One's Nintendo avatar / THU 12-21-17 / Last name in astronomy / Abbr at bottom of page of text / Prepare for entombment / Kemper who plays Kimmy / Candy Wonder Woman's best friend / First-tier supervisor in USMC

Constructor: Alex Eaton-Salners 

Relative difficulty: EASY

THEME: THEME — WHAT IS THIS SHAPE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE PUZZLE? – Four theme answers spell out different things that might be represented by the Y-shaped black object in the
middle of the grid.

Word of the Day: WHATEVS (13A: “Oh, I don’t care”) —

both the best answer in the puzzle and also my reaction to the puzzle when completed.

• • •

Well isn’t it your lucky day? A second guest blogger in a row! Morgan here; like Andrea yesterday, I’m a first-time guest blogger but long-time puzzle-solver and Rex-reader. I would say I solve the puzzle about 40% slower than Rex and I judge it about 30% less cantankerously. I thought I was covering last week’s Thursday, which I found to be a pretty decent example of the day. I had started writing up a lovely post for that day when Rex and I realized our wires had been crossed, so I volunteered to do today instead. Hoooooo boy, was that a mistake.


I really did not enjoy this puzzle, but neither did it put up any resistance. From plunking down CAMARO (7A: Mustang alternative) to the final answer, INURN (38A: Prepare for entombment, say) took me just over 7.5 joyless minutes, a good 2-3 minutes short of my Thursday average these days. I don’t recall any point at which I paused for more than a handful of seconds because of a tough clue. I’d guess some people probably struggled in moving from section to section because the openings are pretty tight (moving from the north to the southeast was the toughest part for me), but other than that this feels closer to a Wednesday.


My first hint that I would not like this puzzle came with the first theme answer I got, THE LETTTER Y (28D: One more thing they might represent). I had THELE and figured it had to be THE LETTER something, so I put that down and waited until FLYINTO fell (65A: Reach  by air). I stopped and, looking at the shape in the center of the puzzle, actually said aloud (I think—you’d have to ask my husband) “Oh no.” That shape can also represent:

• 14D: SLINGSHOT 
• 15D: GOALPOSTS 
• 26D: TUNINGFORK

That’s it? Four measly, bland theme answers covering 38 squares? Am I missing something? If not, no thank you.

The rest of the puzzle doesn’t have much to commend it, I’m afraid. The big spanner GENERAL HOSPITAL (16A: Winner of 13 Outstanding Drama Series Emmys) is kind of fun, but I wished it were theme-relevant. I had no idea that FIFI was in fact “diminutive of Josephine” (33D) despite sharing the gay world’s unabashed loathing of Phi Phi O’Hara. And I RECKON I always enjoy some colloquialisms (60A: “S’pose so”). But that’s about all I’ve got on the plus side.


The fill here has some definite sore spots, and I’m not sure why given the theme isn’t all that dense.

• ITE
• SERA
• ALPE
• CONT
• CRI
• ERAT

And the absolutely horrendous INURN/GENII stack (to me, that’s where the puzzle probably should have been scrapped)

Finally, there’s two politically tricky entries. First, we get IVANKA (6d: The Trump who wrote “The Trump Card: Playing to Win in Work and Life”). I’d prefer something like “The Trump whose husband is totally going to fix the Middle East and not at all going to be indicted jklol.” And then we have AL FRANKEN (35D: “Senator in 2017 news”), a clue that was undoubtedly different when this puzzle was written (as an education policy professor, I’m assuming it was something like “Senator who grilled Betsy DeVos about the difference between proficiency and growth”).

So, not very enjoyable. But writing this entry was fun regardless, so I look forward to doing it again!

Bullets:

• TSARINA (22D: Winter Palace resident) – a delightful break from the usual
  TSAR/CZAR.
• PETE (27A: St. ____ (site of a spring vacay)) – sorta wish this was referring to St.
  Petersburg, Russia, but probably that’s a little on the bleak side.
• SWANN (44A: Elizabeth _____ “Pirates of the Caribbean” protagonist) – as a USC
  Trojan I obviously would prefer this was clued for our current athletic director /
  former graceful wide receiver Lynn Swann.
• PRAIRIE (62: Badlands National Park feature) – I actually didn’t know this; I
• thought the Badlands were mostly rock formations. But apparently this park contains the largest undisturbed prairie in the U.S.

Signed, Morgan Polikoff for Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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