Modern reimagining of a Robert Frost classic / THU 3-7-24 / Culture setters? / Rapper ___ Gravy / Actor J.B. of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" / Word shortened to its last letter by texters

Constructor: Joe O'Neill

Relative difficulty: well this is going to vary

THEME: a "modern reimagining" of Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" (17A: Modern reimagining of a Robert Frost classic, part 1 [followed by parts 2 through 4])—

Theme answers:

• I KNOW WHOSE WOODS
• THESE ARE. MY HORSE
• IS RESTLESS. I HAVE
• A LOT TO DO. GIDDYUP!

Here's the original poem:

Whose woods these are I think I know.   

His house is in the village though;   

He will not see me stopping here   

To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

My little horse must think it queer   

To stop without a farmhouse near   

Between the woods and frozen lake   

The darkest evening of the year.   

He gives his harness bells a shake   

To ask if there is some mistake.   

The only other sound’s the sweep   

Of easy wind and downy flake.   

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   

But I have promises to keep,   

And miles to go before I sleep,   

And miles to go before I sleep. (poetryfoundation.org) 

Word of the Day: YUNG Gravy (66A: Rapper ___ Gravy) —

 

Matthew Raymond Hauri (born March 19, 1996), known professionally as Yung Gravy, is an American rapper, singer-songwriter and actor from Rochester, Minnesota. He first gained recognition for his 2017 songs "Mr. Clean" and "1 Thot 2 Thot Red Thot Blue Thot", both of which gained traction on SoundCloudand received platinum certifications by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). His 2022 single, "Betty (Get Money)" marked his first entry on the Billboard Hot 100 at number 30 and likewise received platinum certification.

His discography consists of one mixtape, four albums, and seven extended plays. Yung Gravy is often associated with the SoundCloud rap era as well as Canadian rapper bbno$, with whom he has released two collaborative albums. He has collaborated with artists including Lil Baby, Juicy J, T-Pain and Lil Wayne, as well as television personality Martha Stewart. (wikipedia)

• • •

Well, this puzzle *is* exceptional, in that it's easily the worst puzzle I've done this year. Imagine writing a puzzle that a. assumes the vast majority of solvers will know this damn poem well enough to paraphrase the whole thing, b. has such a terrible, off-the-mark sense of what "modern" means (or what paraphrase entails), and c. makes zero reference to "sleep" in a poem where the speaker, famously, repeats the need for sleep at the poem's conclusion. There are four stanzas to the poem, but we get three ... sentences? Or four lines, I guess, if this is supposed to be "modern" poetry, with each line a "line," and rhyme and meter not a factor. Anyway, two whole stanzas about the horse condensed to "MY HORSE / IS RESTLESS." Brilliant. If this is "modern," why are you even on a horse in the first place?! Use the GPS on your ATV, you idiot. This puzzle manages to be an insult both to poetry and to puzzles. Guessing at the phrasing of the "modern" version was torture, in the sense of (occasionally) "hard," but primarily in the sense of "actually physically painful to accomplish because the 'poem' was so completely tin-eared." 

I liked one thing about this ... or at least respected one thing, and that's the final GIDDYUP! It's so stupid, so Not a part of the original poem, so unexpected and goofy, that I have to give it at least a golf clap. The rest of the poem was so punishing that the GIDDYUP! at the end actually managed to alleviate a bit of the pain. But then that GIDDYUP! corner was filled with YUNG (oof, kinda sorta heard the name, but still, yikes) and the dumbest clue ever on PEG, brought to you by (drumroll) the ultrastupid twin-cluing convention that I'm always saying results in at least one of the clues being bad. This is the bad clue. The clue on PEG. [Throw]? Just ... [Throw]? You can peg someone with a ball—throw it at them and hit them with it. (You can peg someone in other ways, but we'll save that discussion for ... maybe never). But just ... [Throw]? I'm sure there's a 4b. or lower dictionary definition that will support this, but when your theme already consists of you just making *&$% up, why not keep your cluing in the realm of normal human discourse? Also, is it POSH or BOSH, who can say!? (64A: "Codswallop!"). Oh, it's TOSH!? Oh ... fan *tas* tic. Total winner. Well, at least that other [Throw] clue actually worked for CAST (which provides the "T" cross on "TOSH!").

Last line of the "modern" poem was definitely the hardest to parse. A LOT TO DOGID- was making me think I had an error. "A lot to dog? A lot to do gid- ... but nothing starts with 'gid'!" Turns out I was wrong there. One thing starts with 'gid." The other trouble spot, for me, was the northern section. Just brutal clues on OCEAN (15A: "___ of wisdom" ("Dalai Lama," in translation)), CEOS (7D: Org. chart figures), RAS (!?!?!?) (8D: ___ Tafari), and MOWS (5D: Makes shorter, in a way). I wanted MACRO (5A: 14-Across subfield) but it kept "not working" (i.e. I couldn't get the crosses to work). I also had the stupid poem as reading, "I KNOW THOSE WOODS!" That didn't help. And please don't tell me "I KNOW THOSE WOODS!" is any worse than anything else in this godawful non-poem. Now I'm mad because in the original poem he only thinks he knows them. If the goal here was to get me to appreciate Robert Frost, mission f***ing accomplished. I'm now desperate for poetry. Real poetry. Anything with more grace and musicality than the "poem" in this puzzle. I'll take whatever you got. A 1984 Right Guard commercial? Sure, why not?

That's better. Faith in verse, restored! See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. In addition to YUNG, I'm guessing SMOOVE is going to throw a lot of people today (30D: Actor J.B. of "Curb Your Enthusiasm"). I know the guy's name and it still took me many crosses to remember it. If you've never heard of him ... that would make the puzzle considerably harder.

P.P.S. [Culture setters?] is so bad as a clue for LABS. It's not even a pun. [Culture setters?]? Is that supposed to sound like "trendsetters"? It doesn't. And as far as the connection to LABS—"setters" is not a plausible stand-in for "settings" (which I think is what you mean? LABS are where you might find "cultures," in the bacterial sense?). Or do LABS "set" cultures? Is that the verb you use when cultivating cells? It's like this puzzle has a vendetta against language.

P.P.P.S. ONE DAY / TRY ONE 😭

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