, Two, I blink. Three+, I just close my eyes and smh.
Had no appreciation for the theme until I was done, at which point ... I appreciated it somewhat, I guess. I especially admire that boldness of using BOOTY CALL as your base phrase (35A). I also like seeing ROBYN, and, strangely, AGGREGATOR (not a pretty word, but a very real, modern ... thing). Mostly the puzzle was easy, though the eastern seaboard really smacked me around for a bit. Couldn't drop RILING or OF LATE off of ROMERO, and so needed a lot of hacking and flailing to finally fill those in. I think TIA was the only cross I was certain of. BIG IF was really, really difficultly clued (33A: Significant qualification), in that "qualification" commonly means something like "asset" and so I never considered its other meaning. I was like "... BIG UP?" Also, I thought the Pic de Rochebrune was a bridge 🙁
I think the theme is just OK, and the fill is weak-to-dire, so overall it's a no.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
*Mail suggests LORES is indecipherable to many of you (one more reason never to use it). It's short for "lo(w)-resolution."
THEME: INTERMISSION (37A: Break ... such as at the middle of 18-, 27-, 50- or 58-Across?) — circled letters in themers spell out name of famous Broadway production, and since those names are "broken" (split between beginning and end of answers), then the gap between the circled letters ... is an INTERMISSION? Yes. That must be it.
Theme answers:
HAWAIIAN AIR (18A: Honolulu-based carrier, informally)
GREEK VASE (27A: Piece of pottery featuring Achilles, say)
CAMO PANTS (50A: Military bottoms, informally)
WISECRACKED (58A: Made snappy comments)
Word of the Day: RUDI Gernreich (28D: Fashion designer Gernreich) —
Rudolf "Rudi" Gernreich (August 8, 1922 – April 21, 1985) was an Austrian-born American fashion designer whose avant-garde clothing designs are generally regarded as the most innovative and dynamic fashion of the 1960s. He purposefully used fashion design as a social statement to advance sexual freedom, producing clothes that followed the natural form of the female body, freeing them from the constraints of high fashion. (wikipedia)
• • •
Many things wrong here, most notably the wording of the revealer clue. If you ask me to look "at the middle of" those themers, what I see is *gibberish*. WAIIANA! EKV! SECRA! Or my favorite, MOPAN! There's just a structural problem, where the INTERMISSION is the place between, and the place between is just a letter string that is nonsensical on its own. Also, this whole embedding non-consecutive letters as part of your themer is pretty rudimentary, and definitely not worth bloating the grid to 16-wide. Further, I just don't like the themers. They don't have much appeal on their own. Then there's the fussiness of so many multi-word half-colloquialisms. I like BE THAT WAY!, but a lot of the rest of it felt like forced attempts at slanginess. DID A SET is bottom-of-the-barrel stuff. A notch down from READ A BOOK and a notch up from ATE SOME TOAST. I like GOD NO! pretty well, but it was brutally hard to get (esp. for a Tuesday) (26D: Emphatic rejection). Clue was just too vague / broad. Also, count the number of "comma informally" clues in this puzzle. One is OK. Two should be the max. There are two among themers alone. And then another at 9D: Utmost, informally (DARNEDEST). What the hell? Maybe do a little more to vary your cluing language. Flawed theme concept + just OK fill = not great. Might be above average for a Tuesday, but that bar is low. Too low.
Bullets:
ABCTV (10D: "Fresh Off the Boat" network) — yeah no one calls TV networks blahblahblahTV so please stop.
SINKER (47D: Baseball pitch that suddenly drops) — well, this is better than yesterday's baseball pitch clue, which referred to a "slider" as a "curveball" (!?), but like a good fastball, these baseball clues should have a little life on them. Baseball is fun—give us something less literal and workmanlike.
NIETO (64A: Enrique Peña ___, Mexican president beginning in 2012) — I'm having trouble making his name stick. Don't know why. Maybe because he's not as charismatic as Vincente Fox? Maybe because I don't see his name very much (in news or in crosswords)? Dunno.
GINKGO (6D: Tree whose leaves appear in many Chinese fossils) — forever I will misspell this word. Forever. Oh, GINGKO, I just can't quit you.
It's Annabel, back at college and hopefully going to a Labor Day BBQtonight! This one was actually somewhat harder than I'd bargained for, so I'm coming to you a little bit LATH - er, late - DUH. Hopefully your heart did not ACHE from my absence.
Constructor: TRACY GRAY
Relative difficulty: PRETTY HARD FOR A MONDAY TBH
THEME: BBQ — The last word of each theme answer is something you might find at a BBQ.
Theme answers:
WAITS IN THE WINGS (17A: Is ready for one's star turn, say)
MILITARY BRATS (52A: Children of armed forces personnel, slangily)
BACK DOOR SLIDERS (58A: Fast, sharp-breaking curveballs)
BBQ (38A: Cookout, briefly...or a hint to the ends of 17-, 23-, 52- and 58-Across)
Word of the Day: ERIES (34D: Iroquois foes) —
The Erie people (also Erieehronon, Eriechronon, Riquéronon, Erielhonan, Eriez, Nation du Chat) were a Native Americanpeople historically living on the south shore of Lake Erie. An Iroquoian group, they lived in what is now western New York, northwestern Pennsylvania, and northern Ohio before 1658.[1] They were destroyed in the mid-17th century by five years of prolonged warfare with the neighboring Iroquois, especially the Seneca, for helping the Huron in the Beaver Wars for control of the fur trade."[1]
Their villages were burned as a lesson to those who dare oppose the Iroquois, adding to their loss of life and likely forcing emigration. The Iroquoian confederacies were known for adopting others into their tribes, and true to form, the remaining defeated Erie are believed to have been absorbed by other Iroquoian tribes, particularly the Seneca, and possibly their kindred Susquehannocks with whom they shared the hunting grounds of the Allegheny Plateau and the Amerindian paths through the gaps of the Allegheny. Whatever their individual fates, the remnant tribes[2] living among the Iroquois, gradually lost their independent identity.
(Wikipedia)
• • •
Hi! By the time I'm working on next month's Annabel Monday, I'll officially be a junior in college! Which I honestly cannot believe even a little bit. Wasn't I just a freshman, like, two seconds ago? Ahem - puzzle!
I got stuck all over the place on this one. Both bottom corners tripped me up, and I was so convinced that SUET was actually SEED. I also took issue with some of the clues - how am I supposed to know so much about sports like baseball and tennis for 61D, 58A, and others? Also, what the heck is a gimlet? Maybe it's just me, though. I did love the fill itself - LATH and TSLOT were both totally new for me, and I didn't run into any of those overused crossword words.
The theme was OK. Seasonal, I guess. I'm a little annoyed BURGERS didn't make it in there, and neither did POTATO SALAD or PASTA SALAD, because those are the really iconic BBQ foods. I would like to know if anyone has ever actually eaten potato salad at a BBQ. I always take a little to be nice and then eat like maybe a bite of it because honestly potato salad isn't really that good? I don't know why people are always bringing it.
Bullets:
ORGY (69A: Anything goes-party) — First of all, I think Tracy Gray knew exactly what she was doing making this one #69, so props to that. Second of all: seriously?!?! "Anything-goes party"? That's uuuuusually not what "anything goes" means. I dunno.
There probably really was a swan coming for me and it probably looked exactly like this EVIL
DUCKS (5A: Birds that waddle) — We don't have ducks on campus, but we do have geese. And swans. I once was hanging out with a group of friends by the lake on campus, thought I heard a swan noise, and immediately bolted away from all of them because I was worried a swan was going to come attack me. Those birds are ruthless, I tell you.
SKI (10D: Hit the slopes) — I think everyone who's ever skied before has an embarrassing story about it, so here's mine! The first time I was learning to ski, when I was like 5, I swear I didn't fall down once...until I was getting off the slop and some equally-young snowboarder ran over me. I had to be carried off the slopes by, I guess, ski medics? Is that a thing? Anyway, that was the end of my skiing vacation, I just watched winter sports movies for the rest of the trip.
GLEE (21A: Exuberance) — There's only one thing this word makes me think of at this point. Curse you, Ryan Murphy, for doing this to the 2010s!
Relative difficulty: Challenging (based solely on the NE corner)
THEME: "United Kingdom" — actually a puzzle about ANIMAL MAGNETISM (110A: Sex appeal ... or a hint to the answers to the six starred clues), where the circled squares inside each theme answer spell out two animals (I guess they are "magnetically" attracted to each other ?):
Theme answers:
BOAR DINGO / FFICER (23A: *Law enforcer with the Coast Guard)
INT / ERNE TROUT / ER (33A: *It passes on some bits of information)
IMMANU / ELK ANT (48A: *Philosopher who wrote "Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made")
GOODWIL / LAMB ASS / ADORS (66A: *Celebrities working for the U.N., perhaps)
IN / STAG RAM / MER (ugh) (85A: *Certain photo poster)
CORPO / RAT EEL / ITE (not a thing) (99A: *Business bigwigs)
Word of the Day: NINJA LOANS (76A: Low-quality bank offerings whose acronym suggests stealthiness) —
A NINJA loan is a nickname for very low-quality subprime loans. It was a play on NINA, which in turn is based on the notation scheme for the level of documentation the mortgage originator required. It was described as a no income, no job, [and] no assets loan because the only thing an applicant had to show was his/her credit rating, which was presumed to reflect willingness and ability to pay. The term was popularized by Charles R. Morris in his 2008 book The Two Trillion Dollar Meltdown, though the acronym had been publicly used by some subprime mortgage lenders for some years. They were especially prominent during the United States housing bubble circa 2003-2007 but have gained wider notoriety due to the subprime mortgage crisis in July/August 2007 as a prime example of poor lending practices. The term grew in usage during the 2008 financial crisis as the sub prime mortgage crisis was blamed on such loans. It works on two levels – as an acronym; and allusion to the fact that NINJA loans are often defaulted on, with the borrower disappearing like a ninja. // The term was also popularized in the 2010 US film Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps by the character Gordon Gekko played by Michael Douglas.
• • •
No, no thank you. Two animals stuck together ... ish? I'm just not feeling this concept. First because it just feels simplistic, second because the execution of the theme results in some terribly unsatisfying stuff like BOARDING OFFICER (?) and CORPORATE ELITE (which is just not a thing—I nearly threw the puzzle across the room at that point; I *know* I exclaimed "Not a thing!" as I continued solving...). This just wasn't to my taste, at all ever. It also contained many things I'd just never heard of. Like BOARDING OFFICER. Also, NINJA LOANS (me: which ... part of that ... is a bleeping "acronym"!?), though I think that answer is fine, unlike SWAROVSKI, which I think is stem-to-stern garbage. That NE corner was basically a puzzle unto itself, 10x harder than the entire rest of the grid. If you don't know that stupid proper noun (wtf is "crystal jewelry" anyway?) then every single letter is a guess, and thus Every Single Cross is necessary. And then those crosses, ouch. So many of them were just really, really hard. So you up the difficulty *right* at the point that you've plunked stupid SWAROVSKI down!? Yeah, screw this entire corner and the horse it rode in on. Here is where I was when the wheels totally came off:
Clue on INTERNET ROUTER, hard. On ARCHIVE, hard. We've already established that SWAROVSKI is gibberish. I had 22A: Prince of TIDES (not WALES). Clue on STRAW (44A: Little sucker?), hard ("?" clue + how exactly is a STRAW "little"??? Compared to what?). "OK, SURE" coulda been many things (I had "OH, SURE" at one point). Whole thing was just Brutal. And for no payoff. No aha. Just ... ugh. What the hell is the clue on WEED!? (47D: Wacky tobacky, in part) If you'd just said [Wacky tobacky] then OK, SURE, but "in part"!?!?! Then what the actual F is "Wacky tobacky"? Given its name, I seriously doubt the recipe is very, uh, standardized. God I hate that clue. It had me IN A PET (note to constructors: ritually burn this bleeping answer out of your word list). The Penn State logo is the profile of a Nittany Lion (whatever that is). I see them all over the place. So PAW PRINT can **** off. Man, is there anything I enjoyed here? I guess the central themer is pretty sweet (if you're in to LAMB ASS ... he said ROGUISHLY). Else, nay. Sundays are really really hard to pull off. If theme is merely average (or worse), then it's just tediously long. Gotta be special. "Best Puzzle in the World," after all. Should live up to that name. More often, anyway.
[h/t Erik Agard]
A few reminders. First, if you want to get the Lollapuzzoola play-at-home puzzle pack (all the puzzles from last month's tournament, which was fantastic), then you need to do that now. Like, today. Here. Go get 'em. Second, once you have finished those puzzles, please listen to this episode of "The Allusionist" podcast, in which Helen Zaltzman gives you an inside look at the tournament and its attendees, including me (and my wife! and at least half a dozen other people I know and like! Saturday's constructor Erik Agard is in there!). I've read / listened to a lot of crossword journalism, and this is probably the coolest outsider's-view take on crossword culture that I've come across. Worth your 25 min. Also worth your 25 (+ another 15) minutes: my "On the Grid" podcast with Lena Webb, the latest episode of which is now up (004: "MOÉT / ASTI"). We talk about good clues for bad fill (including an extended discussion of ELOPE clues like 106A: Tie up quickly?), and then we drink bubbly and talk about MOËT and ASTI. So there you go, lots of homework for you. Enjoy!
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. I've got lots of people, including at least one Chemistry Ph.D., telling me they've never heard of AMATOL (98D: Big bang creator). I also have never heard of this (outside of crosswords), but I never trust my own judgment on sciencey stuff.
P.P.S. my wife is *furious* at 27A: More decisive (SURER), which may seem weird, until you realize she was stuck in that corner and *refused to consider* SURER because, well ... the word had already turned up in the grid! (53A: "Works for me" => "OK, SURE"). I have to agree, that is a pretty crappy dupe. Little words are no big deal, but otherwise, you shouldn't be duplicating words (or different versions of the same word). It is reasonable for solvers to assume that most words (esp. 4+-letter words) won't be duplicated within a grid. Duping SURE(R) here is bad form.
1: a game played with a ball and bat by two sides of usually 11 players each on a large field centering upon two wickets each defended by a batsman
2: fair and honorable behavior it wasn't cricket for her to break her contract — Gerry Nadel (m-w)
• • •
This felt really tough, but my time came out normal, so ... normal! It's lovely, for a low-word-count grid (64 words). I am not a big fan of low-word-count grids, largely because you end up with more ickiness than a nice 68-to-72-worder will give you. Below 68, and the pressure starts to take its toll. RESAT and LEERAT and SAVETO and LLD are all kind of unpleasant, as are the longer words loaded with common letters, like ADDRESSES and ENROLLEE and ETAGERES. But, again, this is *very good* for a 64-worder. Cleaner than many NYT grids that are far less demanding. I like Erik's puzzles because they are wide-ranging and current, and also because they remind you, vividly, how very white the normal NYT POV is. Black people figure strongly in today's puzzle. You've got LAUREN London and Ava DuVernay's "QUEEN SUGAR" and ... well, I guess virtually all the SOUTH SUDANESE. In fact, you've got a good mix of everyone/thing: PAT BENATAR and THE STONES and REGGAE and PUERTO Rico and the WNBA's SAN ANTONIO Stars and SEMINOLE and RICE BEER etc. It's an impressively inclusive puzzle, in addition to being an impressively slick one.
There was one major cluing problem, though. How is DEICED [Cleared for landing?]? If you are deicing a plane, it is already on the ground. You are "clearing" it (of ice) for *take-off*. Right? I think so. I thought there was another cluing problem at 1D: Fair play (CRICKET), but no, that's apparently just a thing that CRICKET can mean, which I'm just learning now, in the middle of year 48 on this planet and year 47 speaking English. OK then.
There were a lot of tricky / "?" clues, but they didn't irk me the way they often can when they come in bulk. I got stuck in odd places, like putting in POKE AT instead of PECK AT (6D: Eat with no enthusiasm), and then falling right into the AVER / RUG trap at 49A: Profess (AVOW) / 50D: Removable locks (WIG). Not having any clue about that CRICKET definition, the NW was toughest for me, and the last part of the puzzle to fall. Tough clever clues on AIR TAXIS (2D: They might be used in making hops) and EX-COP (25A: Person who came out of the blue?) also added difficulty up in there. Overall, a solid, entertaining workout. Just about exactly what a Saturday oughta be.
Just too much stuff I'd never heard of to be really enjoyable, and this is coming from someone who Nailed 1D: Alistair ___, "The Guns of Navarone" novelist (MACLEAN) (ugh). My proper noun ignorance is really not your or anyone else's problem, and this grid is, in most ways, quite lovely and elegant, especially through the middle. But I've never heard of KORBEL, ever, or of CEBU, ever, so struggling to get them and eventually getting them did not leave an "aha!" feeling, but rather ... there was more of a dull thud sound. And then you try to convince me that TRINI is something other than old-school crosswordese [Singer Lopez]? (3D: Certain Caribbean islander, informally) I don't know. It's a very well-made grid, but Berry's puzzles are starting to feel old to me. Not old bad or old stale, but old ... like, GEORGE WILL old (33A: Newspaper columnist who wrote the book "Men at Work: The Craft of Baseball"). Culturally centered in a bygone era. Not PAX ROMANA bygone, but back there somewhere. So I admire their architectural beauty but increasingly don't really want to live inside them.
[10D: Unlikely winner at the Masters]
There's a METHANOL now? Inferred that one only after getting several crosses (1-Across struggle often means overall struggle). Totally doubted MACLEAN and thought briefly 17A: Clytemnestra's half sister (HELEN) was MEDEA. And I am literally in the middle of a New Yorker article that discusses the Oresteia at length, so botching a clue with Clytemnestra in it really hurts. I also literally said PAX ROMANA out loud today in class (13A: Period ushered in by Augustus), but somehow failed to look at the clue early (when it would've helped me), so despite dropping 1- and 2-Down in quickly, the NW was a mess. And then, because KORBEL meant nothing to me, I couldn't really turn the corner effectively into the center. And then of course I had TOM for JIM (9D: Huck's pal), so that was unfun. I have never heard anyone say MARKER PEN (32A: Soft-headed writer?), so that one just hurts (my ears and eyes and sensibilities). Thank god GEORGE WILL was a gimme, or I might still be doing this puzzle. Had ENSNARL at 41A: Become tangled (SNARL UP), which Really hurt, because it led to GULLS at 37D: Easy marks (DUPES). OPERA BOXES aren't anything I'm familiar with, so they were hard to get to from 49A: What a theater's grand tier is divided into. Had RTE instead of ETA at 50D: GPS guess. I basically stepped in every hole I could, and when you add that to the hot KORBEL-CEBU action, the result is a rather limping and anemic effort on my part.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. speaking of the old feel of this puzzle: AMC is absolutely not not not a 5D: Cable channel for cinephiles. It *used* to be that, but its programming took a significantly different turn FIFTEEN YEARS AGO ... ugh. Cinephiles watch TCM and FilmStruck. I know because ... I just know.
P.P.S. phrasing on the clue at 38A: What the ancient Greeks called the Hyrcanian Ocean is wicked confusing. Makes it sound like "Hyrcanian Ocean" is a current thing that we're supposed to guess the ancient Greek name of, not vice versa. [Ancient Greeks called it "the Hyrcanian Ocean"]. Confusion, eliminated.
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (once you get the gimmick)
THEME: CORNER / OFFICE (31A: With 44-Across, V.I.P. area represented four times in this puzzle) — rebus puzzle where corner squares are all words that can precede "OFFICE":
Offices:
BOX (NW)
POST (NE)
OVAL (SW)
HOME (SE)
Word of the Day: YAKITORI (38D: Japanese style of chicken) —
noun
noun: yakitori
a Japanese dish of chicken pieces grilled on a skewer. (google)
• • •
This puzzle is relatively easy. Also, hey, puzzle, don't get cute with me, or wink at me, or joke with me about how hard or easy the puzzle is. You don't know me. Stay in your lane. Just be a puzzle. If I say you're relatively easy, that's that. Zip it. This theme was not at all tough to uncover. NW came together fast, so the BOX corner went in early, and it was a short trip from there to the revealer, which only needed a couple crosses to become evident—plus it was a two-answer revealer, which really opened the grid right up. So ... different types of offices go in the corners, and I knew this inside the first minute. The puzzle definitely toughened up in places. The OVAL and (especially) the POSTER boxes were much tougher to figure out than the other two. I didn't know what YAKITORI was, so that took every single cross, and thus made that SW corner harder to work out (FDA APPR(OVAL) was a doozy of a themer—probably the best of the bunch). And I had everything *but* the corner at 13D: Archetype and still couldn't get it. Stared at -ER CHILD but the only thing I could imagine was (INN)ER CHILD. Also BRAIN CHILD, but that didn't fit. Cross wasn't much help, as I had TMAN instead of GMAN (9D: F.B.I. agent, informally), and couldn't figure out what the hell a [Conjunction in a rebus puzzle] was supposed to be (kept wanting NOR) (??). Also misspelled AMBIENCE (thusly), but that's par for the course. Anyway, theme easy, overall cluing, a little less so.
Proper nouns of yore were probably over-represented here and *definitely* were not thoughtfully dealt with. Most egregious: non-gun-related, alphabet-souped NRA crossing "Love Boat" actor Gavin insanely-spelled MACLEOD (I had to look at the grid twice to spell it just now). I guarantee you that "A" roughs up tons of people (I know this because it roughed me up and I already know of two confirmed other cases and the puzzle hasn't even been out that long).
[true fact] [9A: Kicker's target]
I mean, come on, if you're gonna drive NRA through a very bygone actor's name, make it a non-bygone NRA. Common courtesy / decent editing. Also, LeRoy NEIMAN hasn't been famous since he did those Burger King / summer Olympics posters when I was a kid (so, yeah, like, 1976). I didn't mind DIANE over ANKARA, though, because I just watched the "Cheers" episode where a guy comes into the bar and pretends to be a spy but DIANE sees right through him because the guy seems to believe that ANKARA is in Bulgaria. So, yeah, DIANE over ANKARA is never going to seem more right than it does at this very moment.
THEME: BLADE — a word ladder that goes from BLUNT to SHARP through BLADE—which helps clue two answers on the W and E edges of the puzzle, respectively: RAZOR (24D: Item with a 39-Across) and KNIFE (36D: Item with a 39-Across)
Theme answers:
BLUNT
BLURT
BLART
BLARE
BLADE
SLADE
SHADE
SHARE
SHARP
Word of the Day: CUTTLE (54A: Sea creature with eight arms) —
noun
noun: cuttle; plural noun: cuttles
a cuttlefish. (google) (seriously, that is the full definition) (because "cuttlefish" is what people actually call them)
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This is what puzzle used to be like, kids. This is what used to pass for a gimmick, this is what used to pass for fill. Very 20th century. I thought AN ERA (ugh) had been put on an ice floe circa Y2K. And that stupid money slang that *nobody* has used since Bugs Bunny, but that still finds its garbage way into garbage puzzles!? DOREMI, clued as [Cabbage or kale]? No. Pass. Hard to express how unpleasant, bordering on painful, it was to solve this thing. By the time I was done, I was stunned to see my time was only in the mid-4s. It felt grueling. I expected to see a time about half again as long. I got complete stuck at least once, and for a few ugly seconds I wasn't sure I was going to get the far east at all. I kept hitting groaner after groaner (both clues and answers). And for what? A word ladder—the stupidest and most hated of crossword gimmicks. Were you happy to see Paul BLART? No, who would be? But you gotta go through BLART (*apparently*) to get the precious word ladder to work. *Only* a veteran constructor could've gotten this thing published. At least I hope so. Kids. Please. Don't do this. (I actually don't think a kid is capable of conceiving a puzzle like this, so much does it belong to AN ERA of yore)
Stopped following the NFL because [so many reasons, too tired to get into] so I totally forgot DEREK Carr existed. This made the east very hard, as I never knew Mayella EWELL existed (and I've read the book), and I don't know what a CUTTLE is. I know very well what a CUTTLEfish is, as I have seen the documentaries and oohed and aahed at the shape-shifting and what not. CUTTLE? No. Further blanking on Latin (!?), and a cutesy clue on the terrible RELET (34D: Filled again, in a way), meant bad bad things for me over there. Still not sure how I extricated myself. I resent clues like 6D: Rep. or Dem., e.g. (ABBR.)—where the clue's like some obnoxious kid going "ha ha, gotcha," when all they've done is hit you with an EGG (i.e. Nothing Clever).
How many different answers did you try for 22A: No longer in bed? I tried at least three, I think: ARISEN, AWOKEN ... OK, two. So the anchor is "no longer" in the sea "bed"—AWEIGH! Great. That, and the insane / Saturdayish clue on STAPLES (27A: The "L" in this store's log hints at the store's name), made the NE hard as well. Oh, and I had EGO (11A: It may be coddled) instead of EGG, of course. The last thing you want a word ladder (again, ugh) to be is unnecessarily fussy and hard. Since there is Zero joy in the theme ITSELF, you gotta be very careful elsewhere. This wasn't. There is more not to love in this (ICERS, FIERI, BARRE, ELA, bleeping ZEB!?!?!) but I'm hungry and still groggy from being [No longer in bed?]. Good day.
Relative difficulty: Medium (maybe slightly harder because of the made-up themers)
THEME: TOO CLEVER BY HALF (54A: Overly inventive ... or a hint to the answers to 17-, 26- and 42-Across) — familiar expressions containing numbers have those numbers increased by 50%, resulting in semi-wacky wrong phrases that, well, make the revealer somewhat descriptive of the entire puzzle:
Theme answers:
THIRTY (instead of 20) QUESTIONS (17A: Classic game needing no equipment)
FIFTEEN-FOOT (instead of 10-ft.) POLE (26A: You might not want to touch something with this)
TWELVE (instead of 8) DAYS A WEEK (42A: 1965 Beatles hit)
Word of the Day: Edward James OLMOS (34A: Edward James ___, star of "Stand and Deliver") —
My wife makes a good point, which is that this puzzle might've been a lot more fun if there'd been a way to wackily clue the actual answers in the grid, instead of just having those answers be flat-out wrong. No wacky clues. Just very, very literal clues (doesn't get much more straightforward than [1965 Beatles hit], snooze). I'm not sure if the puzzle is TOO CLEVER BY HALF or just not clever enough. I kinda like the basic concept—I just wish it could've come across in a more entertaining way. There was nothing fun about writing in THIRTY QUESTIONS and going "well, that's wrong." I like that the grid has those long Downs—woulda been easy to clip them (putting black square at end of CROUP and beginning of HORSY), and the grid might've been easier to fill, but we would've just had more (probably dull) short fill. RIOT POLICE and FALSEHOODS give us at least a little flash outside of the theme (even if it is kinda depressing, as flash fill goes).
Most of the fill here is just OK. Maybe, uh, a little over-reliant on the E-words (-FILE, COLI, -BOOK). I struggled a little with slang that was outside my normal range of usage, i.e. TOOTS and CHIN UP. I also thought the [Drilling grp.] at 1D was OPEC (it's ROTC), and [Event name suffix] was a tough clue for CON, so I was very slow out of the gate. What makes a "feline Facebook posting" an LOLCAT? Also, are LOLCATs still a thing? That answer required many crosses for me to understand. Something about it feels off. Also off-feeling: STABLE as a "Kind of income" (44D: Kind of income a lending officer likes to see). Just because an adjective can be used to describe something doesn't mean that the adjective is a "Kind." If my car is parked, if you asked me what kind of car I owned, I wouldn't say "parked" (however literally accurate that might be). Because that would be too clever by at least 2/3.
