French department that borders Switzerland / THU 7-30-20 / Appropriate ratio for this puzzle

Constructor: Joel Fagliano

Relative difficulty: Easy (?) (very easy for most of you, but not for me; I was so confused by the way the puzzle came across in my software and by having to navigate the grid in an unnatural way that my time came out very normal)

THEME: TWO / TO ONE (51- and 54-Across: Appropriate ratio for this puzzle?) — every across answer comes in two successive parts, so TWO parts TO every ONE answer, I guess

Word of the Day: FALL / LINE (17A & 18A: It's all downhill from here) —

merriam-webster.com

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This is one of those "feats of construction" that you can shoot into the sun, please and thank you. I'm sure it was a challenge to make, but that absolutely does not translate into "pleasure to solve." It's not even that the gimmick is hard to grasp—it's not. It's ultimately very simple. It's straightforward. But imagine ... you know how annoying it is when you encounter one too many cross-reference clues, one too many [With 14-Across, blah blah blah]-type of clue, where you have to look in a different section of the grid for whatever the back end of some answer is? OK, yes, annoying, agreed; now imagine ALL the Acrosses are like that. All of them. ALL of them force you into another section of the grid in order to finish them off. And sometimes, a lot of the time, that means your first part is in the east and your second part is Back In The West. And why? The payoff? Ha ha, joke's on you, there is none. None. It just goes on like that. With no interesting fill, no good answers, hardly any longer answers at all, literally every single damned across entry is made up of 3- 4- or 5-letter bits. Nothing longer. Only (2) answers in the Downs longer than five (5!!!). Absolute drudgery. I guess the easiness is going to make people feel ... successful or good, I don't know. Most people will certainly finish faster than usual, perhaps faster than they've ever finished a Thursday puzzle. But this theme ... I can see how as a constructor you might have the idea and try it out, but once you saw that even if you *could* do it, it would be dreary at best, you'd think ... you wouldn't ... do it. It's not like anyone's going to get to TWO / TO ONE and go "Ohhhh!" or "Aha!" or anything. All in all it's just one more split-answer brick in the wall.


So a brief explanation of why my time was totally average while the rest of you were going very fast. First, I'm tired. Second, I move through puzzles section by section, as a rule. Work the crosses on answers I've already got. When I have to jump sections for every single Across, it's like being forced out of my normal puzzle rhythm at every turn. Just feels yuck. Also, my software was presenting the clues in a weird way. Like this:

I looked at "1a. & 5." and honestly didn't know what it meant. In normal newspaper layout, there's just "1. & 5." under the normal "Across" heading, so the meaning is something closer to transparent. With the "a." part attached to just the first number, I thought, I don't know, maybe math or some other weird thing was involved. It's Thursday, after all, so who knows? The worst part of the solve for me was actually realizing I have no idea what a FALL LINE is. Unless it's a fashion thing. Otherwise, no idea. None. Just none. Tree line, sure. Fall guy, yep. Fault line, definitely. But FALL LINE, wow, made it to 50 without experiencing this one. This is obviously a problem with me, not the puzzle, but it certainly didn't help my mood (which even by then was already pretty foul).


I had OMAN before IRAN (2D: Charter member of OPEC). I don't really know the term LAND / USERS. I laughed out loud at ASPEN / TREE, which is the HAIKU / POEM of this puzzle. I also laughed at MADE / ABID, which feels very "green paint"-y.* At least WAITA / SEC, as a whole, feels like a solid, stand-alone expression. MADE / ABID is just a mini ATEASANDWICH. I think the past tense here is just ... BID. And omg I struggled with the GOOD in GOOD / TONE. GOOD? Just ... GOOD? "Even," "measured," ok, but just GOOD felt vague and confusing. I've heard $100 bills called "C-NOTES" and "Benjamins," for sure, but BENS?? Sigh. That would have people wondering if you weren't talking about a Mercedes. Bizarre. LRON is always awful as fill and AIN is pAINful. With your whole grid made up of 3-to-5 letter bits, those bits could At Least be clean. But no, LRON AIN. That is some 1980s-normal fill right there. And even the two longer answers don't really do much. They're completely acceptable—hell, compared to the rest of the fill, they're two big breaths of fresh air. But your FOLK MUSIC TOILET BAG can't make up for THE slash AISLE (wow) or the rest of it.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

*"green paint" = phrase that, sure, one might say, but that doesn't really hold up as a stand-alone crossword answer

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