Relatives of guppies / SAT 6-9-18 / Plate armor designed to protect thighs / Pianist Jorge / Viking poet / Descendant of Ishmael / Popular author most of whose work is written in anapestic tetrameter

Constructor: Roland Huget

Relative difficulty: Challenging (9:49 ... though I was being bombarded by some kind of large flying insect the whole time, so it's possible the puzzle was actually closer to Medium or Medium-Challenging)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: SKALD (19A: Viking poet) —

noun

historical

1. (in ancient Scandinavia) a composer and reciter of poems honoring heroes and their deeds. (google)

• • •

Here's what I wrote about SKALD the last time I saw it—eight years ago: "Studied medieval literature in grad school and still never heard of a SKALD (3D: Viking poet). My "wacky medieval words for 'poet'" list begins and ends with SCOP (it's Old English / Anglo-Saxon, and if you haven't seen it in the grid, you will)." It's been seen only three times in the Shortz era, and before 2005 it hadn't appeared for *twenty-one year*. I hardly need to add: For A Reason. It's a super-arcane word. And there were just too many of those today for me. There are nice moments, but too much had to be forced to make it all happen. Again, I was trained as a medievalist and somehow never encountered either SKALD or TASSETS (?!) during my entire time in grad school, despite explicitly studying medieval romance, in which knights ride around in all kinds of armor. Played D&D as a kid—no memory of TASSETS (40D: Plate armor designed to protect the thighs). In fact, it's been s i x t y - s e v e n  y e a r s since TASSETS appeared in the NYT crossword puzzle ("only" twenty-seven since it appeared in singular form). Who is Jorge BOLET?? Been sixteen years since he's shown his face. For 5-letter pianists, after ARRAU, I'm out. Worst of all, I thought, was the "RIO RITA" (!????) / PLATIES (??????????????) crossing, which I flat-out guessed, based on having maybe possibly seen "RIO RITA" in a puzzle before. Just a horrible cross. Not terribly inferrable. And then some of the other fill is just kind of wince-y: CITS? SALUTER? AWACS? It's not working for me.


I like the bottom stack. The top one is OK, but AMERICAN CUISINE feels so broad as to be almost meaningless, and *LAST* THE DISTANCE?? It's GO THE DISTANCE or gtfo. You can LAST, or you can GO THE DISTANCE. You may not mix and match. I enjoyed BATPOLE. Plunked down BATCAVE and was oddly happy to be wrong. BATPOLE is just an odder, funnier choice (21D: Feature of Wayne Manor). I don't know how y'all got started on this one, but I did my standard work-the-short-crosses routine and again, despite many missteps, I managed to get enough correct letters that I could make out the correct answers of the long Acrosses. Getting the THE in LAST THE DISTANCE and the -CAN in AMERICAN CUISINE really, really helped. Normally, the fat, isolated central portion on a grid like this is going to be what gives me the most trouble, but I zapped it pretty quickly, with only the "RIO RITA" / PLATIES cross causing me any panic. Below, went CO- to COHABIT to BIOLUMINESCENCE in pretty short order, and finished up with AWACS / TASSETS, which is nonsense to my eyes and ears ... but the crosses were unimpeachable, so Happy Pencil, the end.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]