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Relative difficulty: MEDIUMish
THEME: FRUITLESSLY — 36A: In vain... or how to read the answers to 17-, 25-, 49-, and 58-Across. These answers are all clued as simpler words that make longer words or phrases when a fruit has been added to them.
Word of the Day: UTA (32D: ___ Hagen, Tony-winning acress and theater practitioner). I'm a theatre major; I'm well aware of who Uta Hagen was. But I wanted to highlight her —
Uta Thyra Hagen (12 June 1919 – 14 January 2004) was a German and American actress and theatre practitioner. She originated the role of Martha in the 1962 Broadway premiere of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee, who called her "a profoundly truthful actress." Because Hagen was on the Hollywood blacklist, in part because of her association with Paul Robeson, her film opportunities dwindled and she focused her career on New York theatre.
She later became a highly influential acting teacher at New York's Herbert Berghof Studio and authored best-selling acting texts, Respect for Acting, with Haskel Frankel,[1] and A Challenge for the Actor. Her most substantial contributions to theatre pedagogy were a series of "object exercises" that built on the work of Konstantin Stanislavski and Yevgeny Vakhtangov.
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Hey everyone, it's Eli back again for one last Rexplacement blog before Rex gets back tomorrow. I was excited to see Ben Zimmer's byline today since I knew that set a floor of at least "competent" for the puzzle. To spoil things, this wasn't one of my favorite of Ben's puzzles today, but it wasn't a complete miss, either. Theme answers:
- TOP EARNERS (17A: Mixtures in copier cartridges) (TONERS)
- IMPEACHED (25A: Chatted online, in brief) (IMED)
- ROMAN GODS (49A: Some fishing gear)(RODS)
- PROBLEM ONE (58A: Investigate in detail)(PROBE)
Hey, 34D: R U Talkin' R.E.M. Re:Me?
Theme aside, this puzzle played a little tougher for me. It's possible I was just moving slow so I could think of things to blog about, but I definitely ran into a few hiccups. The NW corner just didn't come together to start things off. "Be up" is a fair but hard to parse clue at 1D for BAT, and BUMP isn't the first thing I think of at 1A (Speeding check). Couple that with the fact that I had ETS for UFO at 2D (What arrives in the film "Arrival") and I had to move along to find a place to start. I then confidently entered SELF CONTROL instead of the correct SELF COMMAND at 24D (It's need to stay calm). So to say I had trouble getting footing is an understatement.
On top of that, there was some definite old-timeyness in the grid. GAMIN (54A: Street urchin) and DROSS (51D: Useless leftovers) feel like words that don't spend much time outside of the pages of the OED these days. And ODEUM (7D: Classical performance space) mostly lives in antiquity. I'm much more familiar with ODEON (which means the same thing but also feels archaic) and ODIUM (unrelated). There's also LEG ARMOR (38D: Par of a jouster's protection), which in addition to being old fashioned feels a little generic. Is there not a specific name for it? Greaves, maybe?
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| Someone who could have used better leg armor |
Stray Thoughts:
- 23D: Director DuVernay (AVA) — I love Ava. One of the many advantages of living in LA is that we get a chance to see things like an anniversary screening of SELMA at the Academy Museum, followed by a talk back with Ava and a large group of cast and crew (including David Oyelowo). An unforgettable experience.
- 63A: Rivian competitor (TESLA) — I don't know much about Rivian, but as long as they're not owned by a Nazi, they are a million times preferable to Tesla.
- 21A: Drink made with an artisinal flourish, maybe (LATTE) — I bought an espresso machine a little over a year ago, and while I'm pretty good at pulling shots and making drinks, latte art has mostly been a failure for me. I was getting frustrated with the fact that I couldn't get it right, when I realized that I've made fewer lattes in the whole time I've been trying than a barista would make in their first week on the job. Good thing the art doesn't add to the flavor.
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| Latte art I definitely didn't make |
- I just realized I couldn't find anything Simpsons related in the grid today. Enjoy this GIF I made as a general purpose way to exit a conversation:
It's getting late, and I've got an early morning. Hope you all have a great Thursday!
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