Old Icelandic saga / TUE 6-12-18 / Cat burglar's shoe purchase / Polynesian shindig / Loudly crying face for one / Makeba singer known as Mama Africa

Constructor: Samuel A. Donaldson and Tracy Gray

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (3:20)

THEME: JUST FOR KICKS (48A: Why the buyers of 20-, 28- and 42-Across are in the shoe store?) — ordinary, non-shoe-related two-word phrases are clued as if the second word in each phrase was a shoe

Theme answers:

• SUCTION PUMPS (20A: Cat burglar's shoe purchase?)
• WATER MOCCASINS (28A: Synchronized swimmer's shoe purchase?)
• PARTY PLATFORMS (42A: Even coordinator's shoe purchase?)

Word of the Day: MIRIAM Makeba (25D: ___ Makeba, singer known as "Mama Africa") —

Zenzile Miriam Makeba (4 March 1932 – 9 November 2008), nicknamed Mama Africa, was a South African singer, actress, United Nations goodwill ambassador, and civil-rights activist. Associated with musical genres including Afropop, jazz, and world music, she was an advocate against apartheid and white-minority government in South Africa.

• • •

Dull but satisfactory.  The whole conceit seems forced. Not the shoe part, but the revealer and its clue, and, well, just the whole idea of people going to a shoe store. I get the wordplay in the revealer ("kicks" = slang for shoes), but the JUST FOR part ... I don't get so much. I mean, if the premise is that you are "in the shoe store," then why else would you be there? That is why the store exists. That is what they sell. If you were in Wal-Mart JUST FOR KICKS (i.e. shoes), well, then, the JUST FOR makes sense, as there are so many other things one might purchase there. I'm just saying that these are shoe puns, which are fine, or at least, you know, the kind of thing one might build a theme around, but this particular revealer and the "shoppers in a shoe store" premise just feels forced, is all. As for the rest of the grid, it's glutted with repeaters. The grid is constructed for maximum crosswordese (i.e. hyper-dense with 3/4/5-letter words), and from IROC to URSA to EDDA to ABIE to etc., the puzzle really plays the hits. It's not a grotesque grid. It's clean, but dull clean. A beige countertop, well scrubbed. Longer Downs are more interesting, but longer answers are always more interesting, and these aren't particularly memorable. TBOONE seems really obnoxious, as name parts go. I would say the same about CTHOMAS or MEMMET. I think only J EDGAR can get away with this nonsense. On the whole, then, I don't know ... the puzzle works, but it's joyless. No BOOS, just a shrug.


I was slow to pick up the theme, as I had SUCTION and could think of nothing but CUPS. Even now, looking at SUCTION PUMPS, I keep thinking, "what ... is that? It sounds like a thing, but it also just sounds like ... a pump." Anyway, I'm not questioning its somethingness, just saying that PUMPS took every cross to get. After that, nothing was particularly tough, but then I know "ABIE Baby" because it's crosswordese and IROC because it's crosswordese and EDDA because well actually because I'm a medievalist but also because it's crosswordese. Particularly with something like "ABIE Baby," where it's a proper noun and bygone and crosswordese, I feel guilty for plunking it down immediately. This puzzle skews awfully old, now that I look at it. Who says WHO DAT? (besides ... maybe Saints fans? Bengals fans? I forget, one of those...) (quick check: WHO DAT? is Saints, WHO DEY? is Bengals, for some reason). Not much more to say. This is a placeholder puzzle. For a Tuesday ... well, that's above average. Not good. But above average, for sure.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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