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Core-building exercise that starts on all fours / MON 5-1-23 / Psychologically manipulated, in a way / Matchmaking site with a Willing to Convert profile option / Aquatic migration sometimes aided by a fabricated ladder / Hybrid fighting sport for short
Monday, May 1, 2023
Constructor: Alina Abidi and Matthew Stock
Relative difficulty: No idea ... as a Downs-only solve: Challenging
Theme answers:
- RAT RACE (13A: Corporate grind)
- SALMON RUN (28A: Aquatic migration sometimes aided by a fabricated ladder)
- FOX TROT (43A: Ballroom dance in 4/4 time)
- CATWALK (45A: Platform at the center of a fashion show)
- BEAR CRAWL (54A: Core-building exercise that starts on all fours)
The bear crawl is almost identical to the standard crawl, but the feet are used instead of the knees, which creates an arched or squatted body posture. This works as a faster crawl but requires more effort to maintain. (wikipedia)
• • •
Do bears really crawl on their toes? Does it even matter? Sorry, really hung up on this dumb "core-building exercise." There are SO MANY core-building exercises, why are you sprint-crawling around like a bear? Where do you even find the room? Sigh. Annnnyway, this theme seems to have an interesting idea on its hands, but the themer set gets looser the bigger it gets. It's actually the RACE part that seems out of place to me. All the others seem like specific paces or gaits, but RACE just seems reduplicative of RUN. It's too general a term. Not gait-y enough. It's true that CRAWL is also more metaphorical, less specifically gait-ish, but it's RACE that feels like the outlier to me. It's cute, the whole animal + "word describing forward movement" conceit ... the answers are colorful, and there sure are a lot of them. Plus, the grid shape is unusual, what with its mirror symmetry and its oddly giant non-thematic SW and SE corners. As a grid, I think it's probably more interesting than most Monday grids. The theme wobbles a bit. Not the tightest. But it's more than tolerable.
From a Downs-only solving perspective, this was tough. The hardest I've done ... maybe this year. I was genuinely concerned I wouldn't be able to finish. The BEER CRAWL thing alone ate up a ton of time. But the whole NW was full of missteps for me. Was not sure about FOLK (wrote it in, pulled it, wrote it in again later). But it's the pig sound that did me in. After OINK, the only place I could think to go was SNORT ... and I "confirmed" that (eventually) with the "T" from STAB, so ... youch. And then the next couple of Downs (the ones that ran through what would eventually become KING ME) were opaque. GASLIT, no way. Not from that clue (20D: Psychologically manipulated, in a way). Not gaslighty enough, by a long shot. And then ... well, actually I had the -MBA part for the dance, but I'd written in SAMBA, not RUMBA (13D: Afro-Cuban ballroom dance). Throw in my iffiness on FOLK, and you have a real mess up there. I also had real trouble with GAFFE (31D: Social blunder). Then I had a stupid stupid typo that left me with DDS where I wanted DRS to be (40D: Jekyll and Pepper, for two: Abbr.), which completely screwed me up for a while (this was in no way the puzzle's doing, just stupid human error). Looking back, it's really the SNORT-for-GRUNT and the BEER CRAWL-for-BEAR CRAWL errors that slowed me down the most. But I got there eventually. Success is success when you're solving Downs-only. Take the win and be happy you didn't wipe out. That's it. See you tomorrow.
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76 comments:
On the tough side for me. The top half was fairly easy, but the bottom half was tough. Spelling CAPRESE took a couple of STABs, SGT isn’t that “lowish” (PFC and CPL are), BEAR CRAWL was a WOE, runway wouldn’t fit, ...tough half.
I thought the theme was pretty tight. Interesting grid, reasonably smooth, liked it. Jeff gave it POW.
Croce Solvers: Croce’s Freestyle #806 was very tough for me. The top third was on the easy side for a Croce but the bottom 2/3 took coming back to throughout most of the day to finish. @Kitshef I think the word you referred to a few days ago was my last fill, and I echo your “kicked my butt” comment from yesterday. Good luck!
The theme answer that bothers me is SALMON RUN. There are no real rats in a rat race, no real foxes in a foxtrot, no real cats on a catwalk, and no real bears doing an exercise called (if you say so) a bear crawl. But a salmon run involves actual salmon.
I just don’t see how this simple puzzle could be called anything but easy-peasy. Took me about ten minutes, and I am by no means a speed-solver. And what’s with all the ranting about “bear crawl?” I googled it and found plenty of clear definitions and about a jillion videos. And they kinda did remind me of how a Bear moves. Not that I’ve ever actually seen one move. I mean, not in the flesh. I thought the puzzle was fun, but how could it be the Puzzle of the Week? Monday is just Day One of the week!
It took me a minute to see the trick here because I was including UNSEALS in the group. Dumb. Once I let go of that, the theme materialized, and I was like, OOH. Cool. FWIW, I didn’t even blink at BEAR CRAWL; I just assumed it was the upside-down version of the crab crawl and kept it moving. I think this is a fine Monday offering.
I kinda agree with Rex on the clue for GASLIT, but I have googled it several times in hopes of really understanding the term, and it always describes it as psychologically manipulating someone. I thought there was a heavy “rewrite the past” component to it. Like, No, it didn’t happen that way at all, the way you think you remember it.
Liked RUMBA sharing the grid with FOXTROT. I took ballroom dance lessons for a while and let me tell you – the RUMBA is way harder than the FOXTROT for a buttoned up non-dancing Capricorn. The RUMBA is slow and sultry, and you have to do dancerish stuff with your arms when they’re not connected to your partner. Like, sexy come-hither stuff. With faster dances like the FOXTROT, it feels like you can disguise your ineptitude more easily in the bouncy happy steps. With a slow dance like the RUMBA, Everything is exposed. Doing a FOXTROT is like wearing an oversize clunky sweater; doing the RUMBA is like wearing a wet TEE shirt.
That CAPRESE/ENDEMIC cross flirts with trouble. I hesitated ever so briefly wondering if it was “Capresi/indemic.”
“Paw” before TOE. And then I laughed at picturing a frog with paws. And then I thought about the difference between a paw that has claws and a foot that has toes. And then a hand that has fingers. I guess to qualify as a paw, the digits have to be really short and fattish? So like my hands, with my plump little sausage fingers on a good day, are in fact paws in the morning after a big salt food day.
I’ve been at many a party with a slip and SLIDE, and I always have the best intentions of fully participating and enjoying the crap out of that thing. But I’m lacking the gene that allows me to go airborne over any surface that’s not water. I run up to the edge and choke. Do a little anemic land-dive flop push and go absolutely nowhere. This has always been one of my greatest regrets.
PS - I didn’t mean to start a thing about my apples! Thanks to anyone who asked, though. My email is lorenmusesmith2 at gmail.
This was probably my slowest Monday solve in months, but WTF. I seriously F-ed up and entered ROMAN instead of LATIN for 9D. Thereafter after completing the grid had to chase down that sad mistake.
Let that let be a lesson to you all: check your crosses!
Funny what people know and don't know. I've been doing bear crawls for 20 years - so that was obvious to me. But rumba vs. samba - that took a bit of doing. I had fun with this one.
Is using a calculator considered cheating? How else are we supposed to compute 27A?
It bothered me (a little) that four of the five animals are metaphorical; there aren't any rats in a rat race or cats on a catwalk, but there are literal salmon in a salmon run.
Triple kealoa at 13D with -UM--. It could have been maMBo, saMBa or RUMBA.
I have actaually done Bear Crawls at the gym at the behest of my personal trainer so this was not a mystery, but even if i discount my personal experience with it the google search results seem clear enough, especially the videos and pictures?
Solved it OK without using the theme. I agree with Rex that the theme isn't consistent.
Noticed the word pattern with the themers and was hoping for a witty reveal to tie it all together - no such luck, but that’s cool since the theme was pretty mellow and laid-back.
Quite a day for O-words with MOO, OOH, ONO, ORO, YAHOO and NOODLE. It would have been nice to throw an OODLE in there as well, but it was not to be.
Theme was animal + deceasing - in-speed gait. I thought that was quite clever for a Monday puzzle.
Yep, a little harder than usual for a Monday for me. I always start my puzzling by doing one or two Mondays out of the archive, - I’m back in 2017, which tend to be a bit harder/slower, and this time was a bit longer than both of my warmups, which almost never happens.
That said, there was nothing that really excited me about the puzzle. That’s okay, it’s a Monday, and we had some really exciting puzzles last week, so maybe the bar’s a bit higher.
And yes I agree that the SALMON RUN answer bugged. BEAR CRAWL is clearly fair game but meant very genuinely, I really enjoy it when Rex rants over the inclusion of a benign answer that he doesn’t happen to be interested in. I can relate!
Also nope, bears do not walk on their toes. They do not at all resemble the ab exercise (but then again, lots of yoga poses only bear a slight resemblance to their namesakes). The black bears I’ve seen at range somehow manage to both lumber and also be incredibly silent and graceful when they want to be, with this ploppily undulating heel-toe progression in their steps and their massive paws. Both squirrels and deer are much louder. No bear sightings yet this season, but I had to brake for a red fox and I’ve seen coyote prints and what *might* have been a juvenile bear print by the swamp in the back woods. Soon, I hope!
@Southside Johnny: Too bad “poodle scoot” isn’t a thing.
Anything this good for a Monday is a big win.
Is no one else bothered by “fair/foul caller” —> UMP? Ump is an abbreviation, but the clue isn’t abbreviated. Thought that was a crossword no-no.
I totally agree with Rex on what Google has become. The internet used to be set up to find information, now it's designed to sell you something. As far as the puzzle, slightly more difficult for a Monday than usual. I've never heard of a BEAR CRAWL. However, I am quite familiar with bear claws, as in the pastry.
The idea that sgt was a “low rank” could only have been made by a boot lieutenant who is clueless about how a Marine Sgt, not to mention Cpl, leads. There is nothing “low” about a Marine Corp NCO, so please , please don’t even suggest it.
I fondly remember the BEAR CRAWL from elementary school gym class, and not fondly at all from high school gym class.
Nice and easy solve, cute theme, liked it!
Probably every SGT has done a BEARCRAWL (or at least made actual lower-enlisted folks do them).
Hey All !
Thanks to @Anony 6:56 in pointing out that the "gaits" decrease as the Themers go through the grid. RACE -- RUN -- TROT -- WALK -- CRAWL. Neat.
Thought this a fine MonPuz. With the mirror symmetry, it makes the puz seem wider than it is. Another puz with high Blockers count -- 42. Again, like YesterPuz, doesn't seem like that many. There are four cheater squares, which is where the extras come from. Plus, the number of them is 42, which we all know is the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
So, we have to add another answer to DITTO, SODOI, ASDOI? SO HAVE I, har. At least it's longer than 5 letters.
Plays checkers over YAHOO? --- EMAIL ME with a KING ME
Olden days illumination? -- GASLIT WINDOW
Nice MonPuz. Gotta RUN.
(@pablo - Almost an EMMA in EMAIL ME. 🙂)
Three F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
Human activities described by animals-on-the-move. A cute idea. Too bad that only salmon do SALMON RUNs --it's the one piece that didn't quite fit. But still: a smooth puzzle that was very pleasant to solve.
Delightful puzzle and finished in 5 minutes flat. Surprised by the bellyaching today....
great theme for a Monday. Had ROsIE before ROXIE. dumb, I have seen the BWay play Chicago 4 times. I have been listening to alot of Springsteen of late so that may account for it. I had a cousin who was a big beer drinker and when he needed one he would say BEER ME!. then he quit drinking beer and he’d say SCOTCH ME!
I think that the samba is Brazilian, not Cuban
DBACK could be any athlete that was a defensive back- what doew Arizona have to do with it? Thought it was Devil short for AZU Sun deviles.
Good Monday theme. No issue with BEARCRAWL. The X and J made it feel a bit Scrabbly. Several single-letter components (JDATE, SOHAVEI, DBACK, EMAILME) and initialisms (LSU, ESPNU, MRI, GMC, ACLU, OTS, DJED) which for some reason I enjoyed.
From "Dr. No":
[In M's office]
BOND: Good evening, sir.
M: It happens to be 3am. When do you sleep, double-oh-seven?
BOND: Never on the firm's time, sir.
This scene came to mind when I saw LMS's post above. She managed to deliver her usual cogent yet meandering banter (of which I am a huge fan) while thinking of a theme-like term that is as good as, if not better than, the themers in the puzzle, and making it into an avatar that leaves no doubt as to what she is saying. All at 3 in the morning. Just brilliant. When do you sleep, LMS?
For what it’s worth, the themers progress from speediest to slowest down the puzzle—race, run, trot, walk and crawl. (Treating racing, being competitive, as a faster version of just running.)
I see that many here said exactly the same thing about SALMON RUN. Proving that there is nothing new under the sun. And that it pays to get up very early in the morning or else live on the West Coast.
Did Rex like the BEARCRAWL themer? Does a SALMON RUN?
I had to cry a Crocodile Tear that this theme, printed by the Grey Lady, didn’t include Gnus Sprint.
Some people, so I’m told, are into S and M. The more cultured masochists prefer SANDART.
Nice Monday, although I decry the trend away from revealers I’ve sensed for a while with this type of theme. Thanks, Alina and Matthew.
All smiles here. Understanding where we were going after RACE and RUN, I was eager to see what other animals would be ambulating. I quickly spotted the FOX and CAT but was brought up short by the last one, which remained hidden for a while behind a misidentified Arizona Devil. It took me a bit to sort that part out. Thanks to those who pointed out the decreasing speed!
Overall, I thought this was a cut-above Monday, a cute theme and plenty of other answers that we don't see everyday - GASLIT, SLOGANS, GROCERS, CAPRESE, IVORY, GAFFE, TOPKNOT, EMAIL ME.
Do-over: Devil before DBACK, uSc before LSU. No idea: BEAR CRAWL.
Literally laughing so hard and honestly cannot comprehend one iota, how someone in their 50s, who has a personal trainer, hits the gym 2-4 times a week and doesn’t know a bear crawl. I mean never even heard
Then upon hearing/seeing it decides to google and even more miraculous than never having heard it, concludes that it’s some obscure, niche newfangled exercise and we get half the blog about how shaky that answers is.
Mind bbloooownn
Beer crawl more ubiquitous than bear crawl, hhhahaha. Again just can’t stop laughing at that whole little diatribe.
@Albert Gilbert: Arizona DiamondBacks are currently #1 in NL West MLB.
For Andrew Gilbert: "DBACK" is short for DIAMONDBACK, the baseball team's nickname.
Solved as a themeless & I didn't find it challenging. Still up in the air about "So have I"
Pure delight and super fast solve. All these ambitious animals should take the lead from my old mutt sleeping next to me and DOGDODIDDLY.
The phrasing of [Cry in a checkers game] shows up in puzzles plenty. Who's doing this "crying"? I tend to smarm-ily suggest or pompously prod, but "cry" feels like something I'd have done in the 19th century on the moors as a lass in lavender-scented ribbons ran from love in a thunderstorm at twilight. She'll end up dead in a darkened city alleyway eaten by rats despite the crying over soul-mated-ness because she couldn't feel her feels and ended up as a seamstress in a factory run by a guy with a mustache. Cry. Bah. Stuff it in yer top hat you foppish blunderbuss.
Uniclues:
1 Country cutie curated carpet cutting.
2 Doesn't think.
3 Clowder of avocado purveyors without appropriate pub weaponry.
4 "Phoenix is as fun as LA."
5 Locale where I store black gook with the intent of making the locale unusable.
1 GIRL YAHOO DJ-ED.
2 AVOIDS NOODLE
3 GROCERS SAN DART
4 GASLIT D-BACK
5 WINDOW SLIDE
OK theme with me, animals get from here to there. My granddaughter and I always go "up the stairs, like a bear", meaning your hands are on the higher step and your feet are on the lower step and you back is arched. Knew this would come in handy some day.
BOO for DEKED. Any mention of hockey whatsoever on this dark day in Bruins history is more than a little unwelcome.
I'm with @Joaquin. I was told there would be no math.
This may have been challenging for you downs-only folks but a standard solve was wicked easy. I think the only new-to-me thing I ran into was JDATE. This may be because my experience with dating sites is nonexistent.
Solid Monday fare, AA and MS. Caused An Actual Monday Smile here, and thanks for all the fun.
First. I was unable to work Sunday puzzle until very late and want to THANK @Lewis and Jeff Chen for the very clever and enjoyable puzzle!
Hah! Cute Monday puzzle. I don’t know. I didn’t particularly see it as “challenging” but maybe I was on the constructors’ wavelength or maybe my noggin had just enough coffee. I guess I can say I both chuckled AND rolled my eyes at @Rex’s mini-rant on BEARCRAWL. While I GUESS it is worthy to point out the outlier of SALMONRUN, I don’t need my every aspect of themers to be consistent, i.e. literal v metaphorical.
@Joaquin…LOL on 27A.
@LMS…I feel (well these days “felt”) the same way about Slip and SLIDEs! I always felt like I wanted a ramp slide to get me DOWN to the Slip n Slide. Kind of akin to me to NEVER slide into base playing baseball or softball after a certain age (like being full grown) Go ahead, tag me out…the kudos from my team isn’t worth it and I’ll take the worst batting position ever to keep you happy!
Arizona Diamondbacks (MLB) ~RP
Thx, Alina & Matthew; nice work! 😊
Med+ (closer to Tues. time).
Dnfed at CAPRESE / ENDEMIC; a careless blunder, having thot 'indigenous' and not knowing the salad (which could just as well have ended in an 'i'), I failed to notice the incorrect iNDEMIC. Easily repaired, tho.
Bit of a side eye for SGT being a 'lowish rank', altho in the 'general' scheme of ranks (with Army Chief of Staff
General 0-10 being at the top) it is relatively 'lowish'. In fact, the E-5 SGT is even a 'lowish' NCO, compared with the E-9 Sergeant Major of the Army. Of 26 distinct army rankings, SGT E-5 comes in at #6 (SANDBOXX)
Over all, an enjoyable excursion. :)
___
@Crocers; looking forward the the dastardly 806! :)
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness & Freudenfreude to all 🙏
Yeah, a revealer would have been fun, but I can't think of any. I didn't notice the decreasing speed thing until I came here.
Just on a whim, I typed "salmon run 10K" into my search engine and discovered this race--or actually set of races--in Bend OR, which I visited last summer. But it's still referring to the actual salmon, so it doesn't solve the problem. The potential themer in Loren's revealer is the right number of letters, but working out the crosses is beyond me.
Yes, saMBA is strictly Brazilian, but maMBo is not, so guess what I put in.
Oh yeah, it was nice to see MAA and MOO in the same grid.
Also zuMBa!
I imagine that creating a crossword easy enough to RUN on a Monday while still making it interesting is even more difficult than creating a Saturday stumper. IMHO the constructors succeeded in doing so quite nicely today. This had a clever theme and the thing that sets it apart is a very solid fill as well. Those stacks at the bottom were fun and I didn’t notice until finishing that the themers lose speed as they drop in the grid. Nice touch there. So thanks Alaina and Matthew. That’s as good as a Monday gets in my book.
Oddly I wanted it to be FADO instead of FOLK, even though I don't think I've ever heard a mandolin in FADO.
Has FADO ever appeared? It seems right for the pickin'
This puzzle was nearly impossible, especially for a Monday. I was solving blindfolded while doing a bear crawl and I couldn’t get a single answer.
The moral of today's blog entry is: lose the "define" in your search. I googled "bear crawl" and up came an entire page of explanations/demonstrations of the exercise. But more importantly, how you did not get the blindingly obvious AERO in your downwind solve?
I do see a difference between "race" and "run". Race implies running as fast as possible. A trot would be running as slow as possible, more or less. I liked the range of musical tempi illustrated:
Race = presto (prestissimo, really)
Run = allegro
Trot = allegretto
Walk = andante
Crawl = lento (lentissimo, really)
To those complaining about SALMON (which I thought was a shade, not an animal), I look at it this way: a rat is capable of running, literally; likewise a fox can trot, a cat can walk, and a bear can crawl. But in terms of a gait, a salmon cannot literally run. So that one does a little flip on which half of the phrase is figurative.
Here's a FOLK quartet singing about their SKYLIGHT, E.G.
Another solve in my head Monday.
Hey, pretty neat critter-flitter theme. And they get slower-movin, as U progress down the puzgrid, as a nice consistency extra. Coulda evena started the whole series with HORSEFLY and ended it with DOGSIT, I reckon -- for completeness, yah know. But still great, as-is.
staff weeject picks: MAA (primo MOO partner, but MOO gets a different award, today) and MMA. mmaa-marvelous sets of weeject stacks all over the place, btw. (More weeject stacks than themers, even!)
fave moo-cow eazy-E MonPuz clue: {Cow's sound} = MOO. Honrable mention to: {This clue's number divided by three} = NINE. [yo and har, @Joaquin].
A coupla no-knows: CAPRESE & JDATE. Not enough to make the MonPuz overly feisty, tho.
other note-worthy stuff included: G-RUNT. KINGM&E. Them gorge-ous bonus 7-stacks, in the SW & SE corners.
Thanx for gangin up on us (like almost everybody is doin, nowadays), Alina darlin & Matthew dude. Enjoyed it.
Masked & Anonymo5Us & gruntzless :-(
*Really* nasty, difficult puzzle, particularly for a Monday. And made difficult in the usual WS manner: with mistakes. Non-words, misdefined words, excruciatingly rare words. Came close to DNF: on *Monday!!*. Not fun at all.
I liked it.
Aside to Rex - Time to find a new trainer.
I meant, a rat can literally race.
@aonymous 6;56 Thanks for pointing out the decreasing speed, had not noticed, more interesting now that I see it.
Joseph Michael (11:01). Another winner. Come on down for a piece of cake.
@Joe D True, A SALMON cannot run, but SALMON is also PLURAL, and SALMON certainly do run.
A very nice Monday. Nit alert! In a way, SALMON RUN is an outlier. A SALMON RUN involves actual SALMON. The other 4 critters are used metaphorically.
Anyone notice that the theme answers went from fastest (race) to slowest (crawl)? I think that was additional part of theme.
I disagree on the level of difficulty, JM! -- I solved it using only every third letter in the clues. (So, e.g., "Rower's implement" becomes WSPMT.) I was still able to finish in 5/8 of a second -- close to my best for a Monday.
RACE strikes me as more of an event, not a gait or pace. For example, horses RUN and sometimes even TROT in a RACE. Dogs RUN in a RACE. Humans even WALK in a RACE as in speed WALKing. And who knows, maybe somewhere they have a RACE where infants CRAWL to the finish line.
Could HOP (61D) and LAM (63D) also be considered a pace or gait?
During the Vietnam War, a U.S. infantry soldier was called a GRUNT (3D). He very well could have been a SGT (59D). So those two could have been cross clued.
Another cross cluing opportunity could be with YAHOO (34A) and EMAIL ME (62A), maybe asking a checkers opponent to KING ME (19A).
May I suggest that everyone read Rex’s post and all of the published comments before posting one’s own? Seems like every day there are comments pointing out some detail that’s already been pointed out.
@Liveprof, congratulations on your impressive time. However, it's not a fair comparison. I do every-third-letter solving now and then and it has never had much impact on my solving time. Try a blindfolded bear crawl next time and perhaps you'll understand the difficulty I experienced.
Excellent points, JM. On the BBC (blindfolded bear crawl), I'm a little concerned about things like wrenching my back, tumbling down stairs, or falling off buildings. But I'll check out some youtube videos on techniques. Thanks!
@Joseph Michael and @Liveprof: 😆 <<Me, snorting helplessly.
Great theme, loved how things slowed down as the puzzle progressed. A super Monday.
I found it slightly easier than the norm, but then I don't solve using the Downs only.
Did anyone else notice that the grid looks like an animal face? Distinctive nose and two eyes. Maybe a lion?
@mathgent 12:45
You can keep your cake. I prefer 3.14159265359...
@Liveprof & @Joseph Michael
You think that's tough? I did the puz while doing a one-arm handstand, without turning the laptop over, at the edge of my pool, while being fed grapes and having a foot massage. Granted,y eyes were open and uncovered, so points off for that.
RooMonster Now I'm Dizzy Guy
I'm hoping that Rex continues to solve not only Downs only but also Down Under and maybe even upside down, since his many (self-imposed) travails inspire such delightful wit amongst the commentariat.
I'm just disappointed the theme answers left out the HIPPO TIPTOE.
3 1/7?
Bear crawl is a totally legit phrase in the exercise world. Not sure why that needed two paragraphs.
Solved across only, where it was very hard. Could have run on a Wednesday. Given that per Rex it was hard downs only, also, I conclude it was hard.
Not knowing BEAR CRAWL was my main issue. That and the 200 possible entries for SO HAVE I, with a lot of the crosses having many options.
When solving didn't even think about a theme to this puzzle. Super easy solve even for a Monday. Nice common expressions for the theme answers. Regarding 8 down ACLU supports most individual rights, but they are ok with contact tracing which in any form is an egregious invasion of privacy.
I thought it was a cool beginner-friendly puzzle. Perfect for a Monday. A snappy reveal would have been nice. It was a little difficult to distinguish the italicized clues (which indicated they were themers) from the rest in my newspaper. But all in all, pretty good.
All clues in my copy were printed in the same font, so the theme just sort of materialized as I was solving. No revealer needed, really.
Interesting grid, with E-W symmetry and nothing super-long: only two NINEs (maybe there shoulda been a third, for 27a's sake) and the rest 7 and under. Still a very lively, well-made puzzle. The degression of speed was extra-impressive. JDATE was a no-know, but DJED is unmistakable. DBACK is in the language, so a pass there. Birdie.
Wordle par featuring no greens till the answer:
YBBYB
BYBBY
BBYYY
GGGGG
LATIN TOURIST
The GIRL on the CATWALK
EYED ME and did A RUMBA SO hot,
"ALONE let's HAVE A talk,
EVEN A DATE, and AVOID A FOXTROT."
--- SGT. ROXIE CAPRESE
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