Extremely damaged, in military lingo / TUE 6-18-24 / Kinda comedic and saucy? / Pungent sushi condiment / Ending with Apple or Obama / Playful term for one's female friends

Constructor: Aaron M. Rosenberg

Relative difficulty: Medium 

THEME: kinda — suffixes or prefixes meaning "kinda" (that's "kind of") are appended to the backs or fronts of familiar phrases that already contain those suffixes or prefixes (in non-suffix or non-prefix form), giving you wacky phrases where those suffixes or prefixes are whimsically, ridiculously, Seussically doubled:

Theme answers:

• BURLESQUE-ESQUE (16A: Kinda comedic and saucy?)
• SEMI-SEMINARY (28A: Kinda religious institution?)
• JELLYFISH-ISH (39A: Kinda squishy and sting-y?)
• QUASI-QUASIMODO (50A: Kinda hunchbacked figure?)

Word of the Day: FUBAR (21A: Extremely damaged, in military lingo) —

FUBAR (Fucked/Fouled Up Beyond All/Any Repair/Recognition/Reason), like SNAFU and SUSFU, dates from World War II. The Oxford English Dictionary lists Yank, the Army Weekly magazine (1944, 7 Jan. p. 8) as its earliest citation: "The FUBAR squadron. ‥ FUBAR? It means 'Fouled Up Beyond All Recognition," referring to unpaid military personnel with erroneous paperwork.

Another version of FUBAR, said to have originated in the military, gives its meaning as "Fucked Up By Assholes in the Rear". This version has at least surface validity in that it is a common belief among enlistees that most problems are created by the military brass (officers, especially those bearing the rank of general, from one to four stars). This version is also most likely to have had its origin in the U.S. Army, where the senior officers command from the rear, as opposed to the Navy or Air Force, where it is common for generals to command alongside their forces. FUBAR had a resurgence in the American lexicon after the term was used in two popular movies: Tango and Cash(1989); and Saving Private Ryan (1998). (wikipedia)

• • •

Good morning, fellow heat-handlers, I hope that you are handling the heat! The next few days are going to be suffocatingly terrible for the northeastern U.S., where I happen to reside, but I understand that things aren't much better in the upper midwest either, so ... yeah, stay hydrated, find some afternoon AC, and best of luck! I might have my first ice cream sandwich *and* my first vanilla malt of the season this week—must find joy in dismal circumstances (seriously, this is my least favorite of all the weathers). Today's puzzle theme falls under the category of "So Stupid That I Like It." It's just silly. That's it. Made-up words, but the kind of words I would absolutely make up because they need making up. Admittedly, they don't need making up very often, but if you've ever seen bad burlesque or a bad drawing of a jellyfish, or known a religious school of dubious accreditation, then these "words" may in fact have come in handy at one time in your life. I had real trouble getting started (with the themers, that is) because, well, you definitely need a bunch of crosses for that first one before you have any idea, so there's that. But if you solved that first themer from the front (as I did), then you got BURLESQUE first and (again, if you are me, specifically), you might've thought "so ... like Milton Burle? ... hey wait, that's not how you spell Milton Berle!" Comedic + saucy + "BURLE" had me thinking UNCLE Miltie, and then wondering what the hell the rest of the letters in the themer could be. Wasn't til I got all the way to BURLESQUEES- that I finally "got" it. Then I expected the next themer to also involve a suffix, but [zany sound effect] nope! Prefix this time. After that, smooth sailing—just enjoyed hunting the remaining suffix/prefixes and seeing what strange sound combinations they'd produce. JELLYFISHISH is by far my favorite—the most fun to say. -ISH has the most entertaining real-life applications, as well. "How do you like the knish? Pretty good, right?" "Well..."

As for the rest of the grid, I thought it was sufficiently bouncy and interestingly varied. It's undersized today, probably because handling 14s in a 15x15 grid is remarkably hard. Grid-spanners don't give you any black square problems, whereas having that one damned black square at the end of your themer creates cascading black square problems that affect where you can put the themer, which then affects where you can put the other themers, etc. A 15x15 grid would force these themers all closer to one another, creating a much more constricted constructing environment. The grid would suffer. Better to shrink the grid to 14, thereby eliminating your black square problem and giving your themers room to breathe. The only place the grid really felt under pressure today was in the NE—things get real ugly in and around that second "Q" because, well, it's a "Q," and "Q"s will do that. BCCS CPU SSE is definitely an OOPS situation, in that it's unpretty, but it's also a tiny part of the grid, and none of the fill in there is horrible, so as fouls go, it's very minor. The rest of the grid looks pretty good. Spicy, even. WASABI crossing FUBAR! Looking up FUBAR was funny for me, mostly because I knew "fuck" was involved somehow, but had forgotten how. It's got the FU like SNAFU, but unlike SNAFU, I couldn't remember what the initialism stood for. "Fucking U-Boat Attacking Rear!"? "Fuck U, Big-Ass Robot!"? So, becoming reacquainted with profanity, that was fun. Also fun: this sentence from FUBAR's wikipedia page: "FUBAR had a resurgence in the American lexicon after the term was used in two popular movies: Tango and Cash (1989); and Saving Private Ryan (1998)." Those are not two movies I would expect to find in the same sentence, or anywhere near each other. My actual first thought was "wow, what is it with Tom Hanks movies and FUBAR?" but that's because I was confusing Tango & Cash with Turner & Hooch. Who can blame me? I'm not convinced they're actually different movies. Both from 1989!? Come on...

Had ObamaCORE before ObamaCARE because of apple (core) and because I want ObamaCORE to be a real fashion trend that really exists in the real world (37A: Ending with Apple or Obama). I'm going to google it now and I better get a lot of pictures of tall dads in fleece vests or tan suits. Hang on ... LOL OK Obamacore is real ("real") but it appears to be a term referring to fashion of the (early) Obama Era, rather than Obama himself. Behold: The Dawn of Obamacore! (cue "Thus Spake Zarathustra")

[from ssense.com, 2022]

I liked the playful clue on GIRLIES, though I would not call my "female friends" that, ever, for maybe obvious reasons (38D: Playful term for one's female friends). The clue probably should've indicated that the gender of the speaker matters, but no biggie. I'm pro-GIRLIES. Traveling to Minneapolis in December to see CYNDI Lauper with my best friend, who is a woman, not a girlie, though I may start calling her that and see how it goes over. If I know her (and I do), it will go over ... interestingly. Anyway, GIRLIES just want to have fun, and that is just what we're gonna do. Hope you had fun with this one, and, again, stay cool, everybody. See you tomorrow.  

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Read more...

1994 film about a portal through the cosmos / TUE 7-11-23 / One attempting to outsmart a bridge troll, in a classic fairy tale / Tiny Bubbles crooner / Central bank branches informally / Sitcom character from the planet Melmac

Constructor: Aaron M. Rosenberg

Relative difficulty: Challenging (**for a Tuesday**)

THEME: searching for magazines in a digital world... — familiar phrases are clued as if they are responses (from an olde-tymey news merchant) to requests for specific dead-tree, non-digital magazines like one used to read in the olden days:

Theme answers:

• STRAPPED FOR TIME (17A: "Got any news magazines?" "Sorry, we're ...")
• OUT OF SHAPE (23A: "Got any fitness magazines?" "Sadly, we're ...")
• LACKING / VARIETY (36A: With 40-Across, "Got any showbiz magazines?" "Regrettably, we're ...")
• MISSING OUT (53A: "Got any L.G.B.T.Q. magazines?" "Unfortunately, we're ...")
• SHORT A FEW PEOPLE (60A: "Got any celebrity magazines?" "Alas, we're ...")

Word of the Day: Steven YEUN (56A: Actor Steven of "Minari") —

Yeun Sang-yeop (Korean: 연상엽; born December 21, 1983), known professionally as Steven Yeun(/jʌn/), is an American actor. Yeun initially rose to prominence for playing Glenn Rhee in the television series The Walking Dead (2010–2016). He earned critical acclaim for starring in the thriller Burning (2018) and drama Minari (2020). The latter earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor, becoming the first Asian American actor to do so. Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2021.

Yeun has also appeared in the films Okja (2017), Sorry to Bother You (2018), The Humans (2021) and Nope (2022), and starred in the dark comedy series Beef (2023). He has also voiced main characters in television series such as Voltron: Legendary Defender (2016–2018), Tales of Arcadia (2016–2021), Stretch Armstrong and the Flex Fighters (2017–2018), Final Space (2018–2021), Tuca & Bertie (2019–2022), and Invincible (2021–present). (wikipedia)

• • •

There's something kind of clever about the concept, but the execution felt awkward in many ways. So, let's leave aside that the very scenario that the puzzle wants you to imagine is preposterous. I mean, news / magazine shops are about as common as video rental stores, and anyway, even in the '90s, when they were thriving, it's hard to imagine anyone wandering in and making any of these requests. "Got any news magazines?" I mean ... yes? Wait, where are you? Are you in a convenience store in rural Pennsylvania? A 7-11 or a Sheetz or something? Maybe these requests and answers make sense in that context, because no one is just asking a news vendor for "news magazines" (?). But anyway, let's just say the scenario here is Totally Plausible. There are still many problems. If you're STRAPPED FOR something, you are not "out" of it. If you are SHORT A FEW of something, you are not "out" of it. These are not phrases that suggest utter depletion. You're low, that's what they mean. But the puzzle is trying to make us think they mean. The other three phrases all do what they're supposed to—indicate the complete non-existence of any copies of their respective magazines. But the first and last of the themers do not do that. The phrasing on SHORT A FEW PEOPLE is obviously terrible. PEOPLE as a plural of the magazine title?? "A few" makes it countable, and while the word "people" is obviously plural, as a mag title it's singular, and so ... No no no. The surface meaning works, but the magazine meaning 100% does not. My brain could somehow handle a sentence like "oh yeah, we've got some PEOPLE in the back" but not "we're SHORT A FEW PEOPLE." The "few" just makes it clunk. Imagine "short a few Time" and maybe you'll hear what I mean. 

LACKING / VARIETY is lacking snap. It's the limpest of the set. The best, by far, are OUT OF SHAPE and MISSING OUT, but this brings me to the theme's final and perhaps most distracting problem—the repetition of OUT. OUT Magazine is a core theme element, so (for elegance's sake) there should be no other OUTs in the grid, let alone in the themer set. So that was unfortunate. But not nearly as unfortunate as it gets later on, with the subsequent piling on of OUTs. As if repeating OUT once wasn't bad enough, you've also got OUTLAW and OUTWIT (the latter of which has its "OUT" crossing the "OUT" in MISSING OUT!?). A total OUT-storm. How many times can you dupe a word before the flaw becomes FATAL?

Something about the theme concept made it play slow for me, for a Tuesday. You've got wacky clues and imagined phrases and you have to find your way to magazine titles ... this is not a complaint, I like the concept, but if you wanna know why the relative difficulty rating is "Challenging" (for a Tuesday), now you know. There were other things too. The ERAS clue inexplicably baffled me (6A: Ballpark figures, for short). I wrote in ETAS and then had no idea how the Soviet symbol could be TED-something (7D: Soviet symbol). RED STAR forced the change to ERAS but I still did not get it. I was reading the word as ... a word. And "ballpark" as metaphorical. But even after imagining a baseball park, I had a moment of "what?" I was thinking of "figures" as people, like UMPS. But it's just the pitching stat, Earned Run Average, pluralized. That is the last way I'd clue ERAS (leaning into the abbr. instead of the ordinary word), which may be why I just didn't see something that, in retrospect, is fairly obvious. Further issues for me included misspelling YEUN as YUEN, writing in JUMP TO before LEAP TO (50D: Arrive at quickly, as conclusions), having no idea at all about "ALL OK" (?) (49A: Completely fine), and expecting the "outburst" at 38D: Outburst that may be entirely symbolic? to be something more than a single WORD (I had the "CUSS" part and then ... shrug). The grid overall is pretty solid and polished, with only ALL OK seeming strange as a standalone answer, and none of the short fill really bothering me at all. I guess the short fill was ... ALL OK. Maybe ALL OK is ALL OK too. The theme execution just didn't quite work for me today, and the OUTs, man, yeesh. It's like Hitchcock's The Birds* up in here, but with "Outs." Total mayhem. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

*not to be confused with Roger McGuinn's THE BYRDS (20A: Pioneering folk-rock group)

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Read more...

Noted Venetian marketplace / WED 4-26-23 / Nickname for Francisco often / Dizzying camera technique invented for 58-Across / Acronym in genetic sequencing / It may punctuate a sarcastic remark / Chicago exchange informally / Vessel for a nursery rhyme / Many-eyed giant of myth / Product in snail-shaped dispenser

Constructor: Aaron M. Rosenberg

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: VERTIGO (58A: 1958 film that is the subject of this puzzle) — shot-specific movie theme—all the movie-related answers are arranged in a kind of square spiral that mimics the staircase in the vertiginous DOLLY ZOOM shot toward the end of VERTIGO (dir. by Alfred HITCHCOCK), when Jimmy STEWART chases Kim NOVAK up the mission bell TOWER:

Word of the Day: DOLLY ZOOM (21A: Dizzying camera technique invented for 58-Across) —

A dolly zoom (also known as a Hitchcock shot, Vertigo shot, Jaws effect, or Zolly shot) is an  in-camera effect that appears to undermine normal visual perception.

The effect is achieved by zooming a zoom lens to adjust the angle of view (often referred to as field of view, or FOV) while the camera dollies (moves) toward or away from the subject in such a way as to keep the subject the same size in the frame throughout. The zoom shifts from a wide-angle view into a more tighter-packed angle. In its classic form, the camera angle is pulled away from a subject while the lens zooms in, or vice versa. The dolly zoom's switch in lenses can help audiences identify the visual difference between wide-angle lenses and telephoto lenses. Thus, during the zoom, there is a continuous perspective distortion, the most directly noticeable feature being that the background appears to change size relative to the subject. Hence, the dolly zoom effect can be broken down into three main components: the moving direction of the camera, the dolly speed, and the camera lens' focal length.

The visual appearance for the viewer is that either the background suddenly grows in size and detail and overwhelms the foreground, or the foreground becomes immense and dominates its previous setting, depending on which way the dolly zoom is executed. As the human visual system uses both size and perspective cues to judge the relative sizes of objects, seeing a perspective change without a size change is a highly unsettling effect, often with strong emotional impact. (wikipedia)

• • •

If you've never seen the movie, well, you should, it's great, but also, this must've been, uh, slightly disorienting for you?  I don't think I've ever seen a theme this specific before, based entirely around a single, fairly short shot in a movie. In fact, when I'd finished the puzzle, I thought the spiral of words was simply a representation of the whirling dizziness brought on by VERTIGO—a kind of square version of the circular swirl on the movie's poster:

But no, it's definitely a representation of the staircase in the DOLLY ZOOM shot itself (which you can see here, around the 1:20 mark):

I teach courses in crime fiction and noir and I have grown to love this movie over the years. At first, I was really repulsed by STEWART's character when he turns stalker / abuser toward the end of the film, so the movie just wasn't *fun* for me to watch, the way Rear Window was fun and North by Northwest was fun and even Psycho was fun. Abusive treatment of NOVAK was too realistically creepy for me to enjoy. I still think it's creepy, but I've grown to appreciate the film's considerable beauty. Plus, its DNA is in sooooo many later films (including, surprisingly, THE CONVERSATION (1974), which I just taught). But back to the puzzle—it's definitely ambitious and original in design. You might lose a lot of people with that spiral (I think some will take it, as I initially did, to be a generalized swirl and not a specific staircase), but it's all there—the clues *do* refer to that specific scene, the actors, the TOWER. It works, and the grid manages to hold symmetry (axial symmetry this time). It's a very narrow topic and the theme answers are entirely trivia, but if the movie is your jam, then it's hard to be mad at this very creative theme.

The fill ... well, with a theme like this, where the themers run all over hell and gone, filling the grid cleanly is a huge chore, so with that higher level of difficulty in mind, I think this one comes out OK. You get two showy 15s and an APOPLEXY in the bargain, which is more flashy long stuff than you have any right to expect in a theme this dense. At first I thought MONKEYING AROUND (60A: Goofing off) was trying to pass itself off as a themer, coming as it does in a final, climactic-seeming position. But then I realized the symmetry was on a tilt and that answer was just a non-thematic counterpart to the other 15, "I DEMAND A RECOUNT" (11D: Cry after being narrowly defeated). I balked at ONAVISA (46D: Way to travel, for many tourists), as I balk at many longer prepositional phrases that don't seem air tight (e.g. INACAR and ONAPLANE feel bad, whereas OVERTHEHILL and INABIND feel good, complete, standalone strong). FIGMENT felt incomplete as clued. "FIGMENT of your imagination" is the full phrase. You would never say "oh, that's just a FIGMENT ..." I see we're still doing POPO, which I wish would go (go). But mostly the fill holds up, does its job, stays out of the way. It's fine.

I had trouble in various places, most notably with PANCHO, which ???? I had no idea had anything to do with "Francisco" (40A: Nickname for Francisco, often). That "PAN-" section thus ended up being slow for me, as I couldn't readily get PUMA (40D: Deer stalker), and I had zero idea about NORMANDY (as clued) (42D: Operation Overlord locale). So many nicer, non-war ways to think about Normandy, but OK. I always confuse ARGOS and ARGUS and did so again today, but had enough good sense to leave that second vowel blank until I got the cross. Botched *both* vowels in HIRAM (47A: Ulysses S. Grant's given name at birth), though now I can't remember how. It's possible I wrote in ABRAM, confusing Grant's given name with Garfield's middle name (the way I'm always confusing Grant and Garfield, tbh ... damned late 19th-century bearded "G" presidents ... I'm looking at your non-consecutive ass too, Grover Cleveland ... though it looks like Cleveland just had the mustache, not the full beard). Mostly, though, the puzzle was the normal Wednesday level of difficulty, and the theme was pretty easy if you know the movie (and maybe even if you don't). 

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Read more...

Letter opening / WED 3-1-23 / Experimental-but-accessible music genre / Bun holder, so to speak

Constructor: Aaron M. Rosenberg

Relative difficulty: Medium?? (7:16)

THEME: Various puns(??) related to kings

Theme answers:

• Hark! And hear of the vengeful ruler who took great pleasure in expelling disloyal subjects, for he was the … PERSONAL BAN KING
• Listen now! And I shall relate the story of the curious sovereign who adorned his castle with images of red fruit, for he was the … CHERRY PIC KING
• Lend me your ear! And I will speak of the clumsy monarch who took twice as many golf strokes as his opponents, for he was the … DOUBLE PAR KING
• Give heed! And listen to my tale of the mad tyrant who decreed that all toilets in his realm be installed the wrong way, for he was the … BACKWARD LOO KING

Word of the Day: OMAR Little, "The Wire" antihero —

He is a notorious Baltimore stick-up man, who frequently robs street-level drug dealers. He is legendary around Baltimore for his characteristic duster, under which he hides his shotgun, large caliber handgun, and bulletproof vest, as well as for his facial scar and his whistling of "A-Hunting We Will Go" when stalking targets. Omar's homosexual character is based on the heterosexual Baltimore area robber and hitman Donnie Andrews.

• • •

Hey besties, it's Malaika here for another Malaika MWednesday! The drink of the night is an Aperol+soda (highball glass, slice of orange) and the song of the night is "Let the Music Play." You can put it on while reading this review for the full Malaika Experience.

I do not like this type of theme so it is hard to critique. It's like when you are watching an episode of "Chopped" and the contestant uses red onions and the judge is Scott and he's like "I hate this because I hate red onions!!" and you're like "Scott!! Please!! Look past your own personal prejudices and try to give a holistic and unbiased evaluation of the dish!!!!!" So that's what I'm going to attempt to embody. I will look past the red onion of "regular phrase turned wacky" and I will give a holistic and unbiased evaluation of the puzzle.

I think the funniest of the phrases was DOUBLE PAR and the least convincing was CHERRY PIC. The "voice" that they gave to the clue struck me as corny and obnoxious but listen... I am twenty-five years old and Extremely Online. Most things strike me as corny and obnoxious. What did y'all think about it? Opinions in the comments please, and be nice!

I definitely liked a lot of the mid-length fill, like LEMON LAW and AVANT POP. And it's always good to see Ted CHIANG who I am fuckin obsessed with. Please, stop what you're doing right now and go read "The Lifecycle of Software Objects." (It's part of his collection, "Exhalation.") I didn't like to see JAIL TIME, which was kinda a bummer, but maybe it was the only thing that fit well in that slot.

Bullets:

• [French destination that's one of UNESCO's "Great Spa Towns of Europe"] for VICHY— I had never heard of this town!
• [Mobile dwelling for modern nomads] for VAN — I know a couple of people living the #DigitalNomad lifestyle, but none of them are in vans
• ANZAC Day is apparently a holiday in Australia and New Zealand similar to Veteran's Day here? This was new to me.

xoxo

Malaika

See you tomorrow!! ;)

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Read more...

Beverage mixed with tapioca pearls / TUE 1-24-23 / Distilled coal product used to preserve wood / Cataclysm in the lore of many world cultures / San Francisco neighborhood with the GLBT Historical Society Museum / Electronic device for a person with voice impairment, maybe / Journalist political analyst Nate

Constructor: Aaron M. Rosenberg and Jeff Chen

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium ("Medium" solely because of Nate COHN, whoever that is)

THEME: BUBBLE TEA (39D: Beverage mixed with tapioca pearls ... or a description of this puzzle's circled pearls?) — different kinds of "teas" appear in "bubbles" (i.e. circled squares) in a handful of long Down themers:

Theme answers:

• SPEECH AID (3D: Electronic device for a person with voice impairment, maybe)
• PASS A MILESTONE (18D: Go through one of life's significant moments)
• "TOO LONG; DIDN'T READ" (7D: Response from someone who merely glanced at an online post, maybe)
• WEATHER BALLOON (9D: What a U.F.O. might turn out to be)

Word of the Day: Nate COHN (22D: Journalist/political analyst) —

Nathan David Cohn (born August 16, 1988) is an American journalist and chief political analyst for "The Upshot" at The New York Times. His reporting focuses on elections, public opinion, and demographics in the United States. (wikipedia)

• • •

Well I got to put my tea knowledge, which heavily overlaps with "crossword knowledge," to good use today. The biggest crossword assist I got was with ASSAM, an extremely crosswordesey tea back in the tea. One of those teas (and tea regions) you just knew, even if you never drank tea. You see CHAI a lot in crosswords too, although at this point CHAI is ubiquitous and requires no special insider crossword knowledge. OOLONG is better known as a tea than as a crossword answer (though I've seen it ... and maybe even used it in a puzzle ...) and HERBAL ... well, that's not a "tea" at all. It's also not nearly specific enough. The others are specific tea varieties, but HERBAL is a giant catch-all category of actually not-tea tea, i.e. tisane, made out of typically non-caffeinated plants. Speaking of TISANE, seems like it would make good crossword fodder, though I don't recall ever seeing it. Anyway, I'm fine with HERBAL being categorically different from the others, but less fine with its being so much more generic than the others. But back to the theme—the revealer makes it good. Working those damn circles right into the core thematic concept: great. Feels fresh, clever, original. 

I have just two complaints about the theme (beyond HERBAL being ... not like the others), and both complaints relate to "TOO LONG, DIDN'T READ." First, it's the only themer where the bubbles don't touch every word element in the answer (which is the elegant way to do it). CHAI touches SPEECH and AID, ASSAM (impressively) touches PASS and A *and* MILESTONE, HERBAL touches WEATHER and BALLOON, but OOLONG touches only words on the front end of "TOO LONG; DIDN'T READ," leaving the entirety of "DIDN'T READ" out to dry (and leaving the bottom half of the grid bubble-free, which is odd, since that's usually where the bubbles are in BUBBLE TEA) (see picture, above). Second, no one but no one writes out "TOO LONG; DIDN'T READ." If someone "merely glanced" at an online post, then there's no way they're typing all that out. Instead, they're going to write the super dickish / now-ye-olde-feeling "tl;dr." The expression *means* "TOO LONG; DIDN'T READ," but the whole point is abbreviation. tl;dr is just tl;dr. I'm pretty sure it's been in crosswords as such. Nobody Writes Out TOO LONG; DIDN'T READ," and the clue should acknowledge that fact (i.e. that it's the full meaning of something that exists exclusively as an abbr. irl) ("in real life," btw) ("by the way"...)

The grid is 16 rows tall in order to accommodate "TOO LONG; DIDN'T READ," so if your time seemed a little slow or the grid looked a little unusual (beyond the "bubbles"), that's why. I doubt your time was very far north of your usual Tuesday, as this puzzle played Very Easy (as so many puzzles seem to do these days).  The first themers were a little tough to parse, maybe, but once I got the "tea" concept, CHAI and ASSAM helped me make quick work of those first two themers, and beyond that, there's nothing tough, except (for me) COHN, which ... I don't know who that is. Tuesday-famous? Or just NYT self-hype. Whatever, the clue made me struggle to remember the one political analyst "NATE" I know, and that NATE ended up being NATE Silver, so ... that answer was marginal (fame-wise) and made me think of things I'd rather not think of. 0 for 2. I had ARYA for ANYA because "GOT," WTF (as in "who the f— cares not me"). But those "GOT" names (so ... many ...) are slowly becoming second nature, and anyway, the crosses are all fair. The rest of the grid is pretty good. IN INK and TAR OIL are ugly, and SODOI (like its equally evil twin SOAMI) is as always unwelcome, but it's hard not to like SLEAZY and GUMSUP and "I'M HERE!" and "OH, SURE..." I gotta run. "Unhappy tabbies" are mewing hungrily (if not yet CLAWing AT my door) and that coffee (not tea) is not gonna make itself. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. ESP isn't real and it's always jarring when the clue doesn't say as much (35D: Mind reader's ability). I wanted the answer to be NIL.

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Read more...

Italian term of endearment / THU 2-17-22 / At the party where the scientist was demonstrating her new shrink ray ... / 1934 novel made into a hit 1970s BBC/PBS miniseries / Setting for the 1962 hit Monster Mash

Constructor: Aaron M. Rosenberg

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: a shrink ray at a party ... (?) — theme clues ask you to imagine a party where a "scientist was demonstrating her new shrink ray" ... theme answers are familiar phrases clued as if they were small foods (or food-related items):

Theme answers:

• 19A: "At the party where the scientist was demonstrating her new shrink ray, [ZAP!] the punch ladle turned into a ..." (LITTLE DIPPER)
• 28A: "When the appetizers were passed around, [ZAP!] the potato wedges turned into ..." (SMALL FRIES)
• 38A: "When the main course was ready, [ZAP!] the six-foot hoagie turned into an ..." (ATOMIC SUBMARINE)
• 45A: "When the dessert was brought out, [ZAP!] the pudding cake turned into a ..." (MERE TRIFLE)
• 53A: "Finally, when the still-hungry guests went back for more, [ZAP!] the additional helpings turned into ..." (MICROSECONDS)

Word of the Day: "I, CLAUDIUS" (15A: 1934 novel made into a hit 1970s BBC/PBS miniseries) —

I, Claudius is a historical novel by English writer Robert Graves, published in 1934. Written in the form of an autobiography of the Roman Emperor Claudius, it tells the history of the Julio-Claudian dynasty and the early years of the Roman Empire, from Julius Caesar's assassination in 44 BC to Caligula's assassination in AD 41. Though the narrative is largely fictionalized, most of the events depicted are drawn from historical accounts of the same time period by the Roman historians Suetonius and Tacitus.

The "autobiography" continues in a sequel, Claudius the God (1935), which covers the period from Claudius' accession to his death in AD 54. The sequel also includes a section written as a biography of Herod Agrippa, a contemporary of Claudius and a King of the Jews. The two books were adapted by the BBC into the award-winning television serial I, Claudius in 1976. (wikipedia)

• • •

This felt really ragged. The very premise was odd, and then each clue and answer felt contextually tortured in their own particular way. There's an implement, three foods, and a word for "more food." Some of the party-related answers are not reimagined much at all (the LITTLE DIPPER is called that precisely because of its resemblance to a "ladle"), while others are changed radically by the cluing ("trifle" being the most obvious of these). ATOMIC SUBMARINE is weird in that you'd call the sandwich a "sub" or maybe a "sub sandwich" or maybe a "submarine sandwich" but just a "submarine?" "Dipper" "fries" "trifle" and "seconds" are all what they say they are—they are all the things you'd imagine at this party. I cannot imagine a "submarine" at this party, in that I would never call the sandwich that. I dunno. The theme answer set is just all over the map. Extremely arbitrary. It made the party-going experience feel really awkward and implausible. Worse, you definitely had to solve the themers in a very specific top-to-bottom order even to understand the context. This is not unheard of, but today I didn't really *get* that you needed to go back and look at themer one in order to find the absurd premise of scientist + shrink ray + party. I hit the clue for ATOMIC SUBMARINE first and sincerely believed I had stumbled into some weird superhero theme. "Why are these foods turning into superheroes?," I wondered. "ZAP!" is such a comic-booky term, and strange transformations were obviously happening, so, yeah, foods that are somehow superheroes—that's what I thought this was. If Atom and the Sub-Mariner are comic book characters with superpowers (and they are), then, well, when you throw in "ZAP!" you can maybe see how my mind went to superhero transformations. "Shazam!" Anyway, I wish the theme had been the Legion of Superfoods. I would've liked that better.

Why is ADES in this puzzle? It's a small matter, but I can't imagine putting ADES in a puzzle when you could put ODES in a puzzle or ALES in a puzzle (68A: Citrus drinks). The only place anyone uses the plural ADES is in crosswords. Nowhere, literally nowhere else. So why is it here? Why do you not scrub obvious crosswordese like this when the fix is easy? The NW is already a little gunked up with repeaters, and LATEEN alongside AMON-RA is a pretty gruesome twosome as well, so why add ADES into the mix when you absolutely do not have to? Sigh, moving on ... The puzzle was *very* easy. Weirdly, the answers that gave me the most trouble were all very short: NILE (58D: Home for many hippos), FLAP (7D: Tizzy), and FLAW (32D: Scratch or nick). Had -ILE and still no clue, had F--P and could think only of FLIP (to have a "Tizzy" is to "flip," right??) and "Scratch" and "nick" read as verbs to me. The one place my flow was interrupted was toward the end when I had SECONDS and no idea what word should come before it (MICROSECONDS is not a term I really know or use). And I opted for ABE before IKE at first down there (54D: Old presidential nickname), but at least I was *very* aware that the answer could be IKE, so I wriggled out of that mess fairly easily. No obvious sticking points today, so if nothing else, you get the joy of a puzzle easily dispatched. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. if you're not mathematically inclined (and I haven't been since high school): LIM just stands for "limit."

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

Read more...