Beach grass that prevents erosion / FRI 7-14-17 / Onetime owner of Skype / Short-legged item of furniture / Playwright who wrote Hell is full of musical amateurs

Constructor: Patrick Berry

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: SEA OATS (13D: Beach grass that prevents erosion) —

Uniola paniculata or sea oats, also known as seaside oats, araña, and arroz de costa, is a tall subtropical grass that is an important component of coastal sand dune and beach plant communities in the southeastern United States, eastern Mexico and some Caribbean islands. Its large seed heads that turn golden brown in late summer give the plant its common name. Its tall leaves trap wind-blown sand and promote sand dune growth, while its deep roots and extensive rhizomes act to stabilize them, so the plant helps protect beaches and property from damage due to high winds, storm surges and tides. It also provides food and habitat for birds, small animals and insects. (wikipedia)

• • •

The one downside of being a constructor as immensely talented as Patrick Berry is that, well, when you lay down a SEA OATS people can *really* see, touch, taste, and feel the SEA OATS. The only place where I struggled even in the slightest was in and around and all over the SEA OATS, so my brain now believes this to be "the SEA OATS puzzle" even though SEA OATS is only one moderately-sized, literally marginal answer. Everything else about this grid is so smooth, so unforced, so well known, generally, that something pulled deep from the bottom of the fauna well really, really stands out. But focusing on that one answer is ridiculously unfair, not just because (as I said) it's all alone in its strangeness, but because despite its strangeness, it's actually a real thing. The clue wasn't bad, the answer wasn't some implausible phrase or super-olde-timey character actor's name. It's just a word I didn't know, which is fine. It will be the answer (I bet) that is the most unfamiliar to solvers. But so what? It Was Crossed Fairly. Rare and fairly crossed is all I ask my "???" fill to be.


Another reason I don't remember the non-SEA OATS part of this puzzle very well is that I finished it in 4:24. And at 5am?! It's dark and raining out, and both wife and daughter are out of town. Perhaps I have discovered my optimal solving conditions: darkness and utter solitude. Sadly, those conditions would probably be highly sub-optimal for my non-solving life, so I'll just enjoy this little solving success while I have it. I guessed SCRAP right away (1D: Throw away), confirmed it with PIPES (22A: Singing ability, informally), and I was off. Had STATE, threw down BANKS, and then "confirmed" it with ... BALKED (27A: Made objections). Oh well, can't expect all your first guesses to be good ones. Luckily SILVER LININGS went down supereasy, and I could sneak into the SW from down under. Swept back up and solved on a SW-to-NE diagonal, going through that center stack faster than I've ever gone through any largish stack in my life. Only resistance was back end of HARBOR MASTERS, and all I needed was a few crosses to pick that up. Lucky to remember DOANS pills (from '80s TV ads, I think). Despite ON FILM before ON TAPE (and the aforementioned oceanside disaster that was SEA OATS), the NE succumbed pretty easily. That left the SE, where the horrible clue on NHL (47A: Montreal is part of it: Abbr.) stalled me a bit, but not much. Once I got SWORE and SHAW in there, the corner fell quickly.


Back to that NHL clue. Yes, the Montreal Canadiens are in the NHL, but you would never, ever, ever have the following clue: [Los Angeles is part of it: Abbr.] for NHL. Or for NBA or MLB, for that matter. It's a major metro area; presumably it's a part of Lots of things. Come on. Anyway, this is a very impressive grid, even if no one answer really stands out. My favorite thing about it was crushing it. I'll take a smooth, clean, largely uneventful Berry puzzle any day (but especially Friday). The only (tiny) flaw, from a structural standpoint, is how much the grid relies on plurals. ALL the long central answers (Across and Down) are plurals, as are several more 8+ answers. Plurals are real words, so there's no real harm done. They're a useful constructing crutch, but it's odd to see So Many of them here. I doubt anyone but me noticed, though. Have a nice day.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]