Cause of a Richter scale blip / TUE 9-10-24 / Straightforward and unadorned, as literary prose / Basic plot lines? / Philadelphia landmark named for the 35th president, in brief / If's partner in computer logic / Three Stooges laugh sound / Three-pointer in hoops lingo / Highest kicker in Texas hold'em

Constructor: Daniel Bodily

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: CONSONANTS (51A: Group whose members are represented completely (with no repeats) in 21-, 26- and 43-Across) — circled squares in those three answers represent a complete set of the CONSONANTS in the English language:

Theme answers:

• HEMINGWAYESQUE (21A: Straightforward and unadorned, as literary prose)
• EXECUTIVE BOARD (26A: Corporate management group)
• JFK PLAZA (43A: Philadelphia landmark named for the 35th president, in brief)

Word of the Day: JFK PLAZA (43A) —

 

LOVE Park, officially known as John F. Kennedy Plaza, is a public park located in Center City, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. The park is across from the Philadelphia City Hall and serves as a visual terminus for the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. The park is nicknamed LOVE Park for its reproduction of Robert Indiana's 1970 LOVE sculpture which overlooks the plaza, one of three located in Philadelphia. 

Despite municipal bans and renovations designed to limit the activity, LOVE Park became one of the most famous and recognizable skateboarding spots in the world in the 1990s and 2000s. (wikipedia) 

• • •

And sometimes "Y"! No one ever says that about CONSONANTS, I guess because "HMNGWSQXCTVBRDJFKPLZ and sometimes Y" is a less catchy and much less useful slogan. Still, interesting look today for "Y," which I always mentally group with the vowels (a habit reinforced by my daily Wordle habit, where "Y" is often a later-guess "vowel" (after I've eliminated other, more common vowels)). Here's what I'll say about this theme: it makes for some interesting longer answers. I mean, EXECUTIVE BOARD is never gonna be anything but snoresville, but HEMINGWAYESQUE and JFKPLAZA really liven things up. Those have some pop, some juice. I liked HEMINGWAYESQUE because it reminded me of the funny part in Wordplay where Trip Payne has so much trouble coming up with ZOLAESQUE, and when he finally gets it, he shouts out "Oh, Good God!" (politespeak for "are you ****ing kidding me!?"). I generally disdain the "pangram" as a puzzle-constructing feat ("Hey, look at me, I put all the letters in the grid!" "Did that make the grid better?" "No, but ... look at me!"), but if you're gonna do a pangram, this is the (or a) way to do it: with some kind of core rationale. Inside the theme answers, it's each of the CONSONANTS, exactly once. Add vowels as needed ... and all the vowels are, in fact, needed. Cool cool. 

But here's another thing that I'll say about this theme: that revealer is about as anticlimactic as they come. Like, "Be Sure To Drink Your Ovaltine" anticlimactic. I was expecting ... I don't know what. Wordplay? Punning? Some clever turn of phrase? But no, it's just the most literal description possible of the letters in the circles. Felt like someone explaining a joke to me. I don't know how else you could "reveal" what's going on in this puzzle, but I have to believe there's a better way. I think the worst part is that the clue just ... explains it. There's nothing to "get." Not so fun to get spoonfed the meaning of the theme, esp. in a puzzle that was basically spoonfeeding you Every non-theme answer in the grid—the difficulty level was sub-beginner throughout. I have two little orange scritches on my print-out, indicating the most minor of hesitations: I had "I'M ON" instead of "I'M UP" (29D: "That's my cue!"). I hesitated at ERI-A, unsure of "C" v. "K" (26D: Novelist Jong); I didn't get ACTUAL instantly off the first "A" (in today's puzzle, that counts as a hold-up); and ditto AXING, which was the last thing I put in. Otherwise, I filled this one fast as I could type, with the themers the only resistance (and not much of it).

A third thing I'll say about this puzzle is that it ended up being way better (way way better) than I thought it was going to be when I started out in the NW, which was a disaster. Well, that may be hyperbolic, but not very. I stopped dead in my tracks after just three entries, thinking "dear lord is it gonna be one of *these* days." The crosswordese comes fast and thick and unallayed:

And I took this screenshot *before* I hit RASTA (the very next answer into the grid). A spate of crosswordese up front is a very bad omen for the overall quality of the fill, so I was very happy to see the puzzle pull out of the nosedive. The short stuff keeps coming at you, but its quality at least gets back to acceptable, inoffensive, average, mediocre (which is about all that 3-4-5s can do, for the most part—not induce groans or eyerolls). I'd never heard that young Einstein failed MATH, so I missed that misconception. I always hesitate when spelling NYUK, because the Stooges say it more than spell it (22D: Three Stooges laugh sound). I'm teaching five Hitchcock films this semester (Rear Window the first week, Vertigo this week ...), so PSYCHO has been much on my mind ... but then it often is—I've probably watched it more than any movie besides Dazed & Confused, which I watched roughly weekly during the years 1994 and 1995 (I watch PSYCHO at least once a year, every Halloween, but it's gonna take a lot of Halloweens to catch Dazed). I like "NOT V" today because it seems like something someone might hastily and mistakenly say in reaction to the claim that all the CONSONANTS are represented in the theme answers today: "All of them!? Ha! NOT V! Oh, wait, there it is, nevermind."

Only one "?" clue today (27D: Basic plot lines? = X AXES). That is ... very low. I don't know what the average is, but one is ... light. I'm not exactly begging for more—when those clues miss, they can be painful—but they would've / might've given this grid some much (much much)-needed bite. Clues didn't really seem to be trying today. Kinda flat, overall. But there's a certain cleverness to the theme, which I liked, and the longer non-theme answers (LAST WISH: STAMPEDE DJ BOOTHS ... what a weird last wish!) are more than ADEQUATE (11D: Good enough).

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]