Yugoslav-American tennis great / THU 1-17-19 / What Alice goes through to find Jabberwocky printed backward / Movie franchise that set record opening weekend gross in 2018

Constructor: Ross Trudeau

Relative difficulty: Easy (4:12—the only thing keeping me from being even faster was the weirdness of trying to spell answers backward)

THEME: THE LOOKING GLASS (7D: What Alice goes through to find "Jabberwocky" printed backward) — when you go through THE LOOKING GLASS (from W to E) you find the *grid* "printed backward").

Word of the Day: Bay of YACSIB (25A: Bay of ___, body separating Spain and France) —

The Bay of Biscay (/ˈbɪskeɪ, -ki/; French: Golfe de Gascogne, Spanish: Golfo de Vizcaya, Occitan: Golf de Gasconha, Breton: Pleg-mor Gwaskogn, Basque: Bizkaiko Golkoa) is a gulf of the northeast Atlantic Ocean located south of the Celtic Sea. It lies along the western coast of France from Point Penmarc'h to the Spanishborder, and the northern coast of Spain west to Cape Ortegal.

The south area of the Bay of Biscay washes over the northern coast of Spain and is known as the Cantabrian Sea.

The average depth is 1,744 metres (5,722 ft) and the greatest depth is 4,735 metres (15,535 ft). (wikipedia)

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I've been handling Alice in Wonderland thank-you postcards all week, so seeing Alice in a puzzle today was a nice bit of coincidence. This theme works because the clue works. Without the clue, this is a puzzle that doesn't know how a mirror works (east would have to be the *west* in reverse, not its own thing in reverse). So this is a good example of how theme cluing can make a puzzle. Please see yesterday's puzzle for how theme cluing can ruin a puzzle. Today's puzzle is whimsical and super duper triple-scooper easy, so it is bound to be a crowd-pleaser (people Lovvvve puzzles they can crush, esp. self-styled "tricky" ones, in my experience—take a note of that, you constructors who are in love with difficulty porn). My main problem with this one was how rudimentary it was. I solved straight out of bed in the morning (slowest mode I have) and I couldn't write in the answers (especially the backward answers) fast enough. Sincerely, there was just a single answer that I had to work for even a little, and that was 1A: Made jokes (JESTED). Wanted KIDDED. Wrote in JOSHED. But my trouble there didn't last long, as ECO DANSE ALPACA MELLON PAIL all fell without my trying. And then the key: wrote in SOLOS ANTIHERO SOS, then WACO, then tried 7A: Slim amphibian, which read "blank W blank blank." Nothing. No idea. Huh. Weird. And *then* I looked at the long Down clue. With LOO- in place, that answer was impossible not to get. I'd've gotten it with nothing in place. Then I looked back at the slim amphibian answer: TW--. And that was that. Wrote in NEWT backward, and then wrote in *literally* every other Across answer on the east side that I looked at, As Soon As I Looked At It. The easiest east half of a grid I've Ever worked on, Despite every answer's being backward.


I loooove crushing puzzles and coming near record times, but today's success felt very much unearned. I tied my Wednesday and beat my Tuesday time. And honestly there's nothing to this grid but backwardsness. As word-redirecting themes go (and I've seen a lot), this is very simple. The element I actually really like is the palindromification of the central Acrosses (the ones that cross the "glass"). These *kind* of violate the spirit of the puzzle (i.e. they're operating on the (apt) principle of reflection when no other answers in the grid are). But whatever. It's a neat way of handling the problem of mirror-straddling words.  The concept may be simple, it definitely works, and has nothing irksome about it. So hurray.


The fill isn't really commentary-worthy. Pretty plain. ESCORTEE is certainly weird (39D: One taken by the arm), as is OXES, which ... has only this context, which is not even a good / common one (65A: Dumb ___ (oafs)). I know "X"s are cool and all, but better to go German city ESSEN and ONES here, I think. Real thing x/w real thing. But this is a tiny thing. This puzzle isn't really about the fill at all (again, except those central Acrosses, which is why I appreciate them).

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld (Twitter @rexparker / #NYTXW)

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