THEME: EMPTY WORDS — 50A: "Remarks void of meaning ... and a phonetic hint to the answers to the starred clues." Each of the theme answers is a two word phrase with words starting M and T (or "empty").
Word of the Day: HIGGS (17A - Peter ____, physicist with a field and a particle named for him) —
MOVIE THEATER (4D: *Where new features are released?)
MAGIC TOUCH (19A: *Knack for success)
MACHINE TOOLS (21D: *Metal lathes and drill presses)
MISTER TOAD (41A: *Reckless motorist in "The Wind in the Willows")
Hey, everyone, it's an Eli Tuesday! I know, you were expecting Claire. You were looking forward to Claire. I get it. I promise to do my best in substitution. Let's get going.
2D: Showgirl at the Copacabana, in song
It looks like today is a NYT debut for constructor John Liber, so congratulations! It's a clean puzzle, a nice simple theme for a Tuesday. It just wasn't that exciting for me. Two word phrases starting with M and T seems like it could pull some interesting answers, but the only one that stood out to me was MISTER TOAD. Even that would have been better with a reference to his Wild Ride. Where else at Disneyland can you be hit by a train and end your ride in Hell?
Don't get me wrong; I love MOVIE THEATERS and I hope everyone actually goes out to see movies. I'm not sure that clue required a question mark, but I get it. MACHINE TOOLS and MAGIC TOUCH didn't do much for me, especially as clued.
15A: Beatles compilation album with 27 chart-topping hits
The rest of the puzzle unfortunately didn't do much to redeem itself. I grimaced right out of the gate at ALE GLASS (3D: Vessel for a pub pint). I brew beer and I have an extensive collection of beer glasses. I'm not sure I'd call any of them an "ale glass." Can those glasses hold ale? Sure. I also have IPA-specific glasses. I just can't picture what a generic ale glass would be. I also always get bad vibes from MILADY (41D: Chivalrous address to a noblewoman). I feel like there was a specific brand of creepy dude that adopted that phrase and kinda ruined it for me. I also personally wince anytime I see AD IN or AD OUT (38A: Warning before your breaking point?). I know Wimbledon just started, but I admittedly only know these terms from puzzles. At least the clue was clever this time.
Speaking of clever clues, I thought the clue for POWER NAP was cute (35D: Get 40 winks in 20 minutes, say). But everything else felt pretty straightforward. It certainly wasn't a bad puzzle, it just got the job done. Sometimes that's all you can ask on a Tuesday.
49A: Dragon's den
Stray Thoughts:
5D: Nintendo Switch predecessor (WIIU) — This always makes me think of an ambulance siren: WiiU, WiiU, WiiU, WiiU.
58A: Like some martinis and jokes (DIRTY) — I like both!
61A: Workers in a colony (ANTS) — You didn't think you were getting out of an Eli blog without a Simpsons reference, did you?
That's all I've got for now! Enjoy your Tuesday; I'll be back with you later in the week.
Signed, Eli Selzer, False Dauphin of CrossWorld
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Relative difficulty: Easy (7:02 on my phone while waiting for my Popeye's order)
THEME: Repeating letters — Two word phrases where the second word is the same as the final syllable of the first word
Theme answers:
[Screen addiction, e.g.] for DEVICE VICE
The final syllable of the first word is "vice" and the second word is the same: "vice"
[Where boxers trade jabs] for SPARRING RING
[Clever chap] for INTELLIGENT GENT
[Nelson Mandela, Malala Yousafzai, Linus Pauling, Martin Luther King Jr. and so on] for NOBELIST LIST
["Meow, meow, meow!," e.g.] for FELINE LINE
Word of the Day: CBGB (N.Y.C. club that hosted Blondie and the Ramones) —
CBGB was a New York City music club opened in 1973 by Hilly Kristal and his ex-wife Karen Kristal at 315 Bowery in the East Village in Manhattan, New York City. The club was previously a biker bar and before that it was a dive bar. The letters CBGB were for Country, Bluegrass, Blues, Kristal's original vision for the club, but CBGB soon emerged as a famed and iconic venue for punk rock and new wave bands [wiki]
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Hi friends!! Malaika here, and I'm happy to be subbing for Rex on a Monday, a day that I almost never cover. When I am focused and solving on a computer, I can solve most Mondays in about four minutes. I think this would have been the same, but I was solving on my phone while perking my head up every time a Popeye's employee made a movement, in case that indicated that my order (spicy chicken sandwich, small fries, not a combo bc I don't want a drink) was ready, so I ended up at seven minutes.
I like a theme that has a revealer. I think it is the raison d'etre for a puzzle; it grounds and centers it. This puzzle didn't have one but I also acknowledge it didn't really need one. The reason for the theme is laid out for solvers and it is basically that... it's a neat pattern! I agree it's neat, by the way! I don't like puzzles where the entries are wacky, and this walked an interesting line where I could almost almost believe that these phrases might actually be used in a conversation. Maybe as a New York Post headline? (SPARRING RING was the weak link to me because I felt the clue was describing jargon and the entry was not the appropriate term (presumably it's just "boxing ring"?) but if someone in the comments knows better than me, please correct me if I'm wrong!)
It's a nice touch that this theme went with spelling and sounds. E.g. "vice" is the same as the last four letters of "device" and it also sounds the same. (Compare to something like "praline line" which has the same letters but different pronunciation, or "minnows nose" that has the same pronunciation but different letters.) The more constraints there are, the harder it is to come up with entries that work-- this was constrained, but at the same time I bet there are other entires not in this puzzle that would work just fine and I bet people in the comments will brainstorm some of them.
I was very briefly confused while solving because I thought JALAPENOS was going to be a theme answers. It's a little unusual to see such a long entry not part of the theme, but it does follow one of the unspoken rules: it (as well as PET PEEVES) is shorter (at nine letters) than all of the other theme entries (ten, twelve, and fifteen letters). Both are great entries, by the way!
Bullets:
[Long sandwich with cold cuts, maybe] for SUB — One of my favorite questions is: If you had a sandwich named after you, what it would it be? (There's a good Curb Your Enthusiasm episode about this.) Mine would be soppressata, genoa salami, fontina, olive tapenade, and pesto on a hero roll toasted. Then when it comes off the sandwich press, open it up and add some dressed arugula.
[A quarter or more of one's life, typically] for SLEEP — This stat made me stop in my tracks. I love sleeping but wow, a whole quarter!!!??? Kind of feels like a waste!
The CBGB / GMC cross was a total guess from me, and so was the IONE / ROUE cross. Really tough for a Monday!
xoxo Malaika
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A long time ago, I was solving this puzzle and got stuck at an unguessable (to me) crossing: N. C. WYETH crossing NATICK at the "N"—I knew WYETH but forgot his initials, and NATICK ... is a suburb of Boston that I had no hope of knowing. It was clued as someplace the Boston Marathon runs through (???). Anyway, NATICK— the more obscure name in that crossing—became shorthand for an unguessable cross, esp. where the cross involves two proper nouns, neither of which is exceedingly well known. NATICK took hold as crossword slang, and the term can now be both noun ("I had a NATICK in the SW corner...") or verb ("I got NATICKED by 50A / 34D!")
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